Thomas Tuchel tears apart Gareth Southgate's England | OneFootball

Current England boss Thomas Tuchel delivered a nut-and-bolt dismantling of the nation's performance at Euro 2024 which was overseen by Sir Gareth Southgate.

The Three Lions reached the final of the European Championship for the second consecutive tournament, losing 2-1 to Spain in Berlin last summer. However, performances didn't prove to be as popular as their results may suggest.

England laboured through the group stage, narrowly beating Serbia in the opening game before drawing with Denmark and Slovenia. They needed a stoppage-time overhead kick from Jude Bellingham to avoid a last-16 exit against Slovakia, squeezed past Switzerland on penalties and knocked the Netherlands out of the semi-finals with a 90th-minute winner from Ollie Watkins.

Southgate stepped down at the end of a tournament which saw some England fans throw empty beer cups at him in frustration. Tuchel offered his own verbal barrage ahead of his much-anticipated debut at the helm against Albania on Friday.

When asked by ITV Sport whether England had a clear playing style at the Euros, Tuchel bluntly said: "Not last summer, no." The German coach claimed that "the identity, the clarity, the rhythm, the repetition of patterns, the freedom of players, the expression of players, the hunger" was missing.

Gareth Southgate received plenty of criticism despite his unprecedented success for England / Dan Mullan/GettyImages

"They were more afraid to drop out of the tournament, in my observation, than having the excitement and hunger to win it," he continued. "That people feel 'that is the team to beat' [was missing]. That we arrive with a group to beat, that we know when we arrive after qualifying that everyone knows this is the team to beat.

"We want to be open to adapt and this will start tomorrow. That was my feeling watching on TV, long before I knew I would be in charge. It was a pretty clear statement and I want us to play with a hunger to win and we want to implement the togetherness and joy to win, rather than the fear to lose."

Tuchel addressed the same issues during his pre-match press conference: "Watching the Euros I felt tension and pressure on the shoulders of the players and they were playing not to lose. I want us to play with excitement and the hunger and desire to win...and the acceptance of failure is part of it, especially in football."

The forthright England manager concluded: "I think we need to turn this around because we have so many experienced players, so many players who won the trophies with their clubs, and I think we have every right to be self-confident."