Chris Sutton has claimed Thomas Tuchel's 'coaching catastrophe' has raised serious questions about whether he is the right man to take England forward after their World Cup semi-final defeat to Argentina.
Tuchel guided the Three Lions to the World Cup semi-final in his first major tournament in charge. But given a remit to end England's 60 years of hurt, he ultimately fell short after losing 2-1 to Argentina, adding another agonising chapter to the nation's World Cup history.
England took the lead against their fierce rivals, with Anthony Gordon prodding them in front 10 minutes into the second half. But rather than capitalise on their advantage, Tuchel ordered his charges to retreat further and further.
The former Chelsea boss then called for the defensive cavalry, with the likes of Dan Burn, Ezri Konsa and Nico O'Reilly all coming on. With just five minutes of normal time to go, England finally ceded as Enzo Fernandez capitalised on their absent midfield to fire in an equaliser. Then, in the second minute of injury time, Lautaro Martinez headed home from Lionel Messi's cross to book Argentina's place in another World Cup final.
Sutton's scathing criticism
Tuchel has taken much of the blame in the immediate post-mortem, and Sutton, working as a pundit for BBC Radio 5 Live, has gone as far as to say it could impact his future in the role. Sutton said: 'That was a coaching catastrophe from Thomas Tuchel. The fact that England get themselves in front and then basically hand Argentina the initiative. Defending deep and another defender on, it's quite a simple game football, you have to get up the pitch.'
'You can't expect to defend for 30 minutes against the quality Argentina had. It's all on the coach where I'm concerned. He made the changes. He was negative, so the question which I'm going to ask is how can you trust Thomas Tuchel to take this team forward?'
'I don't care what anyone says, England have had a generous run in this competition and they have not played well in one 90 minutes. A World Cup semi-final, there's a big opportunity to get over the line against an average Argentina side and they didn't look average in the last 30 minutes, far from it, but I think England helped them with that. I think that was a coaching disaster.'
Tuchel's contract and future
Tuchel was hired as Gareth Southgate's replacement in 2024 with a contract until the end of this tournament. However, after securing qualification to the World Cup, he was handed an extension for two years. Speaking minutes after England's painful exit, Tuchel insisted he had no regrets with his changes. He told the BBC: 'In the moment, no regrets. The team gave everything and we were very, very close. We deserved to be up 1-0.'
'We played one of our better matches, maybe our best match in the circumstances. The team was top, we couldn't get over the line but no regrets. I think we saw the mentality throughout the match and the strong group. We played the matches how they were, we played against strong teams in the group, travelled a lot of miles, played at altitude, we played with 10 men, we played in the heat and we overcame every obstacle.'
'We were very close today. It's not the moment to analyse the full tournament, we just went out because we lost a crucial match.'
