Tuchel keeps faith with England defence for Nations League trip to Prague
Thomas Tuchel will resist making major changes to England's defence in Prague ahead of their Nations League match against Czechia on Tuesday, despite the side going six games without a clean sheet and committing defensive errors in a 3-2 loss to Spain last Saturday. Tuchel said he would stand by Marc Guéhi and Nico O’Reilly even after their mistakes and stressed continuity in his selection.
England arrived in Prague for their second game in Nations League Group A3, with Tuchel acknowledging the team had been “a danger to ourselves” in the defeat to Spain. He expressed concern about individual errors but indicated that wholesale defensive changes were unnecessary. Tuchel also has injury concerns over Nico O’Reilly and Ezri Konsa while signalling he would keep alterations at the back to a minimum.
Tuchel dismissed the idea of a systemic defensive problem in his post-match assessment, telling reporters: “I didn’t see a pattern. It was individual mistakes. I didn’t see a pattern in defending. I think we defended very well in a block when we were organised, but we had just big individual mistakes. But I could not see any defensive pattern that would concern me. "From a purely defensive approach I felt that we defended much more disciplined, cohesive and organised than in some matches in the World Cup. That was a step in the right direction. We constantly pushed out from our middle block, we tried to go into the opponent’s half and pushed out of the deep block. We didn’t suffer too for long periods of time in defending. We never lost our structure. "I will not change now because someone made an individual mistake, and they’ve been good for us through all the other matches.”
Tuchel pointed out that two of Spain’s goals followed Marc Guéhi and Nico O’Reilly losing the ball in dangerous areas and warned those moments must be improved. “We need to improve these things but when we had the ball we were the biggest danger to ourselves around the box because we just had too many individual mistakes,” Tuchel said. “Purely in defending, I have no concerns.” Possible personnel adjustments include Lewis Hall replacing O’Reilly at left-back and Trevoh Chalobah partnering Guéhi if Konsa is unavailable.
The manager also face a selection decision at right-back over whether Trent Alexander-Arnold will replace Jarell Quansah and win his first cap since June 2025; Alexander-Arnold, who did not go to the World Cup, was an unused substitute against Spain. Tuchel spoke positively of Alexander-Arnold’s recent work, saying: “He had a very good training week and an excellent training in Wembley after the match, where he showed that he absolutely wants to play and wants to be with us. "Today was a good training session. Everything is fine. He’s ready to go.”
James Trafford will continue in goal for the Nations League matches as part of a deliberate assessment of England’s options in the position. Tuchel explained the rationale: “We use the Nations League to see where we are with the other goalkeepers. "There was no reason from performances to open up this position for competition. "I think it’s necessary with every other player that we are aware of ‘what if’. If a player that starts a season well, like Traff at Leeds, [he] has the chance to prove it and to play in our style. We just need to see it at some point. We use this competition to actually give him the chance to push on.”
England remain focused on qualifying for next year’s finals and Tuchel warned the defeat to Spain limits how much experimentation he can afford against Czechia, who were beaten by Croatia in their opening game.