Football Daily - Tuchel off to winning start with England

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Mark Chapman hosts the Football Daily Podcast as England beat Albania 2-0 in a World Cup qualifying match in Thomas Tuchel's first game in charge.Senior Football Reporter Ian Dennis provides reaction from Wembley alongside former England players Matt Upson and Leon Osman.Football Correspondent John Murray speaks to the new England boss after the match and also interviews goalscoring debutant Myles Lewis-Skelly.TIMECODES:00:25 - Post-match chat 12:55 - Myles-Lewis Skelly interview 19:30 - Thomas Tuchel interviewBBC Sounds / 5 Live Premier League commentaries this week:Sat 22 Mar - 19:15 - Wales v Kazakhstan in the UEFA World Cup qualifiers on 5 Sports Extra Sun 23 Mar - 14:30 - Manchester City v Chelsea in the Women's Super League on 5 Live Mon 24 Mar - 19:45 - England v Latvia in the World Cup qualifiers on 5 Live Tue 25 Mar - 19:00 - North Macedonia v Wales in the World Cup qualifiers on 5 Sports Extra Wed 26 Mar - 20:00 - Arsenal v Real Madrid in the Women's Champions League on 5 Live Thu 27 Mar - 20:00 - Chelsea v Manchester City in the Women's Champions League on 5 Live

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, I'm Robin Eates. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of the Infinite Monkey Coach. We're going to have a planet on. Jupiter versus Saturn. series of the Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet on. Jupiter vs. Saturn! It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno

and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. The Football Daily Podcast with Mark Chapman. Inglid are off to a winning start under Thomas Tuchel. 2-0, they beat Albania in a World Cup Qualifier at Wembley, Matt Obson and Leon Osmond and John Murray and Ian Dennis. I mean I suppose Matt, look, it was neither exhilarating or disappointing. It was OK.

And yet OK doesn't massively help and we've got 20 minutes to film. That's all we're thinking of, isn't it? What are we going to talk about? I don't know, but it was OK, but I don't know where you'd go with OK. It's OK overboard. It was a difficult game from a spectator perspective. It wasn't something that you're going to go home and remember for years to come. It had all the interest of Thomas Tuchel's first squad and team which I think was interesting with Lewis Skelly, Burn, Rashford in particular jump out with me as players that you know were interesting to be in

the starting eleven. But once we got into the rhythm it was very much that England game at Wembley against an inferior opposition. They're struggling to break them down and it is a little bit flat and I think in tournament football you are going to want to have moments where you just control the game and we want to see more. I know we want to see that energy, we want to see that those moments but it didn't present that today. I'm sure Thomas Tuchel will come away with a good understanding because he has to manage a game like this for the first time. I think that's a really invaluable experience for him and he'll then know what he needs to add into this setup

and this group in order to maybe elevate it to where he wants it. Of course the other thing when you talk about the tournament football Leon is what you have in the main in tournament football is Jeopardy. So when we analyse England through qualifiers, you sort of have to keep in your mind that there really isn't that much Jeopardy, because they are going to be,ring an absolute nightmare at every tournament and Jeopardy therefore creates urgency which creates often greater spectacles. Yeah, conceivably we could lose this game and still comfortably finish top of the group, it's that kind of feeling but you know you have to go out there and they want to win every football match, so there has to be a, you're talking about Jeopardy and a tempo and an urgency to win football matches. We won the football match, once we got ahead there was no urgency

to extra win the football match, if you know what I'm saying. Yes, we want to be entertained, but the first thing was to get into a position where we were getting the job done. I don't think Jordan Pickford had to make a save at all. Did he pick the ball up once or twice? I don't think he used his hands very often. He had one ropey moment with Dan Burn where he bounced off a crossbar. I was off Dan Burn, flicked up off the defender and yes, should maybe could have,

should have probably done a little bit more with it. But no real panic or worry about the situation. And, you know, we were very much in control. A few things that Thomas Tuca will have seen he liked, a few things that he'll have seen that me and Matt were talking about when you're playing against these teams that come to defend, the moment they expose themselves, that's when you need to have, there'll be things that he'll take from this game. But, you know, he's had the squad for what, three days? You know, I don't think you can expect all of these things to suddenly see a different England team.

