Southampton boss Russell Martin stated on Thursday that “loads of English coaches are capable” of leading the England national team, following the appointment of Thomas Tuchel as the new manager. Tuchel, a former Chelsea and Bayern Munich manager, was officially unveiled on Wednesday and will begin his tenure on January 1. He succeeds Gareth Southgate as the permanent coach and becomes the third foreign manager to lead England, following Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello.
Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham acknowledged that English coaches were interviewed for the position but noted that England was “not in that place” to have multiple homegrown contenders for the national team role.
Former Manchester United captain and England defender Gary Neville remarked on Sky Sports that while Tuchel is the “best available manager in the world,” it is detrimental to accept that he is superior to English coaches. “We are damaging ourselves by accepting Tuchel is better than any of the other English coaches. We are in a rut when it comes to English coaching,” he said.
Wayne Rooney, Neville’s former United and England teammate and now manager of second-tier Plymouth, expressed his surprise at the FA’s decision to hire Tuchel. “He’s a very good coach, but I’m surprised the FA have employed him,” said Rooney, who earned 120 caps and scored 53 goals for England. “What the FA has built has been a great platform for young coaches coming through, so I’m surprised they haven’t gone with one of their own. But, as I said, they have made the decision, and I wish him all the best and hope he does well for us.”
Martin, whose team was promoted to the Premier League in May, described Tuchel as a “brilliant” manager but emphasized that homegrown coaches often face limited opportunities. “There are loads of English coaches really capable of doing the job as well,” he stated ahead of his team’s Premier League match against Leicester on Saturday. “English managers find it really difficult to get the opportunity to manage in the Premier League unless they take a team there a lot of the time.”
“Maybe English managers are not given enough credit or maybe they’re deemed not good enough by the most important people.
“I hope at some point it will be really obvious that there are lots of really good English managers around that are capable of doing it.”
Leicester boss Steve Cooper said he believed in the British coaching pathway.
“Hopefully over the course of time British coaching will continue to improve and we will be right up there with the world’s best,” said the Welshman, who led England to victory at the Under-17 World Cup in 2017.
“In the meantime any opportunity we are given we have to take them and do a good job. Until we do that on a regular basis maybe we shouldn’t say so much.”
Everton manager Sean Dyche said many people would have liked an English coach but believes Tuchel’s appointment is “a reality of the modern game”.
“Each pathway doesn’t always lead to where you want it to. In theory, the idea was to get English coaches, fast-track certain members if needs be, get them through the system, create that platform for coaches going into the system, and therefore managing the country.
“But it’s changed so much, football management, and the view of it. Now they’ve obviously looked at it differently.”
