England ‘underdogs’ claim debunked as Thomas Tuchel gets ‘dangerous’
‘It is still a bit too early to start thinking about a victory parade’ writes one England tabloid man, while others are mad about Thomas Tuchel.
There’s the usual entirely sober reaction to a 3-0 win over Wales that we will all have forgotten this time next week…
England beat Wales? Bring on the actual World Cup
When he is not upsetting the national press by picking Jude Bellingham, not picking Jude Bellingham, or suggesting that England fans should sing for more than 25 minutes, Thomas Tuchel is p***ing them off by suggesting that maybe England will not go to the World Cup as favourites. Mostly because they won’t.
So we turn to The Sun, who never knowingly undersell the ‘build ’em up’ part of the traditional tabloid role before major tournaments:
England 3 Wales 0: Three Lions make light work of neighbours as Bukayo Saka stunner helps put underdog claim to bed
Yes, because beating the 30th best side in the world 3-0 in a friendly will definitely change their World Cup prospects. It’s practically in the bag now.
We’re not saying Charlie Wyett is getting carried away (or pretending to get carried away? It’s hard to see the join) but…
THOMAS TUCHEL might claim England are underdogs for the World Cup but he’s not kidding anyone.
Not if his team keeps playing like this.
Against Wales in a friendly.
It is still a bit too early to start thinking about a victory parade in Trafalgar Square next July after the World Cup final.
A ‘bit too early’?
But after sending every English football fan to sleep in his first five games as manager, and let’s not pretend that his team were not bloody awful, Tuchel has overseen a dramatic improvement with two ferocious, attacking performances.
Against Serbia (34th in the world) and Wales (30).
Meanwhile, European champions Spain rattled six goals past Turkiye last time out, world champions Argentina have scored 31 goals in World Cup qualifying and France are, well, France.
But yes, this 3-0 win over Wales really has put that underdog claim to bed.
Tubular bells
Just a week after Jason Burt wrote in the Daily Telegraph that ’emphatically, the answer is no’ in response to the question about whether Jude Bellingham should have been excluded from the latest England squad (we covered that at length here), he is back clutching a string of pearls after Thomas Tuchel dared to ask why Wembley was so quiet.
At first we thought that perhaps Burt had been stitched up by an exuberant headline-writer because surely nobody would write that ‘Calling out England fans is unnecessary and dangerous by Thomas Tuchel’. Who would use the word ‘dangerous’? It turns out that Burt would. Twice.
‘It is a dangerous game to play for any manager, not least an England manager, to turn on the supporters in this way,’ writes Burt, presumably unaware that Jurgen Klopp has done the same at Liverpool while Pep Guardiola has made a habit of pleading with Manchester City fans to be more vocal.
Was it ‘dangerous’ for them or just when it’s England? Or more particularly when it’s a German managing England?
Having challenged the players, Tuchel is now challenging the fans. So at least he is being consistent. Even if none of his predecessors had embarked down such a potentially dangerous path.
A ‘potentially dangerous path’? We understand that in the desert of an international break, narratives get blown out of all proportion but Mediawatch is certain of one thing: Nobody will remember this next week, never mind next year. Genuinely, nobody will give a f*** apart from a handful of journalists who write for newspapers read almost exclusively by old men.
The key question is this: is the German head coach right? The answer is no, he is not. Ideally, of course, it would be more raucous. But how realistic is that? And does he really have the right to call the fans out like that when they have come in their droves, paid good money and backed the side by their attendance? And this was a friendly.
We don’t think he was asking for ‘raucous’; we think he was just wondering why all he could hear were Wales fans for the second half of a game England had dominated. And he didn’t call them out as a bunch of spanners, just said it was “sad”. Does that qualify as ‘dangerous’?
But by far our favourite passage in Burt’s piece is this:
It may also be a minor consideration for Tuchel – who uses a Lime Bike to get around London but will have left here in a chauffeur-driven car – but one of the main transport links out of Wembley, the Metropolitan Line, was down.
Sack him. Sack him now.
READ: Tuchel right to question ‘silent’ England fans after anti-Southgate pledge over ‘handbrake’
For whom the Bell tolls
And Ian Ladyman has added to the noise to write: ‘So much of what we have heard and said about Jude Bellingham in the last six months has been negative and it’s true that he has brought much of that on his self. At Wembley on Thursday night we saw an England number ten playing the position with discipline and energy and also with imagination.’
Ian, it’s literally a week since Bellingham was named England Player of the Year.
Thankfully, there is a way back for the England man, according to this wise old sage:
It really is up to Bellingham from this point on. If he really is an England leader of the future – even a captain in waiting – then Bellingham will take a look at what has happened over recent weeks and months and realise that he has to adapt and has to change. We should all hope that he will have an enormous role to play between now and the end of next summer. It really is up to him now.
Genuinely, what the f*** does that even mean? Do Phil Foden and Jack Grealish have to ‘adapt’ and ‘change’ or just Bellingham? Will this nonsense be over if he apologises profusely for only fulfilling his ‘contractual obligations’ with the media?
