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Pundits view on Tuchel appointment with many saying England should have an English manager

Pundits give their view on the Thomas Tuchel appointment with many saying England should have an English manager, going viral in the process.

There has understandably been a lot of chat in the last 24 hours surrounding this appointment, the media outlets BBC Sport and Sky Sports getting the thoughts of as many pundits as possible.

There has been a mixed reaction, majority of the posts Sky Sports have put up has the tagline that the pundits wanted an English manager instead of foreign.

But it seems for fans, majority aren’t bothered, instead ready to show their support to Tuchel, just wanting someone that’s best for the job, to be that someone to end years or hurt and give England their major trophy since 1966..

Fans don’t care about nationality, many adding if it’s alright for foreign managers to manage English clubs, then why should the national team be any different. After all, the English managers appointed for the men’s senior team in recent years haven’t won anything. (Gareth Southgate got close, with England in two consecutive Euros finals before stepping down earlier this summer.) And who would you even classify a top English manager? An English trophy winning manager? Who would want the job? Who has expressed an interest? How successful have they been?

Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher: “He came across really well as he always has done in press conferences. He’s got a personality, he’s got charisma, you can see the difference when he speaks to the media compared to someone like Lee Carsley in the last few weeks.

“He’s looked a little uncomfortable but there’s a confidence with Tuchel, he’s not terrified that every word coming out of his mouth will end up on the back pages or the front pages.

“He answers questions really openly and he seems a good fit in terms of dealing with the media.

“We’ve been slightly different to other nations in the past where we’ve given England managers four-year contracts and when you look at other nations, more often than not they’re on a two-year cycle.

“We’ll see how it goes between now and then. We’re bringing him in because we believe we’ve got a time now that we think can win the World Cup.

“It probably works for Thomas Tuchel because if I’m honest I think he’d rather coach one of the top clubs in Europe than managing England.

“The fact that it’s an 18-month contract, he’s probably thinking he’ll give it everything to with the World Cup then get back into club management.

“I’m not the most patriotic of people, the England manager has to be this or that – it’s not about England.

It’s international football. The whole point of it, certainly with the major nations who compete for titles is it’s our best vs their best.

“Club football is different, we love it. It’s different nationalities of managers and players, it’s a mix and it’s brilliant.

“The thing that makes international football different is it being people from your country.

“It’s skewed a little bit different with players, maybe not being born in the country or countries having a foreign coach who has a foreign coach who drags the whole footballing structure up with them, passing on his experience and expertise to the coaches in the sytem.

“But England being so close to winning a major tournament, and having so much good work going into producing these players and St George’s Park, it just doesn’t feel right to have a foreign coach.

“That’s not just England. That’s Germany, France, Italy too. That’s my take on it, I’m not going to lose any sleep on it – England have a brilliant manager, but I think he should be English.

“There might be something in the fact that they are looking at the situation with Harry Kane.

“Kane knows Tuchel really well, and I think it will be really interesting to see if Kane is England’s first-choice centre-forward when the next tournament comes around.

“If he is, and I hope he is because I love him to bits because he’s a fantastic tournament but I don’t see him going past that tournament at all.

“Maybe it’s a case of, they want a great manager for Harry Kane, Bellingham, Foden, Palmer, Saka, Declan Rice in midfield because the World Cup is our one big chance.

“After that, it might be tough for England to have a world-class centre-forward and that’s the reason England have done well in the last four tournaments – the goals of Harry Kane.

“He will bring unbelievable passion to the England national team, even though he’s a German.

“He’s been passionate about every other job he’s had and I don’t think the England job will be any different.

“I look forward to watching him on the touchline in a World Cup quarter-final.”

Former Premier League manager Harry Redknapp: “Tuchel has lost his job quite quickly at a couple of clubs. It’s not like he was a massive success where he’s been anywhere for a long period of time. It’s not like Jurgen Klopp was at Borussia Dortmund and then went to Liverpool and stayed for many years.

“He’s got a great opportunity as he’s got fantastic players. To be England manager, you just have to have a bit of common sense and pick the best players in the right position, build an atmosphere and make them feel great about playing for England and that they can win a trophy for England.

“You don’t have to be a great coach because realistically, how long do you get to work with them? They arrive from the weekend playing and will need a warm down, a bit of work and then they’re straight into playing. You haven’t got long time to work on shape.

“Lee Carsley got ridiculed for saying he had 20 minutes to work on a system, but unfortunately as England manager that’s about as long as you get.”

Sky Sports’ Gary Neville: “They’ve got a great coach, there is no doubt about that. Thomas Tuchel has a proven track record. From that point of view, the FA can’t be criticised.

“They probably got the best available coach in the world at this moment in time. Fitting that criteria they are absolutely spot on.

“I am not sure it meets the criteria of St George’s Park and the belief in English coaches and the growth in the English team’s performances over the last few years.

