Why Tuchel is destined to ‘fail’ and be worse than Southgate

One thing I notice as England embark on a new era with Thomas Tuchel is that there is already a wide divide between the pro and anti Tuchel constituency.

The anti are easy to identify of course and they focus on the most shallow xenophobic reasons a German shouldn’t manage England, rather than the much more obvious fact that if we can have a German manager, why not a Norwegian striker? Obviously because they’re not English. Exactly. The whole point of international football is nation v nation, why this excludes managers of a major nation is not explained. Obviously it is thought ‘we just want the best’ – well tough sh*t, do more to educate and promote English coaches instead of using money to effectively cheat. Does it not occur to the FA that decisions like this perpetuate the problem? And anyway, best at clubs isn’t anything like being best internationally. Go and get Lionel Scaloni if you want to buy your way to success with someone who knows how to win a World Cup.

But it is what it is (has anything ever been what it isn’t?). And I have no wish to be a crusty old idiot. The Jeff Powell Award for Xenophobic Idiocy is safe. But I note, possibly partly because of that idiot xenophobia, that the pros are a lot of football writers who have emotionally invested in Tuchel, who has long been what I once heard described as ‘the hipster’s choice’, whatever that means. He’s hardly a footballing obscure limited edition 10″ live album on red vinyl. I don’t know why, but you can hear undertones of it every time you read anything about his ‘system’ and ‘intensity’ like these are obscure, high-falutin, alien concepts to anyone else. Players running beyond a dropped-deep Harry Kane, yeah, never seen that before. Brilliant. The idea Tuchel has discovered some sort of footballing ark of the covenant just seems vaguely silly and certainly not backed up by reality.

Also the naked reason that he’s just been brought in to win is, while understandable, surely short-sighted, ignoring as it does the development of homegrown talent and a wider culture. If we learned anything from Gareth Southgate’s eight years, it’s that the collective culture is as important as the football. That much was achieved by making the shirt weigh less by establishing a supportive beta male culture. Yeah, screw that, we just want to win, said the FA with all the thoughtful nuance of a brick through a window to put back progression to a different cultural outlook by 18 months at least. It’s like Gareth never happened. Ignore everything else, just win.

I want Tuchel to succeed as much as anyone, but this whole ‘elite’ manager schtick just seems so overblown and irrelevant for this role, the product of the blinkered and narrow-minded. Not least because managing at international level isn’t like managing a club and isn’t conducted over a 38-game league season. On top of that, your elite manager has millions to spend to buy players to fit into a system and has to be good at recruitment. No such luxury with England. So however you came up with this ‘elite’ tag is not relevant, it’s like saying someone is the best painter and then asking them to fix a vacuum and wondering why they can’t do it. This lot are all you’ve got Tommy, you’ve got to make the best of it, son, sorry.

‘I detected an increase in intensity,’ someone said. They must have been looking very hard as the players fruitlessly passed it sideways among themselves at walking pace, like in the worst Gareth days, as if no-one paid to see them or entertainment was nothing but a bourgeois option. It was an entirely typical qualifying game. I suspect people were seeing what they wanted to see. If the Albania performance had happened 12 months into the job and it wasn’t his debut, there would have been uproar at the ponderous build-ups and the choice of Foden, who plainly can’t play international football (a judgement based not on his talent but more on his inability to fit into a different mode, though there are people who’d tell you he’s been gash for a year) – a fact long obvious, even before his club form fell away. But there wasn’t because it was all new and everyone could project their hopes and dreams onto Tuchel, who seemed surprised that Foden and Marcus Rashford didn’t play with aggressive intensity. I mean, have you not seen any football for a year? They’ve both been stealing a living for months, you should have known that.

His criticism, honest though it was, were all things anyone could have told him England were like. It was wholly unsurprising. The good and the poor. Come to us next time, Tom, we’ve watched England for 55 years. We know all the weaknesses and ways in which they’ll let you down or be successful. We remember when Martin Chivers was the future. What? You’ve never heard of Martin Chivers? Exactly. I was surprised Tuchel wasn’t more advanced in his understanding, if I’m honest.

Unimaginative, ineffective play bailed out by a few excellent moments of individual quality by a few players but nearly conceding because of sloppy defensive play? Of course. Ever was it thus. If you’ve come for overwhelming, crushing team play, we’ve rarely had it, so don’t expect it. If you can get them to do it for more than a few minutes each game, it’ll be a major achievement and you certainly won’t do it consistently with Foden and Rashford on the wing.

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And if we were a year in, saying you want England to play in some sort of perceived Premier League fashion, like there even is one, he’d have been laughed at. What? You want them to play like Southampton or f**king Leicester, do you? Think you’ll win the World Cup playing like West Ham? Are you going to play like Everton and David Moyes? No, I didn’t think so. I bloody hope not. And anyway, in case you haven’t noticed, only around 43.7% of Premier League players have English passports, making it the lowest percentage of domestic players used across Europe’s top five leagues. It doesn’t have an English identity other than by location. So you’re asking them to play in some assumed style without the help of over half of their teammates against teams who don’t play like Premier League teams. Good luck with that.

You’re saying play like you do in the league but it’s a wholly different context. With England they are alongside players of different, often lesser abilities. Don’t make them play like they do in teams with the world’s best, get them to be comfortable playing with less stellar English talents, that’s your challenge. Don’t be the latest to fall into the perpetual Sky whine, ‘why can’t they play like they do in the league?’ trap. If that’s not already obvious, there’s no hope for you.

Despite all the fanboying, Tuchel didn’t make England significantly better than their usual default against Albania; let’s hope he learned a lot from it. Actually, I thought post-game he looked quite shaken by the mediocrity of what he’d seen. England can do that to you.

Given it’s win or bust he has two choices: tweak a few things or hope for the best. They’ll qualify anyway and will, more than likely, turn in some good wins along the way, they usually do and they’ll garner him praise. Then he’ll lose against the first good team they meet. That’s how it goes, mate, sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Or rip the whole thing up, take a different approach with different selections. Be radical. Take a chance. The old way has failed, do something new or don’t be surprised if history happens again. Good luck, you’ll need it. No amount of slavering broadcasters, pundits and journalists will change your outcomes. You’ll just be another failed manager, eaten up and spat out by England like Gareth, but without the valuable, much needed legacy, or neat beard for that matter.

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