Thierry Henry backed Thomas Tuchel’s decision to replace Declan Rice in England’s 2-1 win over Norway and believes the Three Lions manager would have also been unhappy with Noni Madueke’s performance.
England have reached the World Cup semi-final where they will play Argentina but needed extra time and two goals from Jude Bellingham to see off Norway in their quarter-final on Saturday.
Rice, meanwhile, had struggled with an illness this week and although he kept his place in England’s starting line-up, he was replaced at half-time alongside his Arsenal teammate Madueke, who struggled to make an impact on the right wing.
Speaking after England’s win, Henry said Bellingham and Kane are ‘carrying’ England but stressed that Tuchel deserves a lot of credit for his in-game decisions.
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‘Grit, despite, wanting to, I said before, who wants it the most? You saw the desire of Jude Bellingham,’ Henry told Fox Sports.
‘Bellingham scores but Harry Kane, the amount of time he recovered the ball, he defended for everybody, he held the ball, he gained free-kicks, but you have two guys here who are almost, not almost… they are carrying England, they are.
‘But the way they played you have to give them that. A lot of people are lucky but they are playing with heart and you have to give them that. Well done, England.’
Tuchel, meanwhile, took umbrage over questions about England’s mentality in his post-match interview with ITV and Henry believes the German’s reaction to the line of questioning was justified.
‘I didn’t understand the questions, the guy was telling you it was all effort and mentality and you’re asking about mentality,’ Henry said.
‘He was talking about the technical aspect of the game. I think he wasn’t happy with Madueke, he wasn’t happy with the speed, he wasn’t happy about it, that’s why he changed stuff straight away, you don’t even need to ask that question, if he’s changing stuff it’s because he’s not happy with what’s on the field.
‘And what you cannot doubt about this team is the mentality they have.
‘I will say something about Tuchel because I have an outer body experience when I’m in England, you guys were talking a lot about the guys who are not here, I think you should talk about this team, not about the guys who were not selected. That’s what you need to do because he’s a good coach and he’s doing a good job.’
Asked who he would pick out for praise alongside Bellingham and Kane, Henry replied: ‘Thomas Tuchel.
‘He took Declan Rice off, nobody does that usually, I don’t know what happened, something very important, he does that.
‘What I like about him is he answers straight, he does, he’s not happy with the performance of his team, that’s his right.
‘I have to say something, I’m not English but I could relate to the fighting spirit and it’s very much how they are. Living in England, people were always complaining that they couldn’t relate to that team, but if you don’t relate to that team and the way they play and the way they go about it… hopefully the technical aspect of the game will come but the fighting spirit is back, the one I’ve known for a very long time since I’ve lived in England, I can see the fans are happy to see this team fight at least, and not give up.’
When asked about his decision to replace Rice at half-time, Tuchel admitted that the Arsenal midfielder had been bedridden due to his illness this week.
‘Declan we made a decision at half-time to become more offensive, a bit of an offensive shift,’ Tuchel said.
‘I made the decision when we were 1-0 down and I didn’t want to go back on the decision because of the equaliser, I thought this is the right signal to give the team to have higher positions when Norway defends in a deep block, higher positions, more connections, be closer to the opponent’s box, so we put in Ebs [Eze] and Bukayo [Saka] on the right wing which meant we had to take Elliot [Anderson] or Declan out, knowing Declan’s struggles in the last three days where he was most of the time in bed, I knew he could not survive 90 minutes and there was a possibility of 120 minutes, so I didn’t want to waste another change so the decision was to take Declan earlier out than he needed to go out just to save us another change later down the match.’
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