“Not just the men’s, but the women’s and the youth teams as well. St George’s Park was going to be a hot bed of proving that English coaches could get back to the top of European football.

“That is proving to be very difficult. It’s difficult for English coaches to get the top jobs in the Premier League and rightly so we have some of the best clubs in the world.

“But the England job has now gone to an international coach and – it is not really about Thomas Tuchel but – there is an element of disappointment in my head.

“It doesn’t feel like a strategic decision it feels like an instinctive one off the back of what’s happened in the last two weeks.

“Thomas Tuchel has been available for months, there was no need to appoint an interim if they wanted him. This to me smacks of it being a recent decision.

“I don’t think Thomas Tuchel should be in any way, shape or form questioned in a difficult way this afternoon when he sits in the press conference because I think that he’s a great coach, he’s taken a job with a group of talented players and I think everybody in our country including myself will wish him all the best and hope we can get over the line and win a trophy, but I think there are some serious questions for the FA to answer in respect of English coaching.

“I do think we are damaging ourselves accepting Thomas Tuchel is better, he is better than any of the other English coaches.

“But with the English coaches that have managed in the upper echelons of the league with Eddie Howe at Newcastle and Graham Potter. I do think there are outstanding coaches that could have been appointed that were English.

“Let’s be really clear, as a country the Premier League we’ve benefited hugely from the international players and coaches that have come to our country.

“I think the league’s the best in the world at the moment because of Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho and all those coaches we’ve had in the league in the last six, seven, eight years. It’s outstanding and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

“It should be difficult for English coaches to get the top jobs in our country but I think that my view is at this moment in time that you know it’s very difficult as an English coach and I think the England team, I mean it’s really simple, there are people who just think we’re England, we should have an English coach.

“I don’t think of it as sort of simply as that, I think of it purely from a point of view that I’ve worked under international coaches for England, I loved playing for England whilst I was working under Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle, Steve McLaren, Kevin Keegan and Sven-Goran Eriksson so I didn’t see any difference in terms of my passion for my country when I played under an international coach but what I have seen in this last 15, 20 years is the reputational damage that English coaching has taken.

“We are in a rut when it comes to English coaching. English coaching is one of the least respected big nations in Europe when it comes to taking charge of a football team. Spanish, German, Italian coaches, Portuguese coaches are renowned for their styles of play, for their philosophy.

“We don’t have a clear identity as an English nation of what we are anymore. We haven’t built a style, we haven’t got a coach who’s built a style that’s unique to us and we’ve seen coaches from all around Europe come and input their styles into our game and we’ve copied their styles and we’re trying to copy what they do without really developing our own style.

“I think to me at this moment in time, my view is that we need to build an identity as an English sort of country in terms of what our style of play is and let English coaches flourish and St George’s Park was set up to do that.

“Gareth Southgate didn’t have great experience at the highest level as a coach when he took the England job, he’d been with the 21s previously.

“He wasn’t a very fashionable choice at the time but he’s taken England to semifinals and finals over the last three or four tournaments and nearly got us over the line.

“So he’s proven that without Champions League experience as a coach, that you can be successful in international football and that’s been proven with other countries as well.

“My only thing here is about the fact of where is English coaching going, where are English coaches going to get the chance and there is that very brutal harsh look where you could say, well it’s not good enough, they’re not good enough, they have to basically get themselves better.”

Sky Sports’ Jamie Redknapp: “Tuchel is incredibly charismatic, incredibly confident, I like him a lot. I have to be honest, a few years ago I would have said I really struggled with having a foreign manager but I’ve got to the point where I just want the best man for the job.

“I wouldn’t just call him a coach, I’d call him a manager, you’re a manager. You’ve not just got to manage your team, you’ve got to manage the team, the press and every point about your life will be scrutinised to the extent that no other job will give you. You are now the second most important person in the country after the Prime Minister.

“You have to make sure you are ready for everything that’s thrown at you on and off the pitch. It’s a huge job for him, a huge opportunity because of the players he has at his disposal.”

Sky Sports’ Alan Smith: “He’s got a group of players as good as any in the world. He’ll be licking his lips getting to grips with them on the training ground, and he’s probably got some idea of his best XI if everyone’s fit.

“He won’t be scared to disappoint people, to upset them, to leave some big names out maybe – we’ve got so many top players up at the attacking end of the pitch.

“That’s going to be really interesting, what kind of shape he deploys and who gets into that starting XI.”

Redknapp: “It’s not about the best players, it’s about picking the best team and that’s where England managers have struggled. They’ve maybe gone for the approach of maybe just trying to keep everyone happy.

“I think we need more of an attacking approach than what we had in the summer, we got to the final but it was a tough watch.

“Thomas will look at that and want to play in a different style and it’s going to be interesting to see how he does that.

