Three England stars were 'furious' with Thomas Tuchel decision and 'complained privately'

A trio of England stars 'complained privately' about Thomas Tuchel's decision-making during the country's heartbreaking exit at the World Cup .

Tuchel will pick his squad on Friday morning to feature in League A of the 2026-2028 Nations League campaign, which kicks off on September 26 against World Cup winners Spain. The Three Lions had been on a stellar journey under Tuchel, reaching the World Cup semi-finals, where they lost to Argentina .

Anthony Gordon put the Three Lions ahead in that final four showdown to give England hope of reaching their first final since 1966.

However, the introduction of Nico O'Reilly , Dan Burn and Ezri Konsa cemented the idea that Tuchel 'parked the bus' and planned to hold onto the one-goal advantage. This spelt disaster as Enzo Fernandez equalised with five minutes left to play before Lautaro Martinez headed in the winning goal in stoppage time.

Fans were left incensed with Tuchel's decision-making and defensive approach to the game. This was supported by senior players in the squad as the BBC reported that three stars complained in private about the Germans' tactics.

Sky Sports reporter Rob Dorsett said: "A lot of England’s players, and some of the senior players, I might say, are not happy with the decisions that Thomas Tuchel took," alluding to the fact that six defenders were all on the pitch at one point.

At the time, Tuchel defended his actions and urged his players to pay closer attention to "ball possession" as it wasn't part "of our DNA." Months on, the German has admitted that he changed the squad too early in a bid to ward off Argentina's waves of attack.

Speaking in a documentary on the England app, Tuchel explained: "Argentina then play very, very quickly. Sorry for the language, [they played] f*-it football: ‘We have nothing to lose. Let’s f* it.’ A key moment if I look back at it and what happened to my decision-making, we conceded a big, big chance right before the water break.

"And I thought: ‘We will not survive. This is waiting for death. We don’t have ball possession, we’re not defending good, we’re not defending properly in our 4-4-2. We need help.’

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"I changed to a 5-3-2, we changed the structure. Because I believe we can handle the width better and we still have three central defenders in the middle if crosses still fly in.

"We changed then to a 5-4-1. Even my mindset is maybe like: ‘Let’s just overcome it.’ And it’s too early. Too early for that mindset."

When discussing the decision to make defensive substitutions, the England managed said: "No one is more hurt than me, no one wanted it more. They can endlessly torture you and think: ‘If I had done different substitutions, then we would have won the match.’ You just don’t know it.

"Of course you could [have made attacking changes]. No one knows what would have happened. We could have done it and maybe lost 2‑1 and could have gone: ‘Is he crazy? He finished the game against Norway with a back five, why didn’t he finish the game with five?’