England 1-3 Senegal: Thomas Tuchel suffers his first defeat as Three Lions are booed off following dire display
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Thomas Tuchel insists that he can handle the pressure and the scrutiny of the England job and the questions that come with it.
It’s perhaps just as well because the fall-out from four dismal and desperate days of international football will now follow him all through the summer.
If England were dire in beating the minnows of Andorra 1-0 in Barcelona on Saturday night, they were worse in losing here. At least in Spain, Tuchel took a World Cup qualifying win to bed with him for comfort.
This time there was none of that. The flaws were different here at the City Ground but still they ran deep and wide and obvious. England as potential World Cup winners a year from now? That just sounds like a very bad joke indeed.
Porous and disorganised at the back, England were yet again unable to dictate the direction and rhythm of this game in midfield.
England have long since forgotten how to control football matches. It’s a problem that runs way back into the end days of the Gareth Southgate era. They have become a team that relies on big moments rather than big performances and at the highest level that will get you nowhere.
Senegal, ranked 19th in the world, are the best team England have faced in ten games since last summer’s Euros final defeat to Spain and at times they embarrassed Tuchel’s side with the quality and understanding of their football in the areas that matter. At times the African team were lovely to watch.
As for Tuchel and his attacking options then the verdict on Ivan Toney would appear to now be in. Already it is clear that it will be Harry Kane or bust in America next summer.
Overlooked at the weekend, Toney was given just a handful of minutes at the end of this game. Indeed for periods of the second half, with Kane taken off, England played with Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze up front. Remarkable.
Meanwhile, at the end, as the boos arrived from a crowd that had earlier come bathed in sunshine smiles, Jude Bellingham – the supposed golden child of English football – chased a fourth official to the tunnel and then lashed out with his foot at a case of water bottles.
The great refereeing crime? To disallow what appeared to be a Bellingham equaliser with five minutes left.
The handball from Levi Colwill that preceded it was there on VAR, though. Bellingham quite simply needs to grow up. He is no leader. Equally, he is the least of England’s problems right now. It’s the football that is killing them and Tuchel already looks short on answers.
At the weekend the manager complained about his team’s attitude. He was also upset at the manner in which his players fell of the pace towards the end of each half. It all sounded deeply worrying. Tuchel is only a few months in the job. What hope is there if his players aren’t prepared to run for him?
Here, with ten changes made from the weekend, there was early improvement. Indeed England took an early lead. Then, at 2-1 down in the second half, they produced twenty minutes of better football and would have equalised had it not been for two very good saves from former Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.
But that was about it. Smeared across the rest of the game was Senegal dominance, either in possession or on the counter. There were too many times when England didn’t have the answers. If they can’t find them in front of their own fans on a cool late spring night in the midlands, what hope will they have in the heat and humidity of America next summer?
With Toney on the bench, Harry Kane started up front with Eze in a 4-4-2. Local favourite Morgan Gibbs-White didn’t get his anticipated start. Senegal could have scored early through Nicolas Jackson – Dean Henderson saving with his legs – and then in the seventh minute England did break through.
Eze won the ball and fed Conor Gallagher and he was able to switch it to Anthony Gordon on the left. The Newcastle player’s shot was straight at Mendy but the goalkeeper made a mess of it and Kane ran the ball in from four yards.
For a while England were comfortable and Gordon should have doubled the lead only to shovel a low Kyle Walker cross wide of the far post. But Senegal had remained dangerous throughout - Henderson saving from Crystal Palace team-mate Ismaila Sarr and then low to his right to from Idrissa Gueye - and when England fell asleep five minutes before half-time they were punished.
Trevoh Chalobah should have played Jackson offside as he ran beyond him and then failed to stop the hooked ball across goal. Walker, meanwhile, hadn’t anticipated the danger and was on his heels as Sarr stole in front of him to score.
The half-time scoreline was fair but Senegal had the initiative and after Habib Diarra spurned a superb chance in the 50th minute, the Africans made good their growing superiority with another counter-punch goal.
Gibbs-White – on as a substitute – was not alert as Diarra ran past him on to a chipped pass down the right and cut in to score through Henderson’s legs when the goalkeeper should have done better.
England were now in desperate trouble and the fear of embarrassment woke them up. Mendy saved from Gibbs-White after a sublime Eze flick and then did so low from Bukayo Saka to his right.
With six minutes left, Bellingham thought he had saved his team, volleying in from Colwill’s knock down. But VAR indicated the handball and referee Stephanie Frappart agreed after a look at the screen.
England were cooked and worse followed as Senegal substitute Cheikh Sabaly scored his team’s third on the break in added time. There was a pattern to their three goals and if England’s players had spotted it they hadn’t worked out to stop it.
In the media room afterwards a group of Senegal journalists celebrated England’s first ever loss to an African nation. ‘It’s not coming home’ was the message. Nobody felt remotely compelled to argue.
