Tuchel reshapes England's tactics after the World Cup
Thomas Tuchel has won 20 of his 26 games in charge of England and, after the World Cup, was asked whether he had seen his vision for the team; his reply was hesitant. Since then he has retained many World Cup ideas while making deliberate tactical and personnel changes during the recent international break.
Over the summer the Three Lions found ways to win but often leaned on scrappy moments rather than sustained dominance, and Tuchel has been clear about the type of team, tactics and patterns he wants. He and assistant Anthony Barry have spoken about borrowing ideas from the Premier League: building up short, enticing pressure, and playing quickly across the middle — whether through powerful carrying or long balls — to find runners in attack against fewer defenders. England tried to execute those concepts at the World Cup with mixed success and have kept many of them in recent matches.
Many of the World Cup principles have persisted but Tuchel, 53, has refined his blueprint rather than rewriting it. England continue to play short from the back to draw opponents before speeding up play to find attackers, but the build-up has changed: instead of giving the ball to two centre-backs and a holding midfielder, England have committed an extra player to the central build-up. Two central midfielders and two centre-backs now seek to counter pressing attackers in a shape that can look like a 2-2 or a 3-1.
That 2-2 base was shown with Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa positioned behind Myles Lewis-Skelly and Elliott Anderson, with Lewis Hall advancing on the left; seconds later Anderson pulled wide into a position normally occupied by a wide centre-back in a back three to create what resembled a 3-1 shape. Lewis-Skelly, on the ball in the middle, then found Anderson in space.
Tuchel has praised Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott, who took turns with Myles Lewis-Skelly to pair with Elliott Anderson in the heart of midfield in Declan Rice's absence. Either player acting as a busy partner for Anderson — offering technical quality and the ability to take turns as a lone holding midfielder — has worked well for England. Anderson, who sat at the base of midfield for much of the World Cup, has been used in a more varied role, dropping to form part of a back three alongside Guehi and Konsa when Scott or Lewis-Skelly pick up the ball from the centre-backs.
That deeper positioning has given Anderson time and space facing forward and allowed him to use forward passing to find attackers quickly. Anderson is a great progressive passer. From these wide areas, facing forward, he can give the ball to attackers looking for it; Anthony Gordon has dropped deep while Morgan Rogers has made a 'counter-movement' or run behind into vacated space, and Anderson has at times been positioned higher with the protection of a midfield partner behind him.
Tuchel emphasised the change in intensity around possession: "We've always played with high energy and a very aggressive style off the ball, to press high," Tuchel explained. "Now we have added another layer. "[Now, our] intensity was very high on the ball. We did a lot of high intensity runs, a lot of counter movements, and invested a lot in counter pressing." Anderson's counter-pressing is an individual example of that shift and wider collective changes have increased England's intensity in possession.
At the World Cup the system often appeared as a 4-3-3 on paper, with two centre-backs and a holding midfielder forming a triangle and on each flank a central midfielder, full-back and winger forming another triangle, while Harry Kane took a roaming role; those wide triangles were the main method of chance creation. Teams, however, could match England three-for-three on the flanks as off-ball runs diminished with fatigue.
In the recent international break England have shown a 3-1-3-3 shape in possession that adds a player at the back and alters attacking dynamics: the wide centre-back now contributes to moves out wide, and the full-back, winger and number 10 are often joined by a striker or holding midfielder, creating a five-player overload on a flank, particularly down the left. England have been more willing to operate asymmetrically, with six players sometimes clustering toward the left, which provides extra bodies to counter-press around the ball and, offensively, frequently yields one or two unmarked players to exploit.
Tuchel has used left-side overloads as a tactical trigger: Kane has dropped into a left-back position as England congest the left, which draws the Czech Republic's team across that side; with the pitch clogged there Anderson seeks a switch to the underloaded right, and in three passes England have found Trent Alexander-Arnold in space on the right. Lewis Hall has stood out in the system, showing chemistry with former club team-mate Anthony Gordon by holding width and allowing Gordon to move infield closer to Kane; Tuchel pointed to counter-movements and zone-swapping between Hall and Gordon as evidence of improvement. The Barcelona winger hugged the touchline for much of the World Cup, being released in behind before crossing it, rather than finding space in the box, but England's wide overloads and Hall's role have seen Gordon operate more centrally and combine with Kane.
Kane's tendency to drop deep has been used as a trigger for runners: he vacates the striker position and pulls a centre-back with him, creating space for wide players to run centrally — a pattern Jude Bellingham and Morgan Rogers have previously exploited and Gordon has more recently benefited from while starting out wide. Gordon's narrow runs from wider starting positions have been mirrored by Saka and Rogers on the opposite flank.
Trent Alexander-Arnold started against the Czech Republic and occupied a wider role for much of that game, which shifted Bukayo Saka into an inside-right position where he looked dangerous and provided goal threat; Alexander-Arnold also assisted Gordon with a cross from out wide. Despite that display, the Real Madrid man was benched for Jarrell Quansah against Croatia, with Quansah and Alexander-Arnold having started together against the Czech Republic on Tuesday. Alexander-Arnold's tendency to position himself out wide has helped give Saka a more fixed central role.
If Tuchel's England can be summarised in one concept it is runs off the ball, which may explain why Alexander-Arnold has sometimes struggled to fit Tuchel's preferred profiles. "Trent is a unique player," Tuchel said. "He is not a runner. "He is not someone who runs through the last line, who does overlaps [and] underlaps. [Saka and Trent] need to find a way to not be too static. On the right side, [we need] movement through the last line - to play with dynamic movement." Against Croatia Saka occupied central areas when Quansah held the width but played as a winger when Quansah moved centrally, and in both cases Quansah made repeated runs beyond his winger. Irrespective of his running, Alexander-Arnold's display on the ball across both games caught the eye and his off-ball movement has shown promising signs; for Tuchel, however, the underlying principles he has pursued since his appointment take precedence and it is up to the players to convince him of their role in it, even as it evolves.