Where is Thomas Tuchel?! New England boss should be in charge for Nations League finale – Three Lions are wasting valuable time by sticking with Lee Carsley

Eight players, citing injury, have dropped out of the squad, replaced by youngsters with no previous international experience. The task at hand, getting promoted from Nations League B to A, feels like a low priority, especially with World Cup qualifiers around the corner. A bit like those internal exams you do a year before taking your GCSEs.

And to keep the analogy going, there is a new headmaster on the way, but they are not starting until the new year. In the meantime, the students only have to answer to the supply teacher, who they’ve already realised they can walk all over.

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  Singular focus

  Tuchel and the Football Association (FA) agreed he would begin work in January when he signed his contract back in October, and so Carlsey was always expected to complete the Nations League campaign, which he began in spectacular fashion with wins against Ireland and Finland before suffering a shock home defeat to Greece.

  FA CEO Mark Bullingham explained at the time: “We always said to Lee he would have three camps and we were very clear he’d run the Nations League campaign. When we first spoke to Thomas, he wanted to have a singular focus on the World Cup. So it made sense on both sides for him to start on January 1.”

  Tuchel also reiterated his desire to just focus on the 2026 World Cup and not worry about the Nations League. He said: “It was important for me to narrow it down into a project and not lose the focus, to start in another competition, the Nations League, then go into qualification and the tournament. I wanted to have a clean start and a bit of time to recharge fully, start in January, and start the first camp in March. We will not have a lot of time.”

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    Promotion play-off still beckons

    The German seemed to suggest that taking charge of Nations League games would distract from preparing for the World Cup qualifiers. It was strange logic, as he would still be working with the same players, and taking charge of them against Greece and Ireland would surely help him better understand his squad.

    He pointed out that he will not have much time, and starting when he signed the contract in October would have given him an extra two months. But there is a very good chance he will have to take charge of Nations League games after all.

    If England fail to beat Greece on Thursday, they will almost certainly miss out on top spot and automatic promotion to Nations League A, meaning that rather than beginning their World Cup qualification in March, will have to play a two-legged promotion play-off. The World Cup campaign, supposedly Tuchel’s “singular focus”, would therefore not begin until June at the earliest.

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    Lame duck

    And the irony is that Tuchel and the FA agreeing to delay his start until January makes it much more likely that England will miss out on automatic promotion. Carsley, who made some baffling tactical decisions against Greece in October, feels like a lame duck coach with waning authority.

    He also has a depleted squad for his final few games due to big hitters such as Trent Alexander-Arnold, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Cole Palmer, Jack Grealish and Phil Foden all dropping out of the squad, along with Levi Colwill and Aaron Ramsdale. Some of them appear to be genuinely injured, but would they all be missing the games if Tuchel was in place? It seems unlikely.

    Whether England beat Greece or Ireland will not matter to Tuchel as he is only tied to the job until after the World Cup. It therefore makes little difference to him whether England are playing in the top tier in the Nations League or not in September 2026.

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    Promotion does matter

    But it makes a big difference to the long-term future of the national team. In the first two campaigns of the Nations League, England had to pit their wits against Croatia, Spain, Germany and Italy, as well as Hungary. The Hungarians aside, those are nations used to reaching major finals and winning them. Quite unlike Greece, Finland and Ireland or the rest of the League B teams in other groups, the pick of which are Turkey, Georgia, Wales, Austria, the Czech Republic and Ukraine.

    A common criticism of England over the last three decades has been that they fold against the first quality side they meet at a tournament, and that is not going to change unless they meet these sides more often in competitive games.

    There was another motive for Tuchel starting in January, as his assistant Anthony Barry, whom he worked with at Chelsea and then took with him to Bayern Munich, is still working with the Portugal squad as Roberto Martinez’s No.2. All the same, England fans might have at least expected Tuchel to turn up to the games with Greece and Ireland and observe his new team from the stands.

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    ‘Gun for hire’

    Tuchel will not, however, be at either game, adding to the sense that these games do not matter to him. And if they do not matter to the next coach, then they might not matter to the players.

    Tuchel is also not attending any Premier League games until January. He is under no obligation to do so and he can be forgiven for taking an extended break after leaving Bayern Munich so he can “fully recharge” before diving into such a demanding job. It further creates the impression, though, that Tuchel is, in the words of The Times, a “gun for hire”.

    He is not going to live and breathe the England job like Gareth Southgate did, and he will take little interest in the overall health of the national game. That is not his role, and the FA could point to the fact that Southgate’s holistic approach and overall picture did not help him when he needed to mix things up in the Euros final against Italy or Spain.

    Tuchel has been hired due to his renowned in-game management skills, not for his overall vision. As he joked at his unveiling: “I’m working on my long-term game.”

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    Added pressure

    As he proved at Chelsea, when he turned a demotivated and rusty team that had fallen by the wayside under Frank Lampard into Champions League winners in the space of four months, Tuchel plays a very good short-term game. “We have the ingredients,” he said in October. “We can install patterns and behaviours from club football to push us over the line. We will need luck, we will need to avoid injuries. But most important is to prove ourselves.”

    If he can lead England to World Cup glory at the Metlife Stadium in July 2026, no one will care that he did not want to don a suit and watch a Nations League game at Wembley or show up at Selhurst Park on a Monday night to watch Eberechi Eze.

    His disinterest in these games, however, does call into question another line he uttered in October: “You are a national player every single day. I am a national manager every single day, not just on this campus. We must live up to those standards. Then, special things can happen.”

    Tuchel’s attitude suggests he does not think himself a national manager until January 1. It puts an enormous amount of pressure on him when he does begin work, as well as on the FA, who have made him the highest-paid international manager, shelling out a reported £7.5m ($9.5m) per year to get him. Fall short in the United States, Mexico and Canada, though, and the FA will have to face the fact that they overlooked the overall health of the national football organism in pursuit of glory.