Thomas Tuchel ready to start fine-tuning England squad as focus shifts to winning World Cup | OneFootball

After qualification was secured early, attention turns to some difficult decisions over who makes the plane next summer

Sven-Göran Eriksson once wrote of the role of England manager that it “holds you hostage until it spits you out”.

This is the precipice along which Thomas Tuchel walks.

After fielding questions about absent players and drawing criticism for having a pop at the fans at Wembley, England’s third foreign head coach, just 12 months since accepting the job, will know exactly what Eriksson meant.

The first, far easier, part of Tuchel’s two-stage job is done.

Tuchel’s England secured qualification to the World Cup with a 5-0 win Latvia on Tuesday

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With two games to spare and without conceding a goal, Tuesday’s 5-0 rout in Latvia saw England become the first European nation to qualify for next summer’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Now the small matter of winning it. Tuchel is on an 18-month, £5million-a-year ‘win now’ contract, hired to inherit the good stuff from Gareth Southgate (via caretaker boss Lee Carsley) and guide England over the line.

But even if he manages it, it won’t be without its snags along the way.

While his team keep winning, you sense Tuchel is starting to get used to his every decision being placed under the microscope.

Omitting Jude Bellingham from this month’s squad invited scrutiny. Was he truthfully choosing to stick to last month’s squad, or was this a performative message, Bellingham the fall guy as his manager made clear the functionality of the team as a whole is his only concern? Next month’s ins and outs should clear that up.

Tuchel has been charming in the job, worn a glint in his eye, but is governing a cutthroat regime.

Southgate’s eight years were defined by building a culture conducive to success, delivering tangible progress and some extremely near misses.

Tuchel’s prerogative is not tackling societal issues or bringing on young players but winning England the World Cup, whatever that means for relationships and personnel, whatever state it leaves the national team in for his successor.

Following March and June’s stodgy football, the German detected a “significant shift in our attitude” after September’s 2-0 win over Andorra, despite the lack of goals. Then came lift-off in Belgrade with the 5-0 thrashing of Serbia and continued dominance this month over a Wales team ranked even higher (and Latvia).

England will be among the favourites to win the World Cup next summer

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Tuchel is head coach, not manager. He is managing expectations. England, he said last week, will be “underdogs”, not favourites, next summer, because they have won nothing in 60 years. If he wishes to frame England’s North American voyage as an underdog story, so be it.

But he can be sure the scrutiny if it all blows up will more closely match that of the favourites. Happily, there is no sign yet that it will.

Squad harmony

Tuchel was youth team coordinator at FC Augsburg at the time but has read up on England’s failed ‘Golden Generation’ at the 2006 World Cup and says now: “they obviously couldn’t find a way to buy into a bigger purpose”.

It is this which Tuchel is so determined to instil.

“We are building the best team, not collecting the most talented players,” he told writers last week. Instead, he explained, “we collect the guys who have the glue and cohesion to be the best team”.

A club manager in the international game, Tuchel wants players queuing to be members of his country club. Those in the squad should feel “privileged”, those not, “hungry”.

Whatever the real reason for omitting Bellingham, a ridiculously good footballer, if the Real Madrid star is to return then Tuchel will set about harnessing the 22-year-old’s “fire” for good, not to the team’s detriment.

On the one hand, he says “quality will always find a way”. On the other, there are “no guarantees”.

Bellingham’s close friend and Real team-mate Trent Alexander-Arnold must also fight his way back in, “slightly behind” Reece James in the eyes of Tuchel, the latest England manager to land one of the best passers the Premier League has seen and still have doubts over the Liverpudlian’s defending.

A waste of individual quality to overlook him? Tuchel is concerned only with the team, how it fits together and who fits together, whoever the players are.

As Paris Saint-Germain manager, he was sceptical of the superstardom of Neymar and Kylian Mbappé and struggled to build a cohesive unit until promoting the supporting cast to leading roles.

This was a more reliable route to success. No wonder he so leaned on the tireless N’Golo Kanté and selfless Mason Mount at Chelsea, or that he has found dropping Harry Kane so difficult for England, just as at Bayern Munich.

