\nGary Lineker has taken aim at Thomas Tuchel after England’s defeat<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n
<\/button><\/p>\n
Gary Lineker has described Thomas Tuchel\u2019s tactics in England\u2019s World Cup semi-final defeat by Argentina as \u201cunfathomable\u201d.<\/p>\n
England took the lead early in the second half through Anthony Gordon but paid for a negative approach thereafter as Enzo Fernandez struck in the 85th minute before Lautaro Martinez\u2019s stoppage-time winner.<\/p>\n
England boss Tuchel made several defensive substitutions, bringing on Ezri Konsa, Nico O\u2019Reilly and Dan Burn, but they could not stop Lionel Messi setting up both goals from the right wing.<\/p>\n
Speaking on The Rest is Football on Netflix, former England striker Lineker said: \u201cI found it absolutely unfathomable that, if your tactic is to sit everyone deep, you do that against the greatest player ever to play football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s just cementing that game after game after game. Most goals in the World Cup, most assists in the World Cup. And he moves to the right, and you play a back five, and you still don\u2019t go and get tight to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust put someone on him. He had so much space. He just whipped ball after ball after ball into the box.\u201d<\/p>\n
FOLLOW OUR CHELSEA FB PAGE!<\/strong> Latest Blues news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page<\/strong><\/p>\nFormer midfielder Joe Cole cited a negative mentality in sight of victory after England lost a third successive World Cup semi-final.<\/p>\n
Cole said: \u201cIt was deflating, wasn\u2019t it? Because we\u2019ve been here before. I think it\u2019s the same problems. If you ever take England on and get it done, you have to get over the hurdle where the fear of failure just paralyses England teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwelve per cent possession after we scored the goal, that tells you there\u2019s something there. It\u2019s a mindset. We could talk about tactics, substitutions and everything like that, but ultimately it comes from a manager.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo many times, it\u2019s like a panic sets in when we\u2019re nearly there. We\u2019ve got it, and then we just trip over our own feet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuchel signed a new contract to stay as England until the end of Euro 2028 ahead of the tournament, and those plans haven’t changed. He retains the Football Association\u2019s backing.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the Argentina loss, the head coach said: \u201cI have a contract until the home Euros and I\u2019m looking forward to that even like now it is difficult to look that far ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
England flew back to their Kansas City base after Wednesday\u2019s agonising loss in Georgia, where FA chief executive Mark Bullingham praised Tuchel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is heartbreaking to be so close,\u201d he said. \u201cThe players and Thomas gave it everything today and the squad, coaches and staff could not have worked harder during the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to thank them all \u2013 and also give my heartfelt thanks to our wonderful fans here in the USA and at home. We felt your support every step of the way and we are all so disappointed not to go further.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel will not be leading England to World Cup glory after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}