Thomas Tuchel denied that Manchester City being found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules is a distraction for the club’s England representatives after Nico O’Reilly and Marc Guéhi made costly errors during the 3-2 defeat by Spain.
News that City had been found guilty on all but one of the 115 charges against them broke on Friday afternoon, dragging the attention away from England’s preparations for their Nations League game against the world champions at Wembley a day later. It did not stop Tuchel from starting Guéhi, O’Reilly and Elliot Anderson against Spain but the topic was on the agenda after England’s first game since the World Cup ended in disappointment.
Although England met demands to play on the front foot after collapsing in their World Cup semi-final against Argentina they lived to regret Harry Kane missing a penalty when they led Spain 2-1 in the second half. But while defensive errors proved costly – Guéhi and O’Reilly gifted Spain two goals – Tuchel is confident that the storm encircling City is not an issue.
“I won’t comment on it as it’s an ongoing case,” England’s manager said. “I didn’t make it a topic. It was not a topic for me. I’m just thinking about Spain, and the team and meetings. Not for me. The players have more time than me so for sure I can imagine that they talk about it. It’s good that they do. I don’t think it was a distraction for them.”
Tuchel was not booed by the Wembley crowd and took the positives from a bright England display, but he was disappointed his team could not end Spain’s 39-match unbeaten run. “If we learn from it there are some positives to take from it,” the German said. “We will try to do a review tomorrow. We will highlight the positives. There is stuff we can do better.
“There is no sense in showing individual mistakes or saying please don’t do mistakes. There are things we can do better. We wanted to be the team to beat them. We think we had them. We think we had them at half-time. It is something to build on.”
England went behind when Lamine Yamal punished an error from Guéhi. They led at half-time thanks to goals from Anthony Gordon and Kane, only for the captain’s missed penalty to prove a turning point. Spain displayed their technical class and showed their strength in depth by bringing on Álex Baena and Mikel Oyarzabal to turn the game with two clinical strikes.
“It was a bit of a missed chance,” Gordon said. “I thought it was a great game to watch and to play in, some of the attacking play was at the highest level. But I think in a game like that mistakes cost you. You always feel like it’s you’re giving it away rather than them winning it. They were as good as us and we were as good as them. I’m just gutted about the mistakes.
“I don’t think there is a gap [to Spain] I feel like we’re right there. We can win that game so easily. If the penalty goes in we can go on and win the game.”
Tuchel felt it was a missed opportunity and he explained that his decision to leave Trent Alexander-Arnold on the bench was because of Jarell Quansah’s defensive prowess at right-back. “There was a lot of defending to do on the side,” he said. “We need to close the gap. We needed Jarell’s speed. Jarell did excellent in the week. Jarell did excellent in the World Cup. It’s not his shirt, he has to fight for it, but he came into this camp with a little advantage.”
England are away at Czechia on Tuesday, visit Croatia next Saturday and host Czechia on 6 October before this camp ends. Tuchel picked James Trafford over Jordan Pickford and will give the Leeds goalkeeper another chance against Czechia.
