So far there has been something astringent and quietly refreshing about the pared-back stylings of Thomas Tuchel’s new England. There are natural caveats to this, not least the built-in obsolescence of the entire Tuchel project (cautious tactics; he’s a German m8; not picking that player I like, etc, etc). But, for now, the lead-in to the reassuringly generic England double-header against Albania and Latvia has been closer to a soft launch than any other head coach era.
There will be no roaring, no medieval morris dancing tactical revivalism, also no agonising over the meaning of Albion, no old maids cycling to mass, no West End stage play about a gangly German pragmatist and his efforts to impose the 3-4-1-2 formation. Instead this feels like what it is: an 18-month deal, less the blooming of a new romance, more workmanlike middle-aged dating app. We’re all grownups here. We have needs. Let’s just see where it goes. And in the meantime make it feel good, quickly, with minimum waste.
So we saw the front-and-centring of Dan Burn this week, installed in record time as the nation’s sweetheart and all round It-Boy. This is also a smart bit of brand differentiation for Tuchel. No cosy age-group pathways here, no DNA, none of the “we’ve known about Dan for many years” stuff. In its place is a 33-year-old former Asda trolley boy, picked on form and here to do a job. Stand a little closer Dan. Smile.
Other favourite parts? Most obviously the expert defusing of the anthem trap. Tuchel has said he won’t be singing God Save The King because he “needs to earn the right”. It is a masterful take, mainly because this is totally disorientating. The issue here is that Tuchel is too respectful. This is not just a loophole, but a brilliant passive-aggressive rebuttal. Wait. Do any of us have the right? Have you, trouble-seeking interlocutor, actually earned that respect?
In the meantime Tuchel is free to do his crash course in the real stuff of how to win games. This will involve untangling some very familiar tactical issues. First up: it’s always the midfield. Fix the midfield, Thomas. Find the system and personnel to compete against Spain, France or Croatia in the last hour of a tournament knockout game. Everything – the rage, the root and branch stuff, the imagined cultural betrayal – scrolls back from this.
Second, and related, England are always looking for a way to keep the ball, to rest in possession, to survive the dead spells and loss of rhythm that always happen in international football. Southgate’s greatest achievement was simply to calm everyone down. Control is what Tuchel also wants. He has so far kept under wraps his plan for a back four or back three, which was how Southgate resolved the keeping-the-ball issue. We will surely see the three again at some point.
Best of all, hidden in the smiles and the measured chit-chat, was a key moment in Tuchel’s opening round of press that spoke to the big one, the tactical challenge that will define how far he can take that one-shot World Cup run. “Pfft. It’s Harry,” Tuchel shrugged when asked about the captaincy. And Harry Kane is also key to pretty much everything else in these early days.
In part this is baked into the brief nature of the project. With more time, a longer horizon, an England without Kane as their central peg could be sketched out. For now, defibrillating Kane is central not just to whether England can succeed but to all the ways they’re going to try, reinserting fluidity and devil into the attack, balancing other star players, making the entire unit function after the migraine football of the Euros.
Kane is both a gift for Tuchel and a problem to be solved. It is still the case that no English attacker comes close on numbers and all-round game. Some will struggle to accept this fact. There is always a hunger for change. Kane has also had his worst year with England. He was traumatically bad at the Euros, sluggish and blunt, always somehow in the wrong place, to the extent he would surely have been dropped but for the desperate hope he might just click back into shape. The real question is: why was he so bad? Of all the things around England that have been deemed to be Gareth’s Fault, it is surprising that misuse of Kane is so far down the list.
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It will surely helps that Tuchel knows Kane’s mature game from their time at Bayern Munich, and also that he is, relatively speaking, a sophisticated tactician. More to the point, he can actually use his eyes. The fact is Southgate did lose the run of Kane towards the end. The endless complaints in the last few years about Kane’s lack of pace, the inability to run in behind, were entirely justified. But they also spring from the misuse of Kane, the neglect of his best role. Why would you ask him to run in behind anyway?
Kane is a very good deep attacker. This has been the successful template for Bayern, backed by speed on the flanks and midfielders with a willingness to run ahead of the ball. Vincent Kompany has allowed Kane to explore his wanderlust even further. At times he pops up as the third midfielder. Most of the time he looks to spin and play quick passes for Leroy Sané, Kingsley Coman, the full-backs, a whole team set up to make this gambit work.
With England there seemed to be an enduring confusion, the conviction to the end that Kane is actually a centre-forward. For long periods in Germany during the summer he did find himself as the furthest forward player, the rapier, asked to enter a foot race with defenders, a weird doomed attempt to make a slow man run fast. At other times the areas where Kane is good were crowded by an excess of roving No 10s, Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden wandering into their own favourite position, jostling for space like sharp-elbowed stars on the red carpet.
It felt like a self-made problem at the time. It isn’t necessary to hide Kane’s lack of speed when you have a team geared to his actual strengths and less towards aggressively displaying his weaknesses. The attack was never particularly refined under Southgate but in the good years it always had this; deep Kane, swivel and pass, Raheem Sterling or similar running on ahead. Which was, for all its basic lines, one of the more successful England attacks of the last 50 years.
It is a system that demands speed. This is surely one reason why Marcus Rashford has been recalled. Bukayo Saka would be ideal on the right. Bellingham also suits the system if he can replicate what he does at Real Madrid, making runs from deep, acting as the de facto centre-forward in possession.
This is surely how England will attack now. Why would Tuchel try to pull something else out of the air when Kane is doing this in the late stages of the Champions League, when there are no other obvious bolt-on attacks knocking about the place, when the Football Association has given him six training camps to make it work. We are Thomas Tuchel’s England, and we will be playing four-two-three-Kane (and similar).
It will surely work better than it did at the Euros. Kane is not that ambling bystander. Southgate was hugely loyal to his captain. But it is just as possible to misunderstand a favoured player. There may also be an issue of managing ego and personality in this, the need to restate team disciplines, to explain to Jude and Phil that this is the way we play. Perhaps Kane himself would be better served as a more vocal alpha-dog leader.
All the more so because this is a vital aspect of making the whole team work, a fudging of the attack that disoriented every other part. Tuchel has performed high-speed repairs before, has propelled Chelsea to a Champions League final with his suitcase still packed by the door. The same but better: this will surely be Tuchel’s first fix with England. And also his best hope.