NOTTINGHAM, England — Thomas Tuchel has admitted England were “frozen” in their 3-1 friendly defeat to Senegal but insisted there was no cause for panic with the World Cup still a year away.
Harry Kane opened the scoring at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground on Tuesday with a close-rage tap-in after seven minutes but goals from Ismaïla Sarr, Habib Diarra and substitute Cheikh Sabaly meant Senegal became the first African team ever to beat England.
Tuchel made 10 changes to the team that narrowly beat Andorra 1-0 last weekend and England were booed off for the second successive match, despite threatening to equalise late on when substitute Jude Bellingham scored only for VAR to rule out the goal for handball by Levi Colwill.
Tuchel’s first defeat as England boss comes after three consecutive World Cup qualifying victories and the 51-year-old said: “I’m not sure if we did not deserve a little bit more result-wise. It felt a bit frozen, not active enough for a long time over the match.
“[But] we lost a test match so there is no need to panic. We have [played] three qualification games, we have nine points and not conceded. We will be competitive in September, and we will go for two more victories — 100% we will.
“We know more now, we are smarter. It’s tough at the moment. I am the first one to dislike and hate losses like nothing else.
“But it’s not next week. We don’t go next week to the World Cup we go in one year.
“I think by nature it will get more competitive in the nomination process and in the demands for the players to be nominated and to be with us in September, October and November because of the density, because we enter then a World Cup season. I think this comes by nature and from there we go.”
Tuchel’s admission England struggled to perform follows on from criticism of their lack of rhythm against Andorra, raising longstanding concerns that some players perhaps feel inhibited when playing for their country.
Gareth Southgate guided England to back-to-back European Championship finals, a World Cup semifinal and a World Cup quarterfinal during his eight years in charge and Tuchel said: “Expectations come naturally with results and the success that Gareth had with the group and with England. I think it was regular in quarterfinals, semifinals, finals. It comes with it.
“You feel how opponents approach matches against us, what it means to beat us and to compete with us. I heard it because my changing room was next to the dressing room of Senegal. I just asked myself, ‘would we have celebrated in the same manner?’
“And I ask myself, ‘would I have been the first in the dressing room screaming and knocking my fist on some boxes?’ Would the players then have joined or just said ‘what’s wrong with the gaffer? It is just a friendly match, he needs to calm down.
“OK, I exaggerate a little bit but I include myself. I don’t think my players would be so happy and so excited about it, and not because they are not, but maybe because they demand it from themselves. Maybe the latest history brings with it that they think everything is normal, we need to win, we need to win in style and we need to win comfortably, we need to beat everyone and it needs to look easy, we need to be exciting and everything mixed together feels a little bit like it holds us down because I see the smile, I see the liveliness in training.
“I tell you pretty much all the time that I am excited by what I see and I have a strong belief in what we can do. But we miss at the moment, the translation to the pitch. There is another detail into it from my point of view on the sideline — I need to review it — but we had our best and most exciting and most lively phase after we were 2-1 down.
“That just shows me that maybe for some players it was like ‘OK, nothing to lose anymore, nothing to hold onto.’ Suddenly we found gaps, and turns, one-on-ones we could win offensively, go through gaps and have runs and shots.”
