Gary Neville and Ian Wright question two Thomas Tuchel decisions after England World Cup draw

Gary Neville and Ian Wright questioned two of Thomas Tuchel’s selection choices after England were held to a lacklustre 0-0 draw with Ghana.

The Three Lions dominated possession in Boston on Tuesday evening but managed only four shots on target as they were held to a goalless draw.

Nico O’Reilly saw a late effort come back off the bar before Harry Kane skied the rebound, while Bukayo Saka saw a curling effort well saved by Benjamin Asare.

If anything, Tuchel’s side were perhaps lucky not to lose the game in the second half, when a reckless foul inside the penalty area by Ezri Konsa went unpunished by the referee.

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England remain top of Group L and in pole position to qualify for the knockout stages as group winners, and Neville was keen to try and take positives from the performance.

‘I’m going to get heavily criticised for this, but there’s part of me that thinks that was a better performance than the game against Croatia,’ he told Stick to Football with Sky Bet.

‘If you could mix together the Croatia game and the Ghana game, you’ve probably got a really good performance.

‘I liked large parts of the game – the control, the order, the chaos had gone. I thought [Marc] Guéhi and [Ezri] Konsa pushing on and stopping counterattacks, I thought they were in control of the match and passed it well.

‘Set pieces were a real opportunity in that game – there were loads of corners and free kicks, and the one Declan [Rice] put round to [Elliot] Anderson for the header, that’s a routine they’ve really worked at, they built that space round the back, and it’s a really poor header.

‘It’ll be interesting to see how that game gets received at home. Those are the sort of games I played quite a few times for England, where we’ve been knocking on the door, we can’t break them down, they’re so deep, and you get criticised for it.’

A stoic Ghanaian performance made life difficult for England, who were reliant upon wingers Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke trying to unlock the opposition’s defence.

And given Ghana’s deep block, Neville is surprised that Tuchel didn’t opt for a trickier player on the wing rather than the pace of Gordon.

‘If we were really analysing that game properly [before], we would have been probably saying, well, Ghana are going to sit so deep that we’re going to have 75% of the ball and it’s probably not suited to Gordon because of the fact he likes that space to run into,’ he added.

‘Maybe you need more of a manipulator. Madueke can dribble a bit, he’s got a jink in him. But I thought five, ten minutes into the second half, I thought I’d have liked Morgan Rogers on the left here, or Eze, someone who can just be a bit more creative.

‘Gordon’s not a dribbler; he’s someone who runs with the ball, but he runs with it, he doesn’t dribble with it, and I think you need someone who can play in tight spaces in that sort of area where you can sort of get them little passes in.’

Meanwhile, Wright was unsure why Tuchel decided to bring man-of-the-match Jude Bellingham off the pitch as England searched for a winner, and said Ivan Toney should have been thrown on to give Ghana a different problem.

‘I’m not sure I would have taken Jude off,’ Wright said.

‘They defended really well. But I think that because they were playing like that, you need to play somebody and play in a way where I’m probably not going to take Jude off.

‘He will take chances and try to get the ball into somebody like a Toney if he’s up front and then you go from there. But we brought the subs on, and were doing the same thing. That’s what it felt like.’

Wright continued: ‘It was a game for Harry Kane and maybe Toney to be up front together. And Jude goes back into midfield with Declan (Rice).

‘Then you’ve got that other striker up there who’s going to cause a different kind of problem. Because again, Harry couldn’t drop off and do his thing, but that was negated today. So we needed something else.’

Speaking after the game, a defiant Tuchel said: ‘We don’t need a wake-up call. Everyone is alert and everyone is fully committed. There can be no doubt. I can assure that to everyone else.

‘There was no overconfidence in our game. Not at all. If there was anything, there was maybe in some moments a bit of over-cautious.

‘It is what it is. But we have four points out of two matches and still a match to play. And we are able to win our last match and we will try to win it, of course. It is very important that the highs don’t get too high and the lows get not too low. And today is not a low, it is just a difficult match.’

England face Panama in their final group game this Saturday in New Jersey.

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