Thomas Tuchel felt England football team’s “biggest danger” against Spain was themselves but remains confident in his defence ahead of a trip to the Czech Republic football that he says is too early to be considered “must-win”.
The World Cup bronze medallists returned to action 10 weeks after their Stateside efforts in Saturday’s helter-skelter 3-2 defeat to the world and European champions at sold-out Wembley.
England produced some exciting moments in the Nations League opener, but mistakes were compounded by problems under pressure that brought back some memories of the semi-final collapse to Argentina.
Tuchel admits the loss to Spain “puts a bit of pressure” on England but is “nothing we can’t handle” ahead of facing Czechia, who are ranked 49th in the world, in Prague.
“It’s a bit early for a ‘must win’, a bit early in the group for a ‘must win’,” the England boss said. “We always arrive at every match preparing the team with a target to win.
“It’s always the target, it was the target against Spain, it will be the target tomorrow. We respect the opposition, respect their quality, respect the challenge it brings.
“If you play in Prague against Czechia, it will be difficult, it will be emotional, with the support for home team being what it is.
“Like I said, we always prepare for a win, we want the win, but in the (context) of the group, knowing where we want to go, it’s too early to speak of a ‘must win’.
“It would be ideal, but the problem is the opposition on the other side.”
England’s defence will be under the microscope at the Fortuna Arena having followed a flawless qualification campaign by conceding 12 at the World Cup and some poor goals against Spain.
“With a pure set-up of defending, isolated, if you want to look at it isolated within the structure and the units of the sides, I was quite happy and I think this was a step ahead,” Tuchel said.
“We suffered clearly from individual mistakes when we had the ball, especially in the deep build-up.
“Of course, that is something we cannot repeat, especially not at this kind of level. We have to take care about this. We have to be technically absolutely clinical also under pressure.
“We need to improve these things but strangely enough, when we had the ball we were the biggest danger to ourselves around the box because we just had too many individual mistakes.
“Purely in defending, I have no concerns and trust that we can do it.
“Some players of course are not here that would also help in organising the defensive block but I don’t think we have any reason to be concerned.”
Nico O’Reilly was guilty of a lax pass for Spain’s second and is a doubt for Tuesday’s Group A3 fixture. The 21-year-old and fellow defender Ezri Konsa missed training on the eve of the fixture.
“Not sure yet, they missed training because of minor issues, which are still issues,” Tuchel said of the duo’s availability. “They need to be assessed and take a decision Tuesday morning.
“Ideally I would love to put the same team out there. I need to speak with the doctors, physios and the players themselves, see what is responsible and what’s not, then let’s see for tomorrow.”
