England manager Thomas Tuchel looks on (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
The manager of England, Thomas Tuchel, has defended his decision to use such a bad method when they lost to Argentina.
Anthony Gordon scored to give England the lead, but they were quickly on the defensive as Tuchel substituted a few players and changed his team’s formation with plenty of time left.
Because of this, Argentina finally took control and came back to win 2-1 to secure a place in the World Cup finals on Sunday where they will face Spain.
Tuchel has been heavily criticized for his tactics, but when he spoke after the game he tried to explain why he felt it was necessary to try to close the game in this way.
Thomas Tuchel on England’s bad tactics
When asked about his decision, Tuchel insisted he had no regrets and did what he felt he had to do against Argentina as they continued to gain more space.
“I analyzed the game and did it in a certain way so that is my job,” said Tuchel, quoted by BBC Sport.
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“For now, there are no regrets. The team gave everything and we were very close. We deserved to be beaten 1-0.
“We played one of our best games, maybe our best game under the circumstances. The team was on top, we couldn’t cross the line but there are no regrets.
“I think we saw the mentality during the whole game and a strong team, we played the games the way they were, we played against the strong teams in the group, we traveled a lot of kilometers, we played on a high ground, we played with 10 men, we played in the heat and we overcame all the obstacles.
“We were very close today. It’s not the time to analyze the whole competition, we just came into our own because we lost in the most important game.”
Dan Burn answers questions about England’s approach
England defender Dan Burn also spoke after the game about the way Tuchel set up the team.
It seems the Newcastle man sympathized with the Three Lions boss, and admitted it was the players’ response to a degree, while for a long time it seemed to be working.
“I thought we had the gameplan pretty good for most of it. But obviously, when we scored, we got a little bit quiet and then we fell behind and we got punished for it in the end,” said Burn.
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“We probably let them have a lot of chances and if you do that they will score goals. It’s disappointing for us. We’ve defended games better and we’ve seen it. When you’re close to the World Cup final, that hurts.”
He added: “It’s just human nature a bit. You know how well we’ve defended in previous games. That often happens to a lot of teams.”
Where do you stand on this? Should England have done better to control the game without taking out the attacking players and sitting back? Or was it the right idea and just a bit of bad luck against the quality side? Share your thoughts in the comments!
