Tuchel says England need ‘top performance’ to beat Japan | OneFootball

Thomas Tuchel has said England need to produce a top performance to beat Japan on Tuesday night.

The Three Lions face Japan in a World Cup warm-up fixture tomorrow evening. England will be aiming to improve from last week’s draw with Uruguay, as preparations step up for this summer’s tournament.

Japan enter the fixture in good form, having won each of their last four internationals. That run includes a 3-2 win over Brazil in the autumn and a 1-0 win over Scotland at Hampden Park on Saturday.

Tuchel is expecting a difficult challenge but said England are excited by the match-up.

“I like it a lot, I like the Japanese team. It’s an honour to play them,” Tuchel said at his pre-game press conference.

“We have two very interesting and different opponents, different mentalities and style of play. We were excited about it. The quality and the way Japan plays, one loss in 17 matches, very good run.

“You see the quality, we need to be ourselves and be on our top performance to win the game.”

Tuchel’s options have been reduced due to withdrawals, with John Stones, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and Adam Wharton among those to leave the group.

On those exits, Tuchel said: “Not disappointed with the players, disappointed with the fact. It’s the reality of the season, the reality of the end of March, reality of players involved in more than one competition.

“We have players in camp that have already played more minutes than last season, so there is some concern. The players deserve the mental break from football, and we could see the energy with which they came back to camp in a new environment.”

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