No, and that's kind of why I'm trying to put it in context, because there may be articles, comment pieces, podcasts, whatever, who are like, well, that wasn't very exciting. But I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. But your question there was interesting though Chapters in the sense that you gave a set of examples as to why the game would be more challenging in the Jeopardy, in the type of team you're going to play, in the field. England have to create that don't they? At home. Yeah, you've got to drive it yourself Which the game won't do it for you

So it's up to the players to drive it. And I think that is tiresome. When you step on a football pitch as a player and you know that you've got this really top game coming up and you know once that starts, this game is just going to, it's going to flow. You don't have to think about how hard you've got to work to force something. You're just reacting and you're living in the moment and things are happening. They're magical football

matches and moments. You don't see many of them here in these kind of situations with England because the actual game doesn't present those conditions. But that's why I posed you the question in the commentary about wanting to see a central defender step forward with the ball to take it into the midfield rather than to give it Rice who's six yards in front of it. But then again the game is so flat, they're so deep, they're so and the midfields on top of them. But if that game is more open and it's between in front, there's more opportunity to do that. It's actually easier to do it able to get a lot of players in the game. We're considering a one nil up in the game that although we want to see, we want to see exciting.

We want to see 10 1 all is it's still a qualifier. We have to win and up nil. You don't really want your center half's wandering out position because we're very much in control of the game, and we've got top players at the top that should

be able to get more and eventually did. I just think overall, we need to be brave enough to lose the ball by putting into areas and by trying to thread the ball, and by making runs and then demanding that you didn't pass me the ball. I know you went safe, I know you kept the ball, but demand that you try and maybe create something and push giving it away. Is there also from the two of you as well? I get all of that, but we've also talked about Jordan Pickford not having a save to make, being in control. There may have been a couple of, I don't know,

whether you'd even go as far as scary moments in the second half But where con's had to make it clear in Challenger or whatever But if you actually think in the main you've taken a fairly early lead, you're in control These are players who, to virtually a man, have had some really intense games over the course of the last Two or three weeks whether that's, you know, Arsenal in Eindhoven putting seven past them or the Curtis Jones involved in Liverpool Paris Saint-Germain or Bellingham involved in going to penalties against Atlético Madrid so if you can just knock it around and take the sting out of it and know you're in control that would partly

be only human nature, wouldn't it? Yes, absolutely. And it would also be managing the game for the conditions for what's coming up. You've got another game on Monday. You're absolutely right. The schedule has been incredibly hectic for a lot of these players. They're playing at high octane, physically draining matches at the top level. And you've got a situation with a team that doesn't want to come out, they're providing no threat, you're in the lead, right, let's just shut this up and get on,

move on to the next one, we've won the game, finished. We're all wanting to see how Thomas Tuchel's counter-attacking plan's gonna happen, what he wants from the wide players, how does he want Kane to play, and there's so many questions and things that we want to see them play but ultimately they've got to play you know manage the actual game itself and I think England did that well yeah because

they've got the job done in with ease just looking at the start 74 percent possession 12 efforts on goals yes on target you know they had three shots not on time we were very much in control of the time from start to finish it's just do we do we demand too much at times? We demand to be entertained. We demand that we win these games five nil and there'll be chances left right and centre because, because it's what we expect, because we know that we're the best team. It's, those games don't happen every single week. You look at, you know, you look at Liverpool, say top of the Premier League at the moment. I know it's Premier League rather than international football,

but Liverpool don't win every game five-0 and entertain every single game. Do you know what that was that was going to be my next point Leon which is this is the equivalent of a of a Saturday three o'clock sometimes of Liverpool at home or Manchester City at home in the past against a team who are 14th and 15th. It hasn't been picked for television. You could probably guess in advance what's going to happen. And it's just parked and you move on to whatever the T-time game is. But because it's England, everything has to be this deep dive, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, it's nonetheless an important game that that team has to do the job, isn't it, Chapters? What we've just been saying is professional.

It's get the job done, do it well, do it to the best of your ability, and if you need to, at some point, manage the game and coast through or know that you've got it and you've just seen the time out for 20 minutes, nothing wrong with that. The players will feel that and manage that, and I'm sure the manager will be fully aware of that as well.

And let's just look at some of those individuals that you mentioned there. Miles Lewis, Skelly being an obvious one, Declan Rice has said to ITV this evening he's fearless, he does everything right off the pitch, I knew he was going to play like that because of how he carries himself, he's kept his feet on the ground and this is only the start. And actually out of everything for a young lad, England debut at Wembley, bearing in mind his senior Arsenal debut was only back in September, he just takes everything in his stride.

