Thomas Tuchel’s England squad has achieved an impeccable record in their World Cup qualifying campaign, boasting eight victories and maintaining clean sheets throughout. This accomplishment sets a formidable precedent as they prepare for next summer’s tournament, undoubtedly surpassing the initial expectations of the England coach when he embarked on this journey earlier this year.

The match against Albania proved challenging for England for a significant duration. The Albanian team played with ambition and tenacity, backed by their enthusiastic supporters in a state-of-the-art stadium. However, England exhibited resilience, maintaining their structure, discipline, and vigor. As Albania’s energy waned in the latter part of the match, England’s captain Harry Kane capitalized on the opportunity, scoring two close-range goals. This ensured Tuchel secured his ninth victory out of ten matches at the helm. Not even the minor controversy surrounding Jude Bellingham’s substitution could dampen the team’s success.

MISLEADING SCORELINE

The game was more engaging than the 2-0 score might suggest. With their second-place position already secured, Albania played with a freedom and aggressiveness that perhaps caught Tuchel off guard, offering a more intense challenge than most of England’s group adversaries.

Thomas Tuchel has guided England to a perfect record of eight wins from their eight qualifying matches

The Three Lions ended their campaign with a 2-0 win over Albania in Tirana on Sunday night

SCORELINE MISLEADING

This was actually a better game than a 2-0 scoreline suggests. Albania – perhaps freed up by the fact they were already assured of second place – were more ambitious than most of England’s group opponents and tried to play up in their opponents’ faces more than perhaps Thomas Tuchel expected. 

The home team’s left-sided attacker Arber Hoxha was particularly dangerous and could have scored twice in the second half. With seven of last week’s team rested, England never quite had control of the game and their half-time XG of 0.3 was the lowest of Tuchel’s time in charge. 

Jude Bellingham was England’s most dangerous player playing behind Harry Kane in the much-debated ‘ten’ spot and showed the kind of positional discipline that his national team coach has been asking of him. 

Played in a febrile atmosphere, this felt like a proper test and perhaps the main criticism that we could aim at England was that they lacked any kind of real width. England still won the game, though, and Tuchel will take some satisfaction from the fact the crucial first goal came from a set piece. 

The England coach keeps telling us that they will be important in the World Cup and he may be right. If England produce this kind of 7/10 performance and result in their first group game next summer, nobody will be complaining.

Jude Bellingham was England’s most dangerous player playing behind Harry Kane in the much-debated ‘ten’ spot

TUCHEL AND BELLINGHAM ROUND TWO

Only four days after telling us that England can’t play with Bellingham, Kane and Phil Foden on the field at the same time, Tuchel performed a pretty sharp U-turn by teaming the three of them up for the final half an hour. And with all of them on the field, England promptly scored two goals. 

With the game locked at 0-0, Tuchel clearly felt the juice draining from Declan Rice’s legs and instead of sending on someone like Bournemouth’s Alex Scott for a debut, he asked Foden to use his unique brand of creativity in an attacking eight position. 

Rice had occupied that slot from the start of the game – with Adam Wharton holding at the base on his own – and came close to scoring twice in the opening half an hour. 

Foden then emerged to take advantage of pockets of space that started to appear as Albania tired in the final quarter of the game. That’s the thing about football management. You are allowed to say and do exactly as you choose – as long as it works. 

Bellingham, meanwhile, didn’t look overly happy to be taken off with five minutes left. No surprise there, really. With that I mind, I am not sure Tuchel had to say what he did on the matter at full-time. It really was a minor show of dissatisfaction from a player who has been under pressure and his manager on this occasion may have been best advised to leave the subject alone. We have ended up with some petrol poured on what was a pretty small fire.

KANE KEEPS DELIVERING

The England captain now has more international goals than the great Pele. His two close range goals here took his tally to 78 goals from 112 games. 

Pele scored 77 from 92 so had a better ratio. More importantly, Kane has delivered consistently for Tuchel during the German’s ten games in charge and we can only hope that he emerges from another full-on domestic season to be in decent shape ahead of the World Cup. 

Bellingham was unhappy with being substituted and Tuchel did not need to respond

Harry Kane now has more international goals than the great Pele. His two close range goals here took his tally to 78 goals from 112 games

This was actually a better centre forward’s performance from Kane and he almost followed his two close-range goals with something rather more elaborate, turning two defenders to shoot across goal in the closing moments. Against Serbia last Thursday, we saw far too much of Kane in deep areas, dropping in to his own half in search of the ball. 

He tends to do that when he gets frustrated. Here, he was much more advanced and on a number of occasions he interacted well with Bellingham to get his team-mate in to positions where the Real Madrid player can hurt people. The shape of Tuchel’s team is clear now. 

Against teams like this it’s more 4-1-4-1 than anything else and for that to work England’s leader must stay high rather than drifting back and cluttering up the spaces where England’s creative players need to work..

CAN STONES KEEP ROLLING?

It goes without saying that Tuchel needs his best players to stay fit between now and next summer. But the England manager will be keeping a particularly close eye on John Stones. 

The Manchester City defender was terrific here in that hybrid role that was first identified for him by Pep Guardiola in the Premier League. With the Albania forwards not always keen to press the England back four, Stones was able to step in to midfield and start England playing from there. 

The beauty of that is it immediately moves England ten or fifteen yards up the field and allows them to look for openings from dangerous advanced positions. It wasn’t long ago that Stones, who will be 32 when the World Cup starts, wondered if injuries may be about to being his career to a premature close. 

He has simply had too many of them. But here he showed just how imperious and invaluable he can be when he is on his game. Paired with Dan Burn, Stones understandably played the majority of the football. 

Burn will go to the World Cup. Tuchel loves him. But he will only start games in a crisis. Here, he almost handed Albania the lead with a misplaced pass in the second half. Hoxha really should have given Albania a goal to lift the roof off but instead shot straight at Dean Henderson.

John Stones was terrific against Albania in that hybrid role that was first identified for him by Pep Guardiola

MARCH IS ALL IMPORTANT NOW

Tuchel now heads into that winter dead zone that all international managers hate. He will not see his players again until two friendly games in March and all he can do is hope they come out of the domestic winter schedule unscathed.

It really is ridiculous that English football does not have a proper winter break. The England coach should feel content though. He knows seven or eight of his starting line up for America. Maybe even more if we presume Bellingham will edge out Morgan Rogers and Marcus Rashford keeps his nose ahead of Anthony Gordon.

He also knows how he wants his team to play and will feel that he has got across some important messaging during the last three competitive camps. Not only does he now have Bellingham where he wants him – back in the set-up and motivated – he has also made a couple of other subtle points. 

Tuchel’s squad will not convene again until the March internationals, just months before the start of the World Cup

At full-time he didn’t duck the issue of Bellingham being frustrated at coming off. ‘Yeah he didn’t like it,’ he said. And asked on Saturday about Djed Spence’s show of dissent towards his Tottenham manager Thomas Frank recently, Tuchel was happy to spell out that he wasn’t a fan of it. 

Interestingly, Spence hasn’t played a minute over these two games and will be under pressure for his place when injured players return in the spring. 

With Tuchel’s England, standards have now been set.