Heading into England’s World Cup qualifier against Andorra at Villa Park in Birmingham, there were suggestions that Thomas Tuchel might make the decision to not play Harry Kane to not risk the Bayern Munich striker against the weakest opposition in Group K of UEFA qualifying. However, that was not the case, and Tuchel elected to start his captain and he played the full 90 minutes in the 2-0 win in what was once again a laborious performance from the Three Lions. It was a step up from the 1-0 win over
Andorra in Barcelona from the last international break, but still far from perfect from a nation that’s pegged to go far in North America, Mexico, and Canada next summer.
Tuchel has already come under a considerable deal of criticism as England manager, largely in part due to the underwhelming performance in the 1-0 win over Andorra in Barcelona and subsequent loss to Senegal at the City Ground back in June. The latter was quite arguably Tuchel’s toughest test as England boss, too, as the previous opponents other than Andorra were Latvia and Albania.
Ahead of the 2-0 Andorra win, Tuchel explained his rationale for not resting game, sticking to his laurels of taking every match in World Cup qualifying as seriously as possible. “Yes. Harry starts. There is no balance, the competition is on and it is World Cup season. We have a condensed camp and that means we will start with the team that we trust and the best team possible,” the former Bayern, Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund and Mainz manager explained (via @iMiaSanMia).
Looking ahead, Tuchel knows that the club schedules for most of his England players ramps up after this international break between domestic play and cups as well as European tournaments. On that note, he feels that calling on his veteran and core players for the pair of qualifiers during the international back is essentially just a primer for what’s to come on the club end. “The players will start to play two matches a week after the international camp and I do not see a problem why they can’t start that one week earlier and play on a Saturday and a Tuesday,” he explained, with England’s next match coming in the form of a tough trip to Belgrade to take on Serbia in what will be a tough away day.
