Thomas Tuchel warns England must 'step up' for tough Serbia test | OneFootball

Three Lions boss is expecting a physical and emotional challenge amid a hostile atmosphere in Belgrade

England must be ready for the “physicality” Serbia will pose when the two teams face off in Tuesday’s crunch World Cup qualifier, Thomas Tuchel has warned.

Serbia are the Three Lions’ highest-ranked opponents in qualifying and a hostile atmosphere is expected at the Rajko Mitic Stadium.

England, whose only previous meeting with Serbia was a 1-0 group stage win at Euro 2024, sit top of the group with four wins from four after Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Andorra at Villa Park.

“It will be a good test and we’re looking forward to it,” head coach Tuchel said of facing Serbia.

“We feel that we are ready to step up to the atmosphere, the physicality and it will be an emotional, very important game in the group. We will be prepared for that.

“We just spoke about what we want to build, to have more clarity in our game, what the patterns are and we were working on this throughout the week.

“The next two days [Sunday and Monday] will be about Serbia. We will have to adapt to the adversity and overcome adversity and let’s see what the pitch is like, how the game plays out.

“You never know — you can have red cards, yellow cards, whatever. We need to be ready for everything. We will face the same formation, the defensive block of 5-4-1 with individual quality up front with tall physical strikers. A big test is coming on Tuesday.”

Tuchel explained that he would likely have taken off Harry Kane against Andorra and handed second-half game time to Villa’s Ollie Watkins, had he not needed to use a substitution to replace Marc Guehi.

The Crystal Palace defender “said at half-time [that] he felt his groin,” Tuchel explained, before going on to confirm that captain Kane would start again in Belgrade.