Kobbie Mainoo has been told to disobey Thomas Tuchel (Image: Getty)
Kobbie Mainoo has been told by Nicky Butt to defy Thomas Tuchel by sitting out of England‘s World Cup third-place match against France. The Manchester United midfielder has yet to play a single minute in the tournament with his last opportunity to make his debut at the competition being Saturday’s clash against Didier Deschamps’ side.
The 21-year-old enjoyed a strong end to the domestic season after being reinstated to United’s starting line-up by Michael Carrick, but it hasn’t been enough to warrant playing time in North America. Butt, 51, has been left seething over Mainoo’s no-show throughout the tournament and has urged his fellow Mancunian to take drastic action against his international manager.
Butt said: “I do not know what is going on there, there’s something not quite right with it. Now they’re going to play the bomb squad in the stupid third-place game. I’d just refuse to play if I was Kobbie Mainoo. I’d say I was injured. It’s a nonsense game, especially when you’ve been treated like that.
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“He’s not played a minute of football, now to go and start this pointless jumped-up friendly and potentially get injured for the whole season… no.” Beyond his exasperation at Tuchel’s handling of Mainoo, Butt believes the German should be dismissed for the nature of England’s exit in the semi-finals.
He explained: “There’s no way he [Tuchel] can stay on. Not a cat in hell’s chance after that. If he stays on, John McDermott [the FA’s technical director] needs to be sacked as well. There’s no way you can keep him now. He’s not a Sir Bobby Robson or Kevin Keegan, someone that the nation loves.
Kobbie Mainoo has not yet played at the World Cup (Image: Getty)
“You’re talking about a manager that’s come in and played negative football, crazy negative football, in the semi-final against a beatable Argentina team. And it shouldn’t really matter, but people will go against him because he’s German as well, so he’s going to have a nightmare.
“He’s an unbelievable club manager, so just let him go. He won’t want to stay. He might say he does, but deep down he’ll be thinking, ‘pay up, I’m out of here’. If we were nine months down the line, I’d definitely be going for Pep Guardiola. But Pep can’t leave Man City a month ago, saying he needs a rest from football, and then go straight back in.
“He can’t do that.” Butt also identified Newcastle boss Eddie Howe and United States national team manager Mauricio Pochettino as potential replacements for Tuchel.
He said: “Eddie Howe would be brilliant. I’d love him to go in, it’d be great. Mauricio Pochettino’s got an unbelievable relationship with John McDermott and he picks it. When McDermott was the academy manager at Tottenham, Pochettino was the manager, and they had a really, really good relationship.
“I was in and around it with the Manchester United academy, we would do training camps there so I’ve seen it first hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened and I wouldn’t be against it at all. He’s a very, very good manager.
“A likeable person, plays good football everywhere he goes. But we all said the same about Tuchel, yet when they go into that England dynamic, they just change, it’s crazy. I can’t put my finger on why.”