"No regrets" - Thomas Tuchel explains why he went so defensive in England defeat vs Argentina

England manager Thomas Tuchel looks on (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

England manager Thomas Tuchel has defended his decision to adopt such a negative approach in the World Cup semi-final defeat against Argentina.

Anthony Gordon scored to give England the lead, but they quickly went quite defensive as Tuchel made a few subs and altered his team’s shape even with quite a lot of time remaining.

As a result, Argentina eventually took control and came back to win 2-1 to book their place in this Sunday’s World Cup final against Spain.

Tuchel has been widely criticised for his tactics, but when he spoke after the game he attempted to explain why he felt he had to try to close the game out this way.

Thomas Tuchel on England’s negative tactics

When asked about his decision, Tuchel insisted he had no regrets and that he did what he felt he had to do against Argentina as they kept finding too much space.

“I analysed the match and I did it a certain way so that’s my responsibility,” Tuchel said, as quoted by BBC Sport.

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“In the moment, no regrets. The team gave everything and we were very, very close. We deserved to be up 1-0.

“We played one of our better matches, maybe our best match in the circumstances. The team was top, we couldn’t get over the line but no regrets.

“I think we saw the mentality throughout the match and the strong group. We played the matches how they were, we played against strong teams in the group, travelled a lot of miles, played at altitude, we played with 10 men, we played in the heat and we overcame every obstacle.

“We were very close today. It’s not the moment to analyse the full tournament, we just went our because we lost a crucial match.”

Dan Burn responds to questions about England’s approach

England defender Dan Burn also spoke after the game about how Tuchel set the team up.

It seems the Newcastle man was sympathetic with the Three Lions boss, and admitted that it was also a response from the players to a certain extent, while for some time it also seemed like it was working.

“I thought we had the gameplan pretty well for the majority of it. But obviously, when we scored, we went a bit passive and dropped off and were ultimately punished for it,” Burn said.

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“We probably conceded too many chances and if you do that, they are going to get goals. Disappointing from us. We have defended games better and seen them out. When you get that close to the World Cup final, that hurts.”

He added: “It’s only human nature a little bit as well. You know how well we have defended leads in previous games. That tends to happen to majority of teams.”

Where do you stand on this? Should England have done better to control the game without just taking off attacking players and sitting back? Or was it the right idea and just a bit of bad luck against a quality side? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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