Good citizens unite once more. Tuchel continues to select the unfashionable Dan Burn and Jordan Henderson (who’ll be 34 and 36 by next summer), and in March immediately re-called Marcus Rashford, whose career resurgence he felt would benefit and who he says has “the potential to be world class”.

World Cup winners of yesteryear have invariably had experienced veterans as well as youngsters.

Tuchel has just two more camps - in November and March - before he names his World Cup squad

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Last summer, it was inevitable Southgate would start all of Bellingham, Phil Foden and an unfit Kane. These were big names, some of England’s best players, but positional clarity was lost by shoehorning Foden in.

Tuchel is guarding against that, intent on forging England into a formidable force rather than a nice thought.

“We are showing very good behaviours, like a club team.” That is what he wants more than anything else. We know that because he keeps saying it.

Communication, charisma

Fiery words were exchanged with recruitment directors and board members over budgets and transfer targets in Tuchel’s time as manager of Borussia Dortmund, PSG, Chelsea and Bayern. Relationships have soured in every job he’s had.

But the 52-year-old’s bruising nature is also his selling point; he is decisive, demanding.

Undoubtedly, he is more charismatic than England’s last foreign manager, Fabio Capello, and more tactically adept than their first.

He is, however, not nearly as statesmanlike as Southgate, albeit that quality is a lesser part of his job given he’s in and out in 18 months.

Use of the word “repulsive” to describe Bellingham’s on-field demeanour was clumsy, and when the German suggested a language barrier had contributed to his misspeak, it stretched credibility.

Tuchel’s decision to leave Jude Bellingham out of this month’s squad was huge

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Tuchel speaks superb English. He’d backtracked and apologised too late, by which time the quote had made headlines, crystalised.

Craving a better atmosphere at Wembley was reasonable, but calling out England’s “silent” fans after they’d paid to watch the Wales friendly in midweek was naïve. His team were 3-0 up inside 20 minutes; no wonder the noise petered out.

“We’ll sing when we want” came the playful chanted retort from England’s 2,500 fans in Riga, Tuchel giving a thumbs-up and later hailing their “good humour”. All’s well that ends well.

Tuchel draws you back in. Here for a good time, not a long time. Informed on arrival at Latvia’s Daugava Stadium that Jordan Henderson had lost in Europe with Ajax there in January, he quipped: “Good that you’ve said it. He will not be in the team now.”

Praise his players though he does, he keeps them guessing, offers no promises. He hopes this can get the best out of those absent this month and that those present don’t rest on their laurels.

Staff at Chelsea felt he was the most talented communicator of any manager of the Roman Abramovich era. He does not lack diplomacy. Rather, he is a more open, less secretive manager than many of England’s prior - for better and for worse.

The football

Easy to forget sometimes that the football, ultimately, will do the talking.

England had greater control of games in their first two camps under Tuchel but the football was flat. Narrow 1-0 winners away to semi-pros Andorra, they were well beaten by Senegal in Nottingham in June.

The marked improvement in September, when they created chances at will, explained why he was so keen on continuity this month in personnel and style.

Pressing more intently and leaning into their physicality, England have won 2-0, 5-0, 3-0 and 5-0 in their past four matches.

Less heralded names such as Morgan Rogers, Anthony Gordon and defensive-midfield revelation Elliot Anderson make them a well-oiled machine, and there could well, as a result, be some contentious big names dropped in the months to come.

Tuchel’s panoply of players must shrink to 26. A nice problem to have; a problem nonetheless.

Will Foden get back in? Will Cole Palmer? It is still baffling he has yet to work with Adam Wharton.

Tuchel has seen Cole Palmer on the field for only 65 minutes of his tenure

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Even if Anderson now looks a shoo-in to partner Declan Rice, Wharton’s Crystal Palace team-mate Yéremy Pino insists the 21-year-old would get into Spain’s midfield. Tuchel must try him in November’s dead-rubbers.

Then and in March, England will keep tinkering, trialling set-piece routines, the odd new player. Their intensity will take a hit in the beating heat of North America next summer, but at least they’ll be there.

Thirty-two years ago this week, England failed to qualify for the World Cup in the USA. This time round, plain sailing.

Tuchel’s England have rhythm and harmony. Now for a touch of fine-tuning.