FIFA World Cup 2026: England Tournament Thread [R]

Tuchel will be staying on regardless so we might as well hope he does at least in private take on some lessons from the tournament. I think looking at the tournament as a whole you'd have the following points England need to improve on to really push forward under him, and most of them are fairly obvious lessons.

1) Choose squad depth on technical ability. Tuchel bemoaned England not having the DNA but ultimately left behind too many people who certainly would have had something to give.

2) You need specialist central midfielders, England have a glut of at least good quality midfielders of depth and it was a sin we didn't take any of them. We may not have Spain level depth there but we certainly should never need to see Morgan Rogers playing central midfield again.

3) Centre backs are not full backs. Quansah was absolutely honking all tournament and you can't even blame him. He never plays there for club. They offer nothing on the ball, and do not even give defensive solidarity as centre backs at full back often struggle positionally.

4) Pickford needs replacing. Wonderful servant for England but aside from reflex saves he's a real liability in goal nowadays. Erratic, terrible with the ball at his feet causing panic throughout the side, never catches anything, and ultimately there's about 4 goals he's conceded this tournament he should have done much better on.

5) England needs a settled defence. Pick a back 4, stick to them as much as injury allows and gel them together. It's been a real farce England chopping and changing defence all tournament. Top teams almost always have a set defensive unit. Probably Colwill coming in should be the obvious one, Lew

6) England sitting on leads against top teams has never worked. Always the big one, never learned. Or rather, if you do sit on leads, you need out balls and some workable counter attacking threat.

7) In international football, you need to alter the style to fit the team you have. A lot of our incoherency is precisely because the failures implementing Tuchel's style that the team was never comfortable with and we were adapting that throughout the tournament. It's not good enough to be experimenting come the tournament. International football doesn't allow the coaching time coaches like Tuchel want, and you need to work within those limitations.

 

Ok, so in the interview Tuchel said Saka was fit to play against Argentina, but he felt Rogers, was better. That is the highest level of negligance. Almost criminal. Then he starts Saka today, only to show us what could have been. Shocking. Just Shocking.

 

That match proved we can score more without Kane.

 

With the caveat of the game being what it was, what Watkins did for that Bellingham goal is precisely what we were missing against Argentina.

All we did was punt it up the pitch but the fact Watkins was physically able to make a nuisance of himself meant Upamecano was actually forced to work for the ball.

Situations like that won't always end in a goal but they can end in free kicks won, defenders having to put the ball out for a throw in etc. Simply being a nuisance and physically contesting for every ball makes a difference.

Argentina's defence had life beyond easy and it just increased the speed at which they could progress the ball into dangerous areas, making the pressure feel more relenting.

 

What's shit about 6 without him?

 

It doesn’t prove that, What pressed you with Ivan Toneys performance, who literally played instead of him? And was honking in my opinion.

 

For me Spence is an worthy England player. Someone who should appear on a regular basis. Glad to have him.

 

Had I posted that certain pinheads on here like phillyspur would have been up in arms. He and they would have said a lot of nasty things but I agree with you. He always lets us down on the big occasions. No Kane 6 goals......it speaks for itself ffs.

 

Get a load of this guy!!

(I’m only playing I’ve no opinion either way)

 

Kane has been an unbelievable striker for club and country but no one on here can deny he was dreadful against Argentina and his lack of pace is a real hindrance to England at times regardless of the number of goals he has scored.

Watkins is clearly not as good a striker as Kane but we needed his kind of energy and pace against Argentina on Wednesday and Kane was having an awful game, should have been hooked, just like we needed Rashford's directness and Saka's quality. The fact Tuchel didn't use any of them except Rashford in the 96th minute shows what a total cock up he made of our semi final.

If he'd used them and not gone all defensive against Argentina thinking he could defend a lead with 40 minutes to go then we might well be playing in a final tonight.

 

Without wanting to… add to the trolling or opinions going on…

I do want to see England start to look at ways at playing without Kane, and what that looks like. Kane might very well not make the next World Cup, we need to be prepared.

 

Time to bring that energy in 2028 and finally win the Euros at least!

 

Back to the rankings now:

We’re on 1922.48 or something like that.
The gap to 5th and 6th is massive. Brazil in 5th are on 1804pts, that’s huge.

The top 4 are well clear of the rest and are fairly close around each other rankings wise too.

 

Harry Kane is an England legend. He beat DR Congo on his own. Without him we would not even be in the unimportant game against France, where we scored 6 goals without him. You can say Bellingham is most important, you can can say Kane is most important. Both valid. But you can not say both are not needed, they are. One is not enough. We need both.

 

Theres a nuanced debate to have here, but there’s no chance it’s going to happen.

 

Nuance has no place in football

 

What bothered me about Tuchel for the entire tournament was his constant lamenting about the squad depth and how he couldn’t have foreseen the issues arising when injuries occurred - when he picked the squad. He could have taken more central midfielders. He could have taken another natural right back, another natural left back. But he didn’t. He chose to take twelve CBs and hope that if Reece Made of Glass James got hurt then one of our many CBs could just play there.

Especially with the defense he needed to pick a starting four, all in their natural positions and then pick four backups who also played those natural positions.

I’m going to be angry about Wednesday for a long time. A picture of Tuchel should be found next to the phrase, “well well well if it’s not the consequences of my own actions.”

 

Agree with all of this. I think we can be hopeful of a few of these lessons being learned - I'd be confident about points 4 and 5 I think.

If he could only learn one lesson I'd be very happy if it were number 1. He doesn't even have to go all the way to the other end of the spectrum, just be a little bit more compromising. I'd argue a number of the other issues are downstream from not prioritising technical ability enough.

We also really need to see him coach a more coherent press. An effective press is the minimum expectation of a coach tactically imo and a huge number of our defensive issues and physical issues were the result of having a really poor one.

 

I am quite amused at the assertation that Kane was holding Spurs back...from two 17th place finishes??

 

Nuanced debate? About what? Kane? You can be more specific, we can take it
.

 

I hope we find some more good central defenders start to come through this year.

 

When Livramento got injured, he could have brought in Lewis Skelly like I suggested at the time and covered full back and midfield, but he brought in Chalobah as a 6th Centre half he only has him self to blame.

 

Yes, Kane I’m referring to the one person that keep bring up, It’s not as black and white as they seem to think, but there’s not point beating a dead horse.

 

For me its the lack of playing players. If Mainoo was never going to play I'd rather have had even someone like Gallagher who'd have least had energy.