Thomas Tuchel speaks out on Jordan Pickford England row missed by ITV cameras | Football | Sport
However, Tuchel did engage in a heated exchange with England No.1 Pickford as the side struggled to build from the back and also got their tactical approach wrong. It proved a striking moment that was not captured on television by the ITV cameras as Pickford fired back at his boss, with Tuchel admitting they only worked out their system properly after the interval. Tuchel said: “I don’t know what I said to Pickers. Honestly I don’t remember. What we said was just do our things better … nothing needs to be adjusted, we need nothing to develop new or change anything.
“We just need to get it going, try to find the gaps better, in passing, don’t go always around the block and invite the pressure and going back to our goalkeeper and try to push more together. From a middle block to a high press.
“Basically it was about encouraging and reminding them what we wanted to do … the spaces where we want to accelerate the match and we want to win the ball, they are there and we were just not totally free. We were not on our highest level.”
Tuchel admits England appeared overly cautious at times but lauded the manner in which his players adjusted before producing an impressive second-half showing.
Tuchel added: “We just dropped way too early into a deep block. From a middle block … way too early into a deep block. Normally if we go to a middle block it’s not a problem. We have clear triggers to go out of it into a high press. We wanted to have John Stones pushing into midfield.
“They blocked John with their No.9 so maybe they also knew or it was a coincidence. It took us a while to understand that Elliot Anderson can then push.
“That took us quite a while and so we lost a bit of confidence, couldn’t find the right triggers and we had the feeling that we have to protect something and everyone wanted to help and help and help and we ended up too deep and too passive.
“In the second-half, it was much better. We were much more active and aggressive.”