Yeah, I mean, he's done everything right tonight, I mean, he was probably yesterday dreaming to play, you know, we were talking about the team wasn't announced overnight, he's probably gone to bed hoping rather than being nervous about it. And I think that probably helped him going into this game. So then you start the gaming as Matt Matt mentioned, he treated it like he was playing for us. And it

was just he was dead relaxed. Couldn't have gone any better. You score, you keep a clean sheet. He wasn't tested defensively at all and to cure this position moving forward. I think he'll have to show that he can, you know, stand up to it defensively in that position.

But that was never going to be what was offered to him tonight. Tonight he had to be good on the ball. He had to be brave. He had to show that he could step in, make forward runs, time and right, be part of a good rotation of the team. And, yeah, it couldn't have gone couldn't have gone any better for him. I thought there were another couple of good performances as well. I thought Esri Konzer looked a really good center half today.

I thought he was the pick of the other players out there. A player who was only his 10th cap, he's been fighting for that position. I think he put in a really good display on and off the ball this evening as well. Just looking at some of the Konzer stuff. And Konzer, it felt like he was just kind of gliding around the pitch picking up the right areas reading the game well whenever there was a situation if somebody else got exposed I thought he backed up really well made a couple of really important interceptions and just was very very solid so I think from that perspective concert had a very a very solid night. Lewis Skelly, it doesn't get much better, does it? It's the speed and the opportunity has fallen to him. There's

no doubt about it. The timing has been great. You know, the amount of injuries Arsenal had originally to get him in the team. England not flush with left backs in the England squad and those doors have opened, but he's had to grab those opportunities and he had as Declan Rice has said he has the the personality and character in order to manage those situations at this stage in his career that's quite rare to be that relaxed and that that capable and you know he looks to be a top player so there's there's big pluses there in the back four which you know going into the last tournament was a talking point where we, you know, everyone thought that that's England's place where they need to really improve. And I think that with these players coming in this kind of

form, it's certainly looking as a stronger defence than what it was. That was only his sixth start, but his first two were actually at right back. So he's played very little game time. Yeah, he can't say, yeah. As a central defender, can't say. Yeah. at right back so he's played very little game time as a central defender constantly. And also Ian, you know, from our time at the Euros and over the last couple of years, England at left back have struggled. Kieran Trippier had to play that role at the Euros. Now once

Lewis Hall is fit you could, without getting too far ahead of ourselves, see a Lewis Hall, Miles Lewis Skelly left-back battle for the next few years, couldn't you? Yes you could. I mean Hall started that game last time out for Lee Carrs' final match against Ireland. But if you think back to other left-backs in recent games, as you say, Trippie was there, a right-back playing on the left side during the Euros Euros but since then you've had Shaw, Colwell, Rico Lewis, Alexander-Arnold played there against Finland and then Lewis Hall against Ireland so that is a position that certainly is still up for grabs and Lewis Skelly with an impressive debut has certainly staked his claim.

Miles Lewis Skelly, England goal scorer this evening is live with John Murray. Yes Mark, Miles Lewis Skelly, 18 years old, England debutant, England goal scorer standing in front of me. How does all that sound? Well that sounds incredible, it still sounds crazy to me even when you say it now so yeah I'm just lost for words honestly. Life comes at you very quickly doesn't it when you're your age? Yeah it's gone so quickly like this past six months has felt it's gone so quick but obviously I stay in the present and I just take every moment as it comes. And as they say in all the old interviews talk us through your goal.

Well all I remember is staying wide rotating with Marcus and I know that Jude he loves to stay on a half turn dribble and then when he makes that eye contact with me and that takes that touch I know I need to threat and yeah it's a great pass from him and just the timing was was very good and then the finish just for the keepers coming at me and just try put between his legs. You've only scored two senior goals you knew how you were going to celebrate when you scored your goal against Manchester City, had you thought about what you might do if you scored tonight? To be honest I didn't even think I was going to score today but I just knew that if the opportunity

presented I was going to let my emotions go and just take taking a moment. When did you find out that you were going to be starting the match? I found out in the morning in a meeting and yeah, when I saw my name on the team sheet my heart started to pound. Maybe you could say there was a bit of butterflies there, but yeah, I was so excited to start. Did you get the message to the family? How many of them were here tonight?

