When announcing Thomas Tuchel as the new coach of the England team, "Three Lions" fans hoped that the German coach could completely change the face of the team.
Tuchel is a quite young, modern coach and has won the Champions League, so his reputation is very high. However, the recent 2-0 victory over Albania did not show what fans were expecting.
The England team continues to play football similar to what was built under Gareth Southgate against weak opponents. Speed is the most obvious thing, it is still not fast enough to make fans see the change.
Before the match, Tuchel said he wanted to apply Premier League specialties to the national team, one of which was speed. However, the application has not been seen specifically on the field.
The England team has performed in the same shape as what Southgate built. They did not overwhelm at Wembley against a weak opponent.
When counter-attacking, the players in white were not too quick to avoid revealing the weaknesses as much as possible. This way of playing always makes the "Three Lions" have good results in the qualifying rounds of major tournaments but is a disadvantage when entering official campaigns.
The victory over Albania was easy and brought maximum efficiency of 3 points, but it was not satisfying. Since Southgate took charge in 2018, England have been able to play any game at Wembley in the same way, with nothing new.
If criticizing Tuchel for his playing style will be as harsh as he has only had 1 week since the team officially gathered, it is impossible to keep up with the rhythm and get used to the new playing style.
If we look at it positively, still keeping the old playing style shows that the English players have not forgotten their cards and still know how to coordinate with each other. Winning is always better than drawing or losing to Albania at Wembley and the "Three Lions" have done it.
As for Tuchel, he hopes the wingers can do more, specifically the cases of Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden. Rashford was quite slow in the first half, and it was not until the second half that he started to accelerate.
Meanwhile, Foden kept the ball very well on the right wing but there were not any decisive explosive moments. At EURO 2024, Southgate was once stuck with the problem of not finding the most suitable position for Foden and now, Tuchel has the task of solving it.
Without Bukayo Saka due to injury, there is still Anthony Gordon, Thomas Tuchel can completely launch the next trials for the remaining match against Latvia at Wembley.
Fortunately for the "Three Lions" in the FIFA Days in March, they did not meet strong opponents, just enough for Tuchel to work and correct at the same time.
