Thomas Tuchel has come under scrutiny (Image: undefined)
Thomas Tuchel will remain in charge until after Euro 2028, despite England’s devastating defeat to Argentina. The German coach is being backed by the Football Association and its chief executive, Mark Bullingham, the Times reports.
Tuchel has come under immediate scrutiny for the manner of England’s World Cup exit. The Three Lions were unable to defend their lead after Anthony Gordon’s opening goal as they dropped deep.
Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez ultimately put England to the sword, and the finger of blame has been pointed at Tuchel from many corners. But it appears Tuchel will remain in the hot seat for the moment after signing a two-year contract extension in February, which runs until after the Euros, when England will be the hosts.
Ex-Premier League striker Chris Sutton delivered some fierce criticism of the England boss on BBC Radio 5 Live. He said: “That was a coaching catastrophe from Thomas Tuchel.
“The fact that England get themselves in front and then basically hand Argentina the initiative. Defending deep and another defender on, it’s quite a simple game football, you have to get up the pitch.
“You can’t expect to defend for 30 minutes against the quality Argentina had. It’s all on the coach where I’m concerned. He made the changes. He was negative, so the question which I’m going to ask is ‘how can you trust Thomas Tuchel to take this team forward?’
“I don’t care what anyone says, England have had a generous run in this competition and they have not played well in one 90 minutes.
“A World Cup semi-final, there’s a big opportunity to get over the line against an average Argentina side and they didn’t look average in the last 30 minutes, far from it, but I think England helped them with that. I think that was a coaching disaster.”
And Tuchel has also been unable to avoid criticism from two World Cup winners. Ex-Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas branded England’s tactics as ‘cowardly’.
“They [England] score the goal and drop back. A cowardly approach,” Casillas posted on X. “They haven’t ventured out of their own half and have allowed [Argentina] to push forward more. The inevitable happens.”
Thomas Muller, who lifted the trophy in 2014, said: “I cannot believe and understand how England approached this game after they’re leading. I cannot understand how they invited Argentina to play one cross after the other in perfect crossing positions”.
England were unable to overcome Argentina (Image: Masashi Hara, Getty Images)
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Despite the criticism, Tuchel showed no signs of regret and stood by his tactical decisions. Questioned about his substitutions after the match, he said: “You can discuss this with a million coaches [but] I have to make a decision on the pitch.
“I analysed the match and I did it a certain way so that’s my responsibility. In the moment, no regrets. The team gave everything and we were very, very close. We deserved to be up 1-0.
“We played one of our better matches, maybe our best match in the circumstances. The team was top, we couldn’t get over the line but no regrets.”