Well, so many messages before the game telling me just good luck and yeah, they're all here tonight So this means a world to them and I can't wait to share the moment with them. Yeah, and well last question You've just done something tonight. You will never ever ever forget haven't you? Honestly, it's incredible. You know, you don't this is the day I'll never forget and Yeah, I just wanna I want to take in this moment as long as I can before I'm on to the next game, you know. You've got a great smile on your face, Miles. Well done tonight.

Congratulations. You can hear the smile, John. You can hear the smile. That was the uplifting of football interviewers I think I've ever done. Brilliant. Excellent. The Football Daily Podcast with Mark Chapman. In focus on the Football Daily every Saturday.

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free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter vs. Sapturne! Well, it's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice after all

of that. It's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history of music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Football Daily Podcast with Matt Chapman. If you look elsewhere, say who else, when you mentioned the player, did you mention Jones? No.

You mentioned Rashford, didn't you? I mentioned Rashford, yes. I thought that was a very interesting starter for England. I felt that he had a body language and a way and a keenness about him that I think Marcus Rashford had lost over a period of time. I think going to Villa he's regained that. He looks like he's enjoying playing football more and that's presented in how he plays. There were moments where it was all a little bit rushed. I think his pace when he's got that cadence with his feet, when he gets going, it's electric.

And it's almost a little bit too quick for him then to get his head up, make the decision, then technically execute it. It was all a little bit rushed at times. So the quality wasn't quite there in the end product. But he has that ability to get up and down. I think England need those players wide that can stretch, that can really force a fallback to think, right,

I'm going to run you in behind. Those questions are still going to be there for Thomas Tuchel. That balance of who will play 10, who will have out wide if he continues to play a similar formation. Because the threat that Rashford caused, maybe Phil Foden didn't cause the same, and there are plenty of players who are missing at the moment. Yeah, I do think that there's no move in Jude Bellingham. I think that he can play anywhere, he can play everywhere, but I think he shows, you know, he's a player that can do it all

from that number 10 position. He can go and be an extra striker, he can make runs from deep, he can come deep and get in possession of the ball. We've seen how he can play on the half turn, twist and turn and spread wonderful passes, which, you know, you have to do all of that if you're going to be the focal point of the team. So tough on Foden, tough on Palmer, tough on others who might want to play that role, because you probably will have Sacher on the right, won't you, if everybody was fit? Yeah, I would. One other on the left.

Yeah, I would. And I think that's where the battle is is going to be fought now for those players to play on that left hand side, because I do also think in tournament football, I think when you've got, you know, once you get there, once you get to that

stage, you know, if you're going to ask Jude Bellingham to be at his best and play every three days or so that might not be you might not always get the best of him. So there might be a game in there where you know, a coal Palmer, a Phil Foden can come in and play and take a bit because we do And you know, it could go anywhere with this Thomas too cool, which is the interesting thing.

But based off tonight, I think that left side front position is the key for England as to who suits that best, what type of player, what they're going to offer to the team, how they're going to occupy the opposition to then have the space for Kane and Bellingham and Saka to get involved. I think that's a key role on that left hand side, being able to stretch teams, run them behind so then other players get short and get the ball, getting that balance right. So yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty much the way it's going to go. Bellingham doesn't have to play every game in between now and, you know, and the World

Cup either. There are opportunities, the next international, one of the others could come and play number 10 and show what they're capable of, but I just think he's such a big game player and a big quality, well, an unbelievably quality player. The producers in the big moment as well. Would you make several changes for Latvia at home? Where do you think he'll be at?

I tell you what, we may find out here because he's with John. Yes, Thomas Tuchel, England's new head coach, standing in front of me. So I've just been speaking to Miles Lewis Skelly at 18 years old, who tonight has done something that he's never done before. And you tonight at 51 years old have done something that you've never done before. A manager in international football. How was it? Very exciting, very exciting, very new experience. Miles put some debuts with me on the pitch that I'm not all alone

so it was my first match and then Burns and Miles' match of course and he did fantastic. It's nothing but impressive the character and the confidence with which he plays football is amazing. And overall, OK? OK-ish, difficult opponent. I knew it before that it can be tough to create chances, it can be tough to score against them. I think we got them in the shape of the Euros. Of course, they come here, they play in front of 80,000 plus in Wembley on a Friday evening. Of course, they play in the role of an under underdog so they did everything to make life hard for us.

