Nicky Butt tells Thomas Tuchel to call up Arsenal star after England World Cup exit

Nicky Butt believes England should immediately look to the future following a heartbreaking World Cup exit at the hands of Argentina.

The Three Lions were bidding to reach their first World Cup final since 1966 and struck a significant blow when Anthony Gordon broke the deadlock after half-time.

But England proceeded to retreat and Thomas Tuchel’s defensive tactics backfired, with Argentina scoring two late goals to continue the defence of their World Cup trophy and reach Sunday’s final.

Ex-England midfielder Butt has suggested the FA should effectively write off the next Euros in 2028 and try to build a young team capable of winning the 2030 World Cup.

As part of that masterplan Butt would immediately call up Arsenal youngster Max Dowman to the England squad and play the 16-year-old in ‘every international break from now on’.

Dowman looks destined to become an England regular having broke into Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal team last season, making 13 appearances in all competitions.

The talented midfielder scored a memorable goal against Everton in March and his performances in general even led to calls for Dowman to be included in Tuchel’s World Cup squad.

While that did not materialise, Butt wants Dowman to feature heavily for England at the next available opportunity as part of a plan to create a squad with ‘the right mentality’ to win major trophies.

‘It’s not about changing the manager, England are never going to win anything with the mentality of our players and the way we play football right from a young age,’ Butt said on The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast, sponsored by Midnite.

‘I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in academy football since I was young and when we went to South America, you would watch their youth teams out there and they want to win every tournament they play in.

‘Our mentality is we’re trying to develop the players. I get development, I’ve been in development programmes, but what we don’t do is develop winners.

‘You can’t develop players and then just expect them to become winners at 22 or 23, you’ve got to develop teams that can win football games and we don’t do that.

‘If I was in charge I would bring a manager in who understands we might lose the next tournament – we’ve been losing tournaments for 60 years – so accept we lose the next tournament but understand we need to win the one after that.

‘To do that you’ve got to pick young players now. We need to start picking the young players now even if that means they’re going to lose their first major tournament.

‘You’ve got to take a few steps backwards to move forwards and we’re losing anyway. We’re losing in tournaments anyway so you might as well lose with young lads who are going to get more experienced in tournament football to then get to the end game.

‘Go throw Max Dowman in and play him in every single England game, play him in every international break from now on.

‘We haven’t got the players with the right mentality so we need to make them. You don’t make those players at 22 or 23, you make them at 15 and 16.’

Butt’s former Manchester United and England teammate Paul Scholes added: ‘Max Dowman will definitely be around for the next tournament.’

Tuchel defended his tactics during England’s semi-final defeat to Argentina and said the problem was instead with English football’s DNA.

‘In this moment my feeling was no structure in the world could have helped us,’ Tuchel said. ‘Because actually we were too passive and we were not physical enough.

‘I haven’t seen the data yet, but I think just right after the goal the momentum swings completely and ball possession drops dramatically.

‘We couldn’t find any duels anymore; that’s why we dropped deeper and deeper. It was never the plan, but it happened.

‘(We) couldn’t stop the runners from the second line, the midfielders, through our gaps, and the deliveries were on the highest level.

‘You need to get back on the ball; otherwise you cannot break the pressure, and you cannot get the momentum back.

‘I think ball possession plays a crucial role; it’s maybe not in our DNA like it is in our Spanish DNA or in our Argentinian-Brazilian DNA, to take the ball and control the game with the ball.’

Reigning champions Argentina face Spain in the World Cup final on Sunday after the European champions knocked out France.

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