Other Games - 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup Edition (+ warm-up matches): Villa-watch

[Somniloquism]

Tuchel comes across as a twitchy, thin-skinned, stubborn, slightly unpleasant man. I know he's been a successful club manager, but God knows how he's managed to motivate any of the players he's coached. It's no surprise to me that he wouldn't accept any blame for the result.

It probably explains his lack of time at any job even when successful.

This quote from the end of Bayern resonates.

Tuchel was also criticised by media outlets for his tactical decisions, who said his style of play was "predicated on individualism" instead of representing a collective effort.

[Somniloquism]

[PaulWinch again]

The DNA stuff is nonsense in the sense that it’s just deflection. It’s not uncommon in high pressure games for teams to want to consolidate once they get the lead, especially in the latter stages of the World Cup. So I understand a brief period where they dropped back, but the key failure was at the hydration break, and with the subsequent changes, Tuchel doubled and tripled down on retreating into our box. He says we were too passive and didn’t want control - how does just chucking on defenders, including Dan Burn, help address that.

He fucked up, the players did poorly, but he really fucked up on this particular occasion. He should just front up and then get on with it. I don’t think he should go, and in reality I highly doubt if he were confronted with the same scenario again he’d ever make the same mistake. But it’s easier to get on board with that if he accepted it rather than pointing to some general culture nonsense to deflect.

Spain had a culture of perennial failure until they didn’t.

[LeeB]

I say give it up with high profile, highly expensive club managers. It's not the same job. Scaloni and De La Fuentes have absolutely fuck all club management experience between tham.

[TopDeck113]

Spain had a culture of perennial failure until they didn’t.

And Germany had a culture of perennial success until they didn't.

[TopDeck113]

I say give it up with high profile, highly expensive club managers. It's not the same job. Scaloni and De La Fuentes have absolutely fuck all club management experience between tham.

But then again, the "he only managed Middlesbrough" was often used as a stick with which to beat Southgate.

[Sexual Ealing]

I say give it up with high profile, highly expensive club managers. It's not the same job. Scaloni and De La Fuentes have absolutely fuck all club management experience between tham.

But then again, the "he only managed Middlesbrough" was often used as a stick with which to beat Southgate.

And he got exactly as far as the big shot Champions League winner.

[paul_e]

Players digging in a bit is pretty common, especially against a team containing the best player of all time but the managers job is to fix that, not compound it.

Even then he didn't do the fix in a sensible way because he switched us to, effectively, a 5 at the back but didn't change the forward line to one that was more suited to running into the corners and pressing like maniacs. Watkins on for Kane with an instruction to be an absolute pest, Mainoo on for Bellingham and told to not stop running and push Rogers more central and tell him to try to get on the ball and run at them, force free kicks and relieve pressure.

To play a 532/541 in those circumstances you need legs in the team and had none because Kane can't do it and Bellingham won't. He was just too scared of the shit he'd get for taking both of them off and ended up just meekly surrendering instead.

[TonyD]

Yep.  He bottled it. 

[Pete3206]

Tuchel's position is untenable for me. It was one of the biggest clusterfucks of all time for a match so deep into the tournament. When I see players like Guéhi calling out his tactics, it makes me wonder how the players can trust Tuchel going into the next Euros.