Tuchel will resign before the World Cup as Bellingham moment sums up England ‘overrating’

Thomas Tuchel perhaps did not realise this is what England do and who they are. One Jude Bellingham moment against Senegal summed it all up nicely.

England v Senegal on ITV. Am I alone in approaching this with a feeling of dread? Tuchel spoke positively of the team “playing with a smile” beforehand which, of course, is part of the job. It’d be amazing if he just slagged them off and called them rubbish.

Does he sometimes come across as very camp? Of course, the team ignored all this and played with a grimace, not a smile and made a fool out of him.

Great pre-show package about the racist injustice of Jack Leslie with what Poogers calls “racist language”. If only someone at the FA had been as sensitive in the 1920s.

“The FA’s got a lot to answer for,” says Wrighty. Hard to believe that the FA hasn’t been and still is a negative and too often unaccountable element in English football.

‘Senegal in 60 seconds’ was an excellent thing, too. Quite innovative. Pleasing.

They all seem to have been told not to mention being tired as all the other sides in recent games had shown them up in that respect. It’s always trotted out to excuse poor performances. It’s like it is a disease that some are inoculated against despite playing as much. Perhaps England were knackered but why weren’t Premier League players from Senegal, Spain, France, Germany and Portugal equally knackered? Maybe England is weaker and more thick. Or just worse in some way.

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Senegal fell behind to a goalkeeping error but repeatedly tore England effortlessly apart and just ran right through the centre and sides of them time and again and didn’t deserve to be behind for as long as they were.

Obviously Kyle Walker has broken and it must be the end of the 35 year-old’s road.

At half time they all seem to believe England are hesitant and they could do more. That isn’t obvious, not for England. Don’t judge them on club form – that’s a mistake many have made over the years.

Senegal should’ve been a goal up after five second-half minutes. England were often negative and static and rightfully went behind from a simple goal. All the old faults I’ve seen for 50 years came back once again and they looked poor and unstable.

Lee Dixon mournfully looked for positives but struggled to be enthusiastic about anyone and anything and his suggestions were unconvincing. He tried to laud very basic stuff like running. Someone who passed a simple ball was unconvincingly purred over like the second coming of Pirlo. They didn’t deserve the goal that was ruled out pathetically by VAR for handball.

One moment summed it up. Jude Bellingham robbed the ball off a Senegal player to a big oooh – yes, the multi-million pound Jude. What a player. He moved away and the Senegal player got up and simply took the ball back off him. Someone ‘insignificant’ compared to Bellingham but dominating him. The overrating in action. The ‘he’s great’, ‘oh, he’s lost it’ is so typical.

They were lucky to lose 3-1; with better finishing it could’ve been six.

The third goal summed up their attitude: taking ages over a bad free kick, losing possession and being overrun at pace. Booed off again. They were all a mixture of boring, unadventurous, unimaginative and lacking intelligence.

I’m not sure Tuchel will even take them to the World Cup. I think he’ll resign before that. And I think that’ll be for the best. He looks mystified why this is happening. Putting a professor in place to lecture 3rd formers isn’t appropriate. England is too GCSE Grade 3 student at a university to be managed at a high level.

Afterwards he looked like an embarrassed boy who’d been caught smoking at school and he didn’t appear to understand VAR or that it’s ruined football for years, nor who to blame for it. Wrighty was head-down, corpsing before the break at Roy being Roy-ish.

The ‘but they’re so good for their clubs’ was dragged out again. Yes, but this is a different, better context. When will that be learned? My headline from a decade ago, ‘England Too Thick To Win,’ once again seems extremely appropriate.