We struggled to implement high rhythm, we struggled to implement runs into our games, runs into the opponent's box. Whenever we did it we had goals or big chances and in the second half I felt that we lose the confidence in our structure and everyone tries a little bit on its own and then becomes slower, our match becomes slower and it's more difficult to have counter pressing and to control the counter attacks but okay that's it. And in terms of the players expressing themselves being open at and it can't happen overnight? No, it can maybe also not happen overnight. If I look at our wingers and I see them how they train and what they do in their clubs and it was difficult for them today to play with a full

confidence and to have the impact that they can have. We will encourage them to, we played with wide wingers because we have fantastic players there, but they did not have the influence that we expected from them and it is sometimes like this. So we need to make sure maybe that they have a better timing for the runs and we have maybe shorter connection for 1-2s that they can be more decisive. The 1-1-2 paper planes being thrown down from the stands, which I can tell you Gareth Southgate also got in his first match as the England manager. Does that bother you?

No, I didn't see it. What does that mean? Well, the suggestion being that when people aren't being massively entertained, they will make paper planes and throw them down. Yeah, I can understand you come and you want to see an open match and you see basically a 10 against 10 in the last 30 metres of the pitch. I can understand that it's not the most exciting watch, but still we had to do what is needed to do professionally, keep the counter-attacks to a minimum. This is what we did in the first half, that was very, very good. We took a little bit more risk in the second half, but it didn't work out in the way that we wanted so let's see we go from there. Thomas, satisfactory start, winning start, well done.

Well he was kind of there as a final thought Martin-Leon, he was very honest. I thought he was very honest, you know very to the point, I think that's how he speaks to the media, he will say what he thinks, he clearly did that, things he was happy with, things he wasn't. A little bit in line to what we've been discussing really and that's how it came across. I like the fact that he kind of laughed when John mentioned the paper planes and how the expectations are. I wonder if he missed out on some unique English tendency that he was unaware of. But he was right and he was spot on.

He was spot on. You can't hide it, Chappers, can you? It is what it is. You've got to be professional, which he said, and you've got to do the job, and that's what England did. He speaks to the players like that, speaking to the players this week, words that have been used to describe him,

direct, sharp, intense. I thought you were going to say paper plane then. I don't think he really understood that. No, he's right though. England were very good at stopping the counter-attack in the first half. Matt was saying he wanted Albania to do more. I agree, he was right. England stopped them at source so often in that first half. In the second half they tried to push Miles Lewis Skelly a little bit narrower to try and create an overload in certain areas,

which did open the counter-attack up. But we were still comfortable. Some things he knows work, some things he knows that he will have to maybe tweak or change, but he knew how the game was going to go and he was pleased that the team were professional and got the job done. He had lost a little bit in the second half. I can see why he's saying that that individuality in players started to feel like they wanted to do what they wanted to do and he lost a bit of that structure. That was interesting that he mentioned that after. Matt, Leon, Ian, thank you very much and John as well.

What I would say just fine is quite interesting. If you look at all the scores in the World Cup qualifiers this evening, and I'm only looking at the scores, I haven't looked at stats or anything for each game, none of them sound like a thriller. Cyprus 2-Sat... Well, I mean, listen to this... Is that supposed to make us feel better? Well, a little bit, but Cyprus 2-San Marino 0, Andorra 0, Latvia 1, England 2, Albania 0, Malta 0, Finland 1, Poland 1, Lithuania 0, Romania 0, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1. In fact, there hasn't been a game where both sides have scored, so maybe that's an indication.

We're at the game of the night. You're at the game of the night, and that's maybe the best place to leave it. And we're still not happy. Yeah. This is the football story of the century. It's pandemonium, it's ecstasy. It's an authoritarian regime. For the past 15 years,

English football has been dominated by Manchester City. 8 Premier League titles, 6 league cups, 3 FA cups, 1 Champions League. And more than 100 charges. Somebody turned up at the Etihad Stadium and effectively served papers. I'm Clive Myrie and this is Football on Trial, the Manchester City Charges. They believe they've got irrefutable evidence. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox and we would like to tell you

about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're gonna have a planet on. Jupiter versus Saturn! It was very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts.