Tuchel bringing the blunt honesty Southgate lacked in pursuit of England glory | OneFootball

For all the headlines that Thomas Tuchel’s comments about Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden caused on Friday, the new England manager admitted he was “surprised” at the furore. He didn’t even see it as criticism, which may be where one of the biggest shifts with the 51-year-old comes.

“I just give my analysis of the team,” Tuchel blankly stated. “Sometimes I am surprised with what people try to make out of it, that Marcus and Phil should be offended with what I said.”

Declan Rice echoed his manager, saying he would rather have that “kick up the arse”. “This is top-level international football,” the midfielder added.

In other words, there’s the line, as Rice himself puts it. England are now so close to getting over it. They may need that bit more to finally do so, and it might not always be polite. This is what Tuchel’s appointment is all about, giving the players that second star to bring what’s been missing.

“Working with the manager this week, he isn’t going to take any nonsense,” explained Rice. “He knows that he’s here to win the World Cup.

“And to do that, you need to push everyone, and you need to be uncomfortable. And if you’re too comfortable, you’re not going to get anywhere.”

Along those lines, Tuchel gave a little talk to the squad before their Sunday lunch.

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Thomas Tuchel ‘isn’t going to take any nonsense’ as England manager (Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)

“With all respect, this is not now just to get a win over Latvia, no matter how,” the manager said. “This is about our standards. How do we win, how do we play and how do we impose ourselves and deserve a win against Latvia? It’s to raise the standards.”

Such talk offers another topic that is going to bring comparisons with Gareth Southgate’s time, and whether he was enough of a “winner”. There were more than a few questions to Rice over whether the previous regime was too nice. Part of that is just the nature of change and the swings that come when a team hasn’t quite got to where they wanted. Where Southgate had previously eradicated an unhealthy culture that players didn’t enjoy being part of, the wonder now is whether it went too far the other way.

Part of it is also what a new manager specifically wants. Tuchel has always concentrated on the chemistry of his squad, and how it works. This is after all the manager who briefly got career form out of Neymar at Paris Saint-Germain.

He is big on the idea of “interactions” and teams helping each other through games, through simple moments of encouragement. The thinking is ensuring they don’t feel like they’re mere individuals left out there. Tuchel’s research showed that there were 60 such moments in the first half of the Euro 2024 final against Spain, but only 35 in the second.

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Tuchel wants to encourage ‘interactions’ between England players during matches (The FA via Getty Images)

“They are key moments in games when you can get together and can communicate and I don’t think we did that enough in the final, looking back on it, because those moments can swing games,” Rice added. “Thomas has been right in that.”

Such a drop-off represents one major reason why Jordan Henderson has been recalled. The former Liverpool captain gets heavily involved in that, constantly seeking to make sure every teammate is on it. The newer call-ups to the squad have been deeply impressed. It might even have been an element that was missing in the summer.

“Henderson’s one of the best I have seen,” Rice says. “I love Hendo, I love playing with him. He helps you so much.”

That is about so much more than backslapping and high-fives, of course. Teammates feel Henderson is crucial to setting standards, right up to the level of professionalism in training.

“It’s about pushing each other to the max to get the most out of each other,” Rice said. “You only get one career and we’ve already lost two finals. We are all getting older.”

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Jordan Henderson has been praised for his on-pitch influence on the team (Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)

Tuchel hasn’t yet opted for a “leadership group”, instead leaving it to individuals to exert influence within the entire squad. Few are as prominent in that facet as Jude Bellingham, given he is commonly seen as the most vocally demanding. He is also a current European club champion, which is relevant when discussing standards.

But there have been constant murmurs that Henderson has actually been recalled to check such influence, even though it would sound like the Real Madrid forward’s directness is part of what is required. There were a few conspicuous lines from Tuchel.

“Players are quite demanding and I just encourage them to be that way, with a certain limit, in a respectful way,” he stated. “I encourage the group to set their own standards and also set their own standards in how they talk to each other but also in what they demand of each other and to push each other 100 per cent.

“I think in a football team, in a video meeting, a debrief of a match, everyone has to endure the moment where he sees himself out of position and the coach says, ‘Listen, this is not what I want from you, I want you here, I want you here, I want you to do this in a different way’. This is always respectful. But we cannot do all the criticism just in an isolated room.”

When discussing leaders, he said it “sometimes has a misinterpretation”, Tuchel said. “Because we think, like, ‘the leader looks good, he is the captain, he talks eloquently in front of the camera but then he becomes a mean guy on the training pitch. He wins the Ballon d’Or and he scores and he defends.’ He sounds a good player! But it is not like that. There has to be a group because it is 26 players and it cannot be on one shoulder.

“I think it comes down to defining their role and making it clear to the players what you expect, how you see them, that they are not jealous of each other, that they hear it in front of each other and they know it is on their shoulders. And I think we have enough characters and enough quality and enough different characters to lead this group.”

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There are murmurs that Henderson has been recalled to check the influence of Jude Bellingham in the England squad (The FA via Getty Images)

There was a perception that the body language wasn’t necessarily productive at Euro 2024, which Rice acknowledges.

“I know, on the eye, that can come across like ‘his shoulders are down, he’s having a dig at someone else’ and that can come across in a negative way,” the midfielder says. “It can look bad but it’s also on the individual in terms of how they actually just want the best for the team and push others. That’s what I felt like it was at the Euros.”

Rice actually points to a documentary he watched about Manchester City – all the more notable as an Arsenal leader – and how they had several voices pushing them.

“The best teams that have won have not had one leader in the pitch, they have had four or five or six who can push a group. Thomas has been really good on that,” explained the Gunners midfielder. “It’s like constructive criticism.”

This is ultimately what Tuchel is getting at, and why people might have to get used to what seems a bluntness.

“They know very well they didn’t have the impact that they expect from themselves,” Tuchel said of Foden and Rashford. “There is no message that I give through you or no message that I didn’t say to them directly.”

This isn’t about careful development any more, after all. It’s about getting it done, no matter how blunt that sounds.