“The fact that he’s not an English manager he might not get emotional when making big decisions, he might find it easier.”

 Smith: “When you haven’t worked with a manager and you’re not sure how he works and what he likes, you’re a little bit anxious.

“But Harry knows exactly what he’s getting, he knows the new manager and rates him with the goals he scored at Bayern last year.

“He’ll go in there excited and hoping he can win a trophy for Harry’s country. It’s less uncharted territory for Harry and he’ll be letting the players know exactly what Tuchel wants.

“He might call up someone we haven’t really thought of – Lee Carsley called up Angel Gomes from Lille in France. Tuchel might be the same, someone who can do a job in a specific position.

“Seeing his first squad next year will be fascinating.”

Redknapp: “It’s difficult for English coaches now. Foreign owners come in and they look at getting the elite managers.

“It’s harder than it’s ever been for English managers, so how do we help them going forward? We’ve got to somehow create elite managers. I think people do, for whatever reason, look and think they are not at the same level. I don’t agree with it but that’s the problem.

“You’re only really going to give the job to the managers at the top clubs, Eddie Howe would have probably been the one, he’s done a brilliant job at Newcastle.

“There are a lot of things the FA need to look at but they probably need a bit of help from the Premier League as the foreign owners will always lean towards the foreign managers because that seems to be the approach these days.”

Gary Lineker speaking to BBC Sport about new England head coach Thomas Tuchel: “It is an interesting appointment. There is no doubt that he is an elite coach as he has won things, including the Champions League with Chelsea, so he is to be respected.

“Obviously people will debate whether England should have an English coach, and having a German one is interesting, so we will have to see how it pans out.”

On what Thomas Tuchel will need to do to bring England success: “It is just one last step isn’t it? They made a couple of finals under Gareth Southgate so were knocking on the door.

“There is no question that England have the quality needed to challenge for trophies and the upcoming World Cup. They have the ability throughout.

“Sometimes if you keep knocking on the door then it might just open, and I have no doubt it will with this England squad. Whether that is in 18 months’ time or over three years that remains to be seen. It is just about belief so hopefully Tuchel can instil that in them. They should have that because they are so talented.

“He will have difficulties and problems because sometimes having that much talent can be an issue for you. He is going to have to try and keep super high-quality players happy when they are not always playing as he can’t play them all.

“But he is very demanding and driven. He has very good tactical acumen. There is no question that England will be one of the favourites going into the next World Cup.”

On how Tuchel compares to Gareth Southgate, former England striker Gary Lineker said: “He is a different kind of manager to Southgate. He will be more of an aggressive coach in terms of playing on the front foot. He is tactically wise and I think he will be more offensive than Southgate.

“It will be interesting to see if he can make them gel and believe in themselves.”

Gary Lineker said on The Rest is Football podcast that the FA had shown interest in Pep Guardiola and and Carlo Ancelotti before going for Thomas Tuchel as England manager.

“They apparently did reach out in the summer to Pep Guardiola and I also understand that they spoke to Carlo Ancelotti,” he said.

“It’s happened so quickly, hasn’t it?” added former England forward Alan Shearer on Tuchel’s appointment. “We said the other day that there was perhaps a reason that Lee Carsley was ruling himself out and perhaps he knew something that we didn’t all know.

“I really hope that they have spoken to English managers. I am reliably told that they didn’t speak to Eddie Howe or sound him out at all. That is a big surprise for me because he would be the outstanding English candidate.”

Micah Richards says “there are so many questions that need answering” around the FA appointing Thomas Tuchel but he “is an outstanding manager and a proven winner.”

“The more damning thing is that we have not got an English candidate strong enough to take that [England] job. That is one of the most interesting things,” he said on the Rest is Football podcast.

“I was of the opinion that you don’t need an English manager and it is about getting the best person for the job.

“I think Thomas Tuchel is an outstanding manager and a proven winner. I am not sure how he is going to fit all of these great players together because at Chelsea he played three at the back at times. He has also played with two number 10s as well.

“There are so many questions that need answering but we have to all agree that Tuchel is a winner. No matter where he comes from, he could be the difference between winning and losing.

“I understand why he has been given the job and I am excited to see what he can bring.”

Alan Shearer says the Three Lions “need a manager who can deliver a trophy” after German Thomas Tuchel agreed to become the next boss.

“We need a trophy – it’s as simple as that. We need a manager who can deliver that,” Shearer said on The Rest Is Football, podcast.

“There’s no doubt [Tuchel] has an incredible CV, but this is going to be a very different test for him. It’s a bold move from the FA, there’s no doubt about it.

“You have to win the tournament, that’s what he’s been hired for. They [the FA] have seen the bunch of players are the best England have had for a long, long time.

“Tuchel will have looked at this squad and thought there is so much talent in there, this is an unbelievable opportunity of winning the greatest trophy of all,” former England striker Gary Lineker said.

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