Speaking ahead of England’s Nations League clash against Czech Republic on Tuesday, Thomas Tuchel quashed claims his side are defensively fragile, despite conceding nine goals in the last three games.
England were questionable defensively after their 3-2 loss to Spain, with all goals a result of bad communication and decision-making.
Tuchel pointed to individual mistakes rather than structural issues as the reason for his side’s defensive vulnerabilities.
Defence at a higher level than most
“It’s not a concern yet,” Tuchel said regarding his side’s defensive ability.
“I felt that in terms of organised defending, block defending and active defending, we were at a higher level than in many other matches.
“If you want to look at it in isolation on how we did within the structure and in the units of the sides, I was quite happy and I think it was a step ahead.”
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Individual errors
Tuchel added: “We suffered clearly from individual mistakes when we had the ball, especially in the deep build-up, so that is of course something we cannot repeat. Not at this level.
“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 I trust that we can do it.”
Criticism of playing identity
On the criticism of his side’s playing style and accusations of a lack of identity, Tuchel said:
“I think there was a lot of discussion about this before [the Spain game].
“I think we showed our style and we showed our courage. The players showed an identity and they showed it throughout the 90 minutes.
“We gave them a lot of problems. We caused ourselves some problems with individual mistakes. Mistakes can sometimes happen. They shouldn’t, but they did happen.
“We had the world and European champions on the edge of a defeat. In the decisive moments we played our best football.
“We kept attacking when we were a goal ahead. We were even more dominant and more of a threat.”
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