When you’ve watched almost every England game since 1966 and the sands of time are eroded by the river of constant change, you know what to expect from matches against the likes of Andorra; they are enervating and challenge your will to live. It doesn’t matter which manager is in charge, in what era.
So in that sense, Thomas Tuchel should not be too heavily criticised. It is four from four and no goals conceded – as it often is. But the vibes hang around him and the team like a shroud.
READ: England player ratings v Andorra: Anderson and Madueke impress but CBs and Rashford struggle
It strikes me not just that he looks like a Scooby Doo villain in a fairground, but that he’s genuinely surprised by the fact that England are so dull and leaden but has to pretend he isn’t. Maybe he thought he’d change this DNA deep trend. But trying to do so is like time travel or flying; it’s against the laws of nature.
His pre-match words about bringing energy and other positive intents were ignored, could not be achieved or were simply not understood. And I’m left with the certain knowledge that England were much better and undoubtedly more attractive under Lee Carsley. Like Tuchel, he sh*t the bed and lost a game but that apart, tell me it’s better now? You can’t because it isn’t.
People excuse it by saying the performances don’t matter, only the wins do. Well when do the performances count? Isn’t playing poorly a sign that the team is poor? That’s all we’ve got to judge them by. No one reads five bad books in the hope the sixth will be great.
There was praise for Elliot Anderson. Fair enough, but only because he didn’t play like a spurtle in a bowl of porridge. In other words, if you’re not lumpen and uninventive, you’ll get pumped up as the fantastic future. That will only last until we play someone good, when they’ll be less impressive and everyone will pretend they never rated them. Incidentally, when John Murray interviewed him after the game and asked him how something had ‘manifested’ itself, he didn’t really understand and John had to repeat the question, unpacking what ‘manifest’ actually meant.
I’d say it’s all going to the usual fateful plan. Beat the minnows unimpressively, invest hope by defeating middling nations, then lose against a big boy. There are no signs yet that Tuchel can break that cycle, or even that he understands the fate that awaits him unless he inculcates a way to defeat it.
During the radio commentary, it often seemed as if the boring game was Andorra’s fault for not being very good, rather than England’s for a lack of creativity.
It often seems that Tuchel is a teacher in charge of getting kids through their GCSEs and can’t quite get his intellect down to their level. At times he seems embarrassed, especially as his pre-match words are so clearly ignored and the players end up making him look foolish. An aesthete in charge of philistines.
He hasn’t got much longer to learn from Gareth Southgate that trying to instill more imaginative play into England is like trying to teach your dog algebra. The way to get them to play cohesively lies off the pitch in their psychology. You can teach them very, very little in the time available, so don’t even try. Don’t use words like ‘manifest’, clearly.
Southgate showed how far that can take you. They’ve doubtless got good hearts. They’re obviously exposed as overrated when playing together and without the world’s best alongside, but they will give everything if you take the right inspirational attitude and use the right inspirational words. It has never been good enough to beat the best, but it’s your best shot.
With Serbia to come, the pressure increases because they’re the toughest opponent yet. He’s had four easy games and one against a better team, Senegal, in which they were a hapless mess.
History suggests this will be one of the few games they’ll play well and win, which will raise hopes briefly. Anything less than being impressive or not winning, because there is zero capital in the Bank Of Tommy, will increase the view that he’s not suited to the role, despite his high-achiever CV. England has broken many good men before. With being so unimpressive to date, he’s made life harder for himself. If you were expecting the merest hint of a Tuchel identity or anything at all that is thoughtful in how his teams play, you’re left staring into the void. There has been very little meat and a lot of gravy.
And that is very, very disappointing to anyone who wanted him to dazzle the xenophobia thick-necks who opposed him, even though I have a philosophical objection to a major nation not being managed by a native. It should be required. It’s Us v Them so you can’t draft in Erling Haaland because he’s Norwegian and you shouldn’t be able to bring a German into the team set-up; it seems to defeat the point of the international test. But given where we are, I want him to succeed.
But he’s testing our patience severely. We don’t expect much, just a glimmer of invention and creativity, not an instinct to play at walking pace, passing it sideways and back, not to fritter and waste the hour and a half in an offhand way, even after being told to do the opposite.
Much is said about how hard it is to play a team with everyone behind the ball. Maybe, but that has been said of every team for 60 years. How much longer do you want to work out how to do it? Not by having a shot on target every 15 minutes that’s for sure. Is this your best effort? Why didn’t you have several pre-worked solutions? Or did you and they ignored them? You had 82% possession for God’s sake. Are you seriously saying that having the ball for 74 minutes of 90 makes it harder to play? This opposition are amateurs, let us not forget. They might be obstructive but you’re supposed to be the best. That’s what the stupid money is for. And this is all you’ve got?
All I wanted after Southgate’s success, such as it was, was to at least continue what he’d started. Maybe breaking the England mold was too much to ask for, but retreating to worse eras is so disappointing and he’s not giving any of us any belief that the good times lie ahead. Quite the reverse.
