Thomas Tuchel’s demise at Paris Saint-Germain came to a head when he gave an interview to German broadcaster Sport1 complaining about the job.
As well as bemoaning his struggles to keep Neymar and Kylian Mbappe happy, he said the politics involved in the job were draining.
“Sometimes I think, ‘I just want to be a coach,’” he said, in what was to be one of his last utterances as PSG manager.
Well Thomas, now you’re England manager, a job that is anything but just coaching.
The job once famously labelled “impossible” is so not least because, for the majority of the time, an England boss must pick players who are paid and employed by somebody else.
A typically unguarded Tuchel laid his cards on the table on Sunday. Sitting in an upstairs room of Tottenham Hotspur’s state-of-the-art training centre, he sent a firm message to his hosts for the weekend that he would be picking players based on his goals, and not their primary employer’s, or those of any other Premier League heavyweight.
“I take care about the players. We take care about the schedule,” Tuchel said.
“But it would be the wrong signal to tell players now ‘Hey you have tough [club] matches coming up so I rest you now’.
“We have a qualifier to play, we do what’s good for us, we monitor them, we are in contact with the clubs, we are in high level monitoring where the statuses are known and we won’t take any unprofessional risks.
“Because first of all I feel responsible for the players. I don’t want the player to be injured, I want the players to play quarter-finals of the Champions League – all of them – because I want to watch it, I want to see it.
“So this is where it is and in the end we take care about us and the clubs take care about themselves and the main focus is taking care of the players.”
Such words will land harshly on the ears of many managers, not least Pep Guardiola, who said he was “never so angry” as when John Stones returned from England duty injured almost exactly a year ago.
“Before when I was a player, the national team manager called the clubs, now nobody talks,” Guardiola added.
“We are well-paid here, the club pays us, not the national teams. Sometimes you have to respect the clubs.”
Little seems to have changed, with Tuchel insisting he hasn’t had any calls from managers this time around asking for players to be rested or substituted early.
But that does not mean the German should not be alive to the possibility.
Latvia are not a good side. Sorry, but they are not. Last October they drew with the Faroe Islands, and while England were seeing off Albania on Friday, Paolo Nicolato’s side were edging past Andorra, in itself their first away win for three years.
The reality is that Lee Carsley’s Under-21s would expect to beat the Latvians, and Tuchel cannot pretend with a straight face that he needs the full force of his own squad.
How, for example, would Myles Lewis-Skelly feel if a second 90-minute appearance in four days led to a hamstring strain that ruled him out of a Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid in two weeks’ time?
Or what if Aston Villa had to make do without Morgan Rogers in their clash with PSG because he caught a stray stud in the final minutes of the match?
The players might be diplomatic enough to say nothing. It seems unlikely that Mikel Arteta or Unai Emery would be.
Tuchel has stomach for a fight, though, wryly noting that Arteta’s own selection policy does not always seem to give much thought to player welfare.
“A 7-1 first leg and Declan played the next match with Arsenal,” Tuchel said with a trademark grin.
“I didn’t have the feeling that they think so much about us so I don’t think we have to break our heads about this.”
It was a rather brazen statement for a man still taking his first steps along the international diplomatic tightrope.
But this is not a new approach to experienced Tuchel observers. He hated being ”a sports politician“ or ”a sports minister” in Paris and will not be cowed into doing so for England, it seems.
Gareth Southgate reshaped so much about the England set-up, breaking down the club cliques that proved divisive in the past and redefining what it meant to play for the national team. Starting a fight with Premier League clubs at a time when players have never been more tired is a high-risk strategy that could undo much of that good work.
Tuchel must tread carefully.
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