Thomas Tuchel said England are their own worst enemies after an error-strewn defensive performance saw them beaten by Spain at Wembley.
England's defensive errors under scrutiny
The Three Lions return to action on Tuesday, facing the Czech Republic in Prague, and remain in the hunt for a first Nations League win after they fell foul of a late Spain comeback at the weekend.
A misplaced pass from Nico O’Reilly was the cause of one of the goals conceded, while Marc Guehi was caught in possession for another.
Tuchel defends defensive setup
But, speaking from Prague, Tuchel was adamant his defensive setup was not to blame, admitting England shot themselves in the foot.
“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.”
Call for technical excellence
The German continued, saying he expects technical excellence from his side moving forward.
“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.”
