Tuchel clashes with Premier League managers already?

Thomas Tuchel said he would do what every international coach ever has and that is a ‘swipe’ at Mikel Arteta and a ‘warning’ to all Premier League managers.

A right Tuch

With the national anthem nonsense squared away and masterfully sidestepped by Thomas Tuchel, the national press have had to find different ways of dragging a newspaper back page out of the England manager when international breaks come around.

They have, to their credit, found an eternal answer: pretending Tuchel is at war with club bosses.

The Sun say Tuchel ‘will show no mercy to Prem bosses’, which is a strange thing to point out when none have asked for such a courtesy because to do so would be weird.

‘TUCH FIGHT CLUB’ screams the Daily Mirror, as John Cross writes that Tuchel ‘is ready to put himself on a collision course with Premier League managers’ and ‘even took Mikel Arteta to task’ over Declan Rice.

The Times parrots that ‘collision course’ line.

Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail claims he ‘laid down the law’ by saying he ‘will put England’s needs ahead of those of top-flight clubs’. So like every international manager before him then? Imagine how bizarre it would be if came out and told all clubs they had first dibs and he’d just work around it.

The Daily Telegraph calls it a ‘warning’ and The Guardian reckon Tuchel ‘will risk the wrath of club managers’, while the Daily Express believe he ‘even had a go at’ Arteta.

It’s time to look at these quotes because Mediawatch has obviously overlooked a massive news story here.

“Given the fact Declan Rice played after a 7-1 first leg, he played the next match with Arsenal. I didn’t have the feeling that they think so much about us. So I don’t think we have to break our heads about this.”

Well that’s not a great start. A reminder that this is Tuchel’s ‘swipe’ (The Sun website), him ‘having a go’ at Arteta and ‘taking him to task’. In reality it reads like him saying club managers prioritise their needs when it comes to individual players, and that England will entirely justifiably continue do the same. In fact, it’s him saying exactly that.

“I take care about the players. We take care about the schedule. But it would be the wrong signal to tell players now ‘hey you have tough (club) matches coming up so I rest you now.’

“We have a qualifier to play, we do what’s good for us. We are in contact with the clubs. We are in high-level monitoring where the statuses are known, and we won’t take any unprofessional risks.

“Because first of all I feel responsible for the players. I don’t want the player to be injured. I want the players to play the quarter-finals of the Champions League – all of them – because I want to watch it. In the end we take care about [ourselves] and the clubs take care about themselves. And the main focus is taking care of the players.”

Pretty much every line exposes the ridiculousness of trying to manufacture some sort of conflict between Tuchel and club managers, but that last one is remarkably telling: “In the end we take care about [ourselves] and the clubs take care about themselves. And the main focus is taking care of the players.”

COLLISION COURSE.

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People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw Stones

While there is obviously no issue with those on the England beat all sharing their homework, it is a bit ridiculous when each national newspaper cites the exact same example of how Pep Guardiola was furious when John Stones started consecutive internationals and inevitably injured himself early in the second.

They all use Guardiola’s “never been so angry” line about his reaction when Stones returned with an injury ahead of crucial Premier and Champions League games last season. It is just weird that none of them quote the Spaniard as also saying: “In friendly games you cannot be injured.”

That does feel pertinent, considering Stones was injured after unnecessarily starting back-to-back friendlies in a matter of days, while Tuchel was specifically discussing team selection for World Cup qualifiers.

There goes another veneer of this idea Tuchel and club managers are battling each other. Show us a single Premier League boss who thinks their fit and available players shouldn’t be picked for competitive international games and we’ll accept this ‘collision course’ isn’t just a massive dollop of bullsh*t.

Journey South

It would be a happier place if we could leave this absolute non-story behind, but when you see this headline it’s difficult to just move on:

‘Tuchel risks undoing years of Southgate’s hard work with pointed Arteta comments’

Over to The i we reluctantly go, as James Gray writes:

‘A typically unguarded Tuchel laid his cards on the table on Sunday. Sitting in an upstairs room of Tottenham Hotspur’s state-of-the-art training centre, he sent a firm message to his hosts for the weekend that he would be picking players based on his goals, and not their primary employer’s, or those of any other Premier League heavyweight.’

Two things:

1) It cannot be stressed enough: that is what every international manager ever has always done.

2) Tuchel’s first England squad contains one Spurs player, and Dominic Solanke will likely not feature at all. If wraths are being risked and collision courses embarked upon – and they are not – it most certainly does not involve Spurs at this point.

Yet apparently Tuchel’s ‘words will land harshly on the ears of many managers’. They are presumably the same words Mediawatch has read, where he said “we are in contact with the clubs”, “we won’t take any unprofessional risks” and “the main focus is taking care of the players”.

Spare a thought for Guardiola and Arteta at this difficult time as their players are held captive by this heinous madman.

Next comes those Guardiola quotes about Stones with no reference whatsoever to how his main point of contention was the defender starting in consecutive friendlies. Then there is ‘Tuchel insisting he hasn’t had any calls from managers this time around asking for players to be rested or substituted early,’ at which point we do have to ask why we’re all here then?

Gray then goes to great lengths to explain how rubbish Latvia are and that ‘the reality is Lee Carsley’s Under-21s would expect to beat’ them, so Tuchel need not pick his best players.

It is a ludicrous and hilarious argument. Would the club managers of those U21 players suddenly be absolutely fine with their players being picked for the apparently entirely hazardous senior side? In this alternate reality where Tuchel rests Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Declan Rice and the rest of his best players and England lose or draw, would everyone just accept it as collateral damage in the far more important quest of Tuchel staying on the good side of Vincent Kompany?

‘How, for example, would Myles Lewis-Skelly feel if a second 90-minute appearance in four days led to a hamstring strain that ruled him out of a Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid in two weeks’ time?’

Probably quite frustrated. Would he resent Tuchel for all eternity for the crime of picking him for England? It feels unlikely.

Then comes the headline take, all the way down in the penultimate paragraph:

‘Gareth Southgate reshaped so much about the England set-up, breaking down the club cliques that proved divisive in the past and redefining what it meant to play for the national team. Starting a fight with Premier League clubs at a time when players have never been more tired is a high-risk strategy that could undo much of that good work.’

Fifteen paragraphs earlier, Gray himself used that irrelevant case of Guardiola being furious at Southgate for picking Stones. It’s almost as if beyond all the positive work he did as manager, Southgate always picked his best team and thus invariably best players because that was his job.

And Southgate clearly did abysmally in terms of ‘redefining what it meant to play for the national team’ if within a year of his departure, we are arguing he should pick a half-strength side for an actual World Cup qualifier for fear of upsetting Premier League managers (none of whom have shown even the vaguest sign of being upset because obviously).

Is any other country’s media this absurd about the best players being picked to represent them? Mediawatch already knows the depressing answer.

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