No regrets? Thomas Tuchel is England’s psychopathic Scooby-Doo villain | OneFootball

Is Thomas Tuchel going to get free of this humiliation next season? He’s now used up all his capital and sacrificed most of his credibility. His position is weak. One more mistake and it’s surely the end.

He faces some real hostility. That Argentina game was objectively the most negative, snivelling, frankly useless last half-hour I’ve ever seen England play and I’ve seen a f***ing lot. Losing is not the problem; how and why is.

Turns out we swapped a sociology lecturer for a Scooby-Doo villain, not an elite coach who can cope with pressure.

The France game on Saturday further thoroughly embarrassed him because it proved his words were all fallacious; it both showed England can play creatively in possession when allowed to by a laissez faire France in the first half but also showed their astonishing lack of effective defensive ability as France woke up and put them to the sword in the second half, missed sitters and could have scored 10 with ease. Once again England crumbled.

They won 6-4 but should have lost by at least four goals. All the positives and negatives were on display, just as they were before Tuchel arrived. Has he influenced anything?

“I have no regrets over my decisions. I felt we became too passive, I felt the momentum switches, I tried to help my team. I trusted my experience, instinct and competitiveness. I take personal responsibility for these decisions. The decisions are made under stress. Is it easier if someone takes the blame, I take the blame. If you need someone to blame, I am the head coach.” In other words, ‘sorry not sorry’.

If that’s your ‘experience, instinct and competitiveness’, they’re not worth sh*t. You’re aware of the substitutions you made and their implications, aren’t you? You tried to help the team? Really? It’s one thing to get overwhelmed by the situation and freeze but you say that you didn’t. No, you just made all the wrong calls. Is that better?

When you’re paid precisely to be bold and creative under stress in the big moments and you can’t, why are you here? You shat the bed. You can’t say you didn’t. The facts prove it. Even the moron President could see you played Harry Kane too defensively. There’s no greater humiliation than to be out-thought by Dementia Don. If you don’t have regrets, you’re a f***ing psychopath. The choices you made were all wrong. All. Wrong. Not just a bit, it seems you can’t admit that. Maybe you’ve been Trump’s America too long and truth has become subjective.

Saying English players don’t keep possession like Spain isn’t the profound insight he might think it is. Cede possession in midfield, be unable to hold onto the ball and invite pressure. That’s been England’s legacy since he had hair. The biggest pub gobsh*te could have told you that, Tom. Did it come as a surprise? This was the job in redux from day one. England are good but just short. Make the difference, that was the job. Win or bust. You bust. Boy, did you bust.

They thumped Croatia by doing the opposite to what they did against Argentina. They used their fitness and physicality married with progressive tactics. See, it’s not impossible.

And that was with your squad where you didn’t select the best ball players who could retain possession. This isn’t a hindsight criticism. You brought it up as though you were helpless in the face of innate English inadequacy but ignored all those players who contradicted your notions, yet had nothing better to rely on.

It’s one thing to lose when you’re just not good enough, another altogether when you are good enough for an hour, then don’t have the courage to follow through.

Even the worst England side would have had more than 12% possession in the last half-hour (eight at some points) the lowest percentage of possession held by any team while winning for at least 10 minutes in a World Cup match over the last 60 years. In a crucial 19-minute spell between his tactical shift and Argentina taking the lead, England attempted only 11 passes in total and completed just four. Of those four completions, two were merely Jordan Pickford trading short passes with John Stones, one was a backward pass in stoppage time, and the fourth was the kick-off after Argentina scored. England did not record a single successful tackle after the 63rd minute and of the 39 passes they attempted after scoring their goal and Argentina’s winner, 12 came from the goalkeeper, while only five took place in Argentina’s half.

These aren’t just a team being outplayed, not a loss at the margins, not a close thing; it’s absolute and total capitulation. Tuchel shows no sign of appreciating the depth of acquiescence he encouraged. An acquiescence worse than any previous effort. We got caned, beaten up, slapped around, treated with contempt.

The metrics don’t lie on this occasion. They quite graphically illustrate the situation. If your excuse is ‘sorry, England aren’t good enough’ that’s actually damning you as well. Whether they are or aren’t we can argue about. but it suggests that he is powerless to do anything about it, which in itself should get you sacked. What’s the point of you if you’re admitting you can’t change anything?

More than this though, I’d be surprised if he’s not alienated at least some of the players. They’ve been shown up on the biggest stage by being told to play in an entirely self-defeating way. Shown up and blamed. Those substitutions made it difficult for them, even if they chose to ignore his words. And that isn’t the only time he fecked up substitutions. He certainly did against Norway and spent a whole half trying to fix the mistakes he’d inflicted.

The pressure to resign, pretty much unanimously called for from all quarters but not the always-out-of-touch FA, won’t ever entirely go away now. It doesn’t help that there are enough xenophobes in England, waiting to say a German would let us down. Those of us who thought you’d be different have been made to look like idiots by your weak-minded actions. Honestly you’d be better off holding your hands up and confessing to a monumental bed-sh*tting. Denying it just makes you look more stupid.

And let’s face it, you’ve changed very little in 18 months. This has been just more Gareth without the tailoring and beard. What have you brought?

Thomas, be in no doubt, you’ve completely f**ked this up the ying-yang, the players know you’ve tried to blame them and taken none of it on your own shoulders, despite your claims to have done so.

Whatever the result in the Nations League and the Euros qualifying games, the stink of that half-hour will follow you around. What’s your money for? It’s a lot of cash to pay someone to be popular on Mumsnet.. Your post-game comments haven’t done you any favours. You just seem blinded and weak-minded.

Since you’ve been in charge, we’ve played really good football on only an occasional basis. Even the win against France felt like an incontinent, control-free capitulation, nearly losing a four-goal lead. You have no capital in the bank.

Above all, we expected so much more from you, but in the end you were a coward who in the face of enemy fire turned, ran away and left your men to die on the battlefield. Unforgivable. You took the best England team of the modern era and when it mattered, made them worse for half an hour than any other England team at a World Cup. You’ll never escape that.