With England’s World Cup dream over, David James reflects on a difficult night for the Three Lions in his exclusive column for Metro, explaining why Thomas Tuchel’s substitutions weren’t the only reason for their collapse.
It is World Cup heartache again for England. The reality is we knew how tough last night would be and we didn’t respond when it mattered. In the first-half, we did so well and I think we were in a perfect position at half-time. But moments change games.
For Enzo Fernandez’s goal, the first thing I noticed was the players’ backs to Lionel Messi as he took the quick corner, it looked like we weren’t ready. That is the moment you need everyone switched on and you would have thought someone would have seen Fernandez in that position on the edge of the box. If someone had, he would have been closed down, the shot wouldn’t have gone in and we might have held on. That’s the beautiful version of the story.
But in that moment, we switched off, they took advantage and that was the start of the collapse. It didn’t need to happen and that, above any of the substitutions, is what was most damaging.
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We knew Argentina have been in gritty games in this competition, fighting back against Egypt and finding the late winner against Switzerland. They were already so experienced in having to fight until the last breath. When you make changes like the ones Thomas Tuchel did, taking off attackers for defenders, however you reposition your players, it is an admission that the goal is simply to defend. Those changes gave them that extra encouragement. That’s frustrating.
England switched off and paid the price
But everything adds up. If you are switched on for the corner, that first goal doesn’t happen and it’s still 1-0 and we maybe hang on to win the game. Of course, any other thing could have happened too but we went too defensive too early against a team that knows exactly how to win the game in those situations. They were well practised in that so it was all the wrong ingredients for England.
Against Mexico, we were able to deal with it. Jordan Pickford and Dan Burn excelled and we were down to 10 men so sitting back was necessary, we had to do that and we responded accordingly to the circumstances in that game. It didn’t have to be that way last night.
Bringing on Marcus Rashford for Anthony Gordon instead of Ezri Konsa maybe would have told them we still carry a dangerous threat going forward, their mindset would have been different perhaps. But bringing in defenders for attackers signals the end of it. We allowed it to happen.
There will be huge scrutiny on Thomas for that. But I feel it wasn’t his fault the team switched off from a corner, that was the key thing. And that could have happened with 10 attackers on the pitch. The moment we needed to be on it, we weren’t. It is absolutely frustrating.
Yes, he made the decision on the subs. But the question is why did we switch off for the corner. Those are the moments that define it. Stay switched on and it could be a very different story.
I think this is something he will learn from; the experience of going to major finals, doing 95 per cent of things right but that remaining five per cent will be the last 10 minutes of yesterday’s game.
Questions must be asked over Mainoo’s absence
I think the biggest questions will come down to not who didn’t make the trip, but who wasn’t used on the trip. Kobbie Mainoo didn’t play a minute of football in a tournament where our midfield needed freshening up at times. My point of view is Tuchel is still the right man. But the use of players is the big question and only Tuchel and Kobbie Mainoo know the real answer why he wasn’t used.
In the aftermath, any reasonable alternative becomes a really good argument. We don’t know if different changes were the answer. I trust the reasoning behind going so defensive is because he knew what he had available to him.
The difficulty in that trust is when we go 2-1 down and he puts on two attacking players in Ivan Toney and Marcus Rashford when it was too late. We ended up with what looked like a back six at times. There was a desperation to it, the first time we have looked desperate all tournament. And that was when we were leading. We lost the calmness.
Tuchel is still the right man for England
But I come back to it again – players switching off isn’t the manager’s fault. So in that moment when they are looking back and assessing what went wrong, it’s a question for the players who lost focus in that moment. Hopefully in an objective way, they and the coaching staff can look at why that happened and hopefully in two years’ time at Euro 2028, they remember that.
The difficulty now is it is so fresh, the morning after always hurts. But looking at the whole tournament, I wouldn’t have enjoyed this World Cup if it wasn’t for England. They’ve given us a tremendous ride. If Tuchel stays on, I think we still have the right manager and the right group of players in place.
David James wrote for Metro following England’s defeat to Argentina via BetMaster.ie, a top sportsbook in Ireland with in-play betting and boosted odds.