is your continuity manager.
Things didn’t look any different when Thomas Tuchel announced his first England squad, they didn’t look any different when he picked his first starting XI, they didn’t look any different when they struggled past Albania 2-0.
As soon as Is aw the names Walker and Henderson in Tuchel’s first squad, any hopes of a new begging were extinguished. Hell, even Southgate had binned the latter and Carsley the former. The fact that he’d left Gibbs-White out of his original squad also rang alarm bells.
Forest are riding high and a large part of that is Gibbs-White has the most league assists of any English player currently available. But Tuchel, like his predecessors doesn’t seem to want creativity in his midfield. As Gibbs-White was only called up because of Palmer’s absence and was quickly dropped for this opening game of Tuchel’s tenure.
So Tuchel was going into a game against a flat back ten without any real creativity. But there was going to be go forward, intent, excitement, no fear, apparently. Yeah, that didn’t last long as the usual routine of left-back to centre-back to deep midfielder to centre-back to centre-back to left-back, to me, to you passing in the England half occupied the opening part of the game.
The opening goal came 10 minutes in when Bellingham finally played a ball for someone and the new left back finally did something that involved going forward. It was the first thing he did going forward. Made the run and put the ball through the keeper. And all of a sudden we have the greatest thing since… sliced veg – © Jack Grealish. Yup, it helps having all those former Woolwich players doing the commentary or in the studio, to over hype a player. That first red was still a red card. If you just stamp on someone for stamping sake, it’s a red and that’s what he did. For all those same pundits that go on about intent, well the intent was just to stop a player. No intent to go for the ball, just the man.
What followed was the same old same old. Everything at a snail’s pace. The wide players just looking for glory. Rashford did more but considering how little Foden did, that’s not saying much. Foden. What has he ever done in an England shirt? Here, he just cut inside and ran across the face of the Albanian area looking for a shooting opportunity. Looking for personal glory never thinking about playing anyone in. Never thinking about being a team player.
Of course as Foden comes inside you don’t have Walker overlapping. No, that would make just too much sense. So no crosses. Well, would there be any even if Walker did go forward? Probably not, there’d just be more backward passes. Much like his throws. Did one go forward?
So you had knocking for an hour after the opener of England doing nothing, to go with the 20 minutes of doing nothing before the goal. Players in white meandering about.
In typical Continuity Southgate mode, Tuchel saw it not working and just kept it as it was at the break. It took him another 20 minutes of his starting XI doing nothing before he did something. And in a change from Southgate he got the changes right. The two that needed replaced the most, Rashford and Foden made way for Gordon and Bowen. Well, immediately there was more life about things. Bowen can at least go either way. No coincidence that the second goal came shortly after.
A lovely bit of play by Kane from a ball that really wasn’t getting to him, before he made it his, it’s curling away from him, when he drags it under control, it’s there to be played but he waits until the Albania commits and over runs the situation, before curling it around that player and the hapless keeper inside the far post. A glorious finish. His 70th goal, now just imagine he actually had balls played to him more. You know, from some creative midfielder say.
Tuchel’s defence didn’t have much to do, until Albania brought Broja on and the Dan Burns debut was a bit more difficult. He was skinned a bit there by the current loanee to Everton.
There wasn’t much else that happened, apart from him bringing Henderson on. You knew he’d do it, it was just a matter of when. Was there really cheers as the commentator said?
But as Southgate is now pontificating about role models for young men… you know the Southgate who knelt for a career criminal with a history of violence towards women… the Vegan Southgate has just produced the most Southgate performance… with the media going overboard about Skelly and then going overboard about the one thing Tuchel did right… slag off Rashford and Foden for their “performance”…