With a lame duck at the helm, it fell to the England captain to deliver the necessary rollocking to those team-mates who have deemed this week’s internationals optional fare.
Harry Kane, the one true authority figure left in an expiring administration, did not hold back as he accused some of England’s eight dropouts – since risen to nine – of “taking advantage” of the timing of the final international break of the calendar year.
“I don’t really like it if I’m totally honest,” Kane told ITV. “England comes before anything, before any club situation.”
So there you are, Thomas Tuchel. Forget the culture wars through which your permanent predecessor had to weave, and even the actual War, which underwrote the more idiotic objections to your appointment as England’s first German head coach.
Instead, after a period of detente under Gareth Southgate, club versus country is back, baby, and with a vengeance, too.
It is tempting to view this particular battle as a one-off product of the FA’s fumbling in allowing Tuchel to kick his start date into 2025.
November international breaks have historically been hit hard by drop-outs, but you suspect this one would have bucked the trend had there been a new man in the dugout to impress.
Maybe, though, this was brewing either way. Certainly, it looks an issue unlikely to slip out the back door with Lee Carsley when he returns to the Under-21s.
Players have never been so vocal about workload, flogging, fatigue and the threat of strikes. For the elite clubs that pay them, a change in England stewardship was always going to be an invitation to push back a little harder, to see where the new boundaries lay.
Southgate had his set firm, but only after years of cultural revamp that bred not only the much-lauded joy and pride at turning out for England whatever the occasion, but also a fear of consequence among those considering not. Loyalty was rewarded and examples made of undue dropouts, while relationships with clubs and their medical teams generally improved.
Carsley was never likely to uncork a grenade on his way out and highlighted those links again in his pre-match press conference ahead of Thursday’s meeting with Greece in Athens.
The managers of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and others no doubt nodded along, having been handed back their star names in cotton wool.
It is hard to imagine Tuchel being quite so diplomatic if dealt the same hand.
There again, he has known the other side of the deal. In October 2021, while Chelsea manager, Tuchel memorably jibed that Southgate must have called Reece James up for the England water polo team, since the full-back was training in the pool while recovering from an injury. (He subsequently pulled out of Southgate’s squad but was fit for Chelsea’s next game, albeit coming off the bench).
“I got used to a lot of stuff in the international breaks and this is how it is nowadays,” Tuchel said at the time. “Are we coaches happy about it and the amount of games our players play for their countries? No, we are not.”
You suspect that the urgency of Tuchel’s brief will see that opinion flip.
He will have 12 matches in charge between his first in March and naming the squad that will try to win the World Cup in the summer of 2026. That does not leave much time for making moral points and crafting culture.
Should one of Tuchel’s best players pull out of two of those games on a flimsy excuse, will he really punish them by leaving them out of two more? Or will it be forgive and forget, the ruthless reality of the single-focus task at hand meaning the priority is getting his best XI on the park as often as possible?
There was one other interesting point on the issue raised by Anthony Gordon during Wednesday’s press conference.
He, like several of those to pull out of the England squad, had been a doubt after going off injured in the Premier League last weekend but declared himself fit to play, with the backing of club manager Eddie Howe. And why might Howe be quite so enthused where other club managers are cautious?
“He’s English,” Gordon said. “I’m sure he wants to see England win.”
The lack of English coaches at the top of the club game may have played a part in Tuchel getting the national job – but it might be made a touch easier if there were a few more of them around now.
