England ended 2025 protected by a shield of deceptive strength. They went through qualifying for the World Cup without conceding a goal and secured a shutout during a routine friendly win against Wales. However, clean sheets have been harder to come by this year.
England have kept four in 13 games in 2026, meaning it may not be long before Thomas Tuchel rethinks his suggestion that the way to deal with his side’s lack of control is to embrace chaos. There is, of course, an irony to telling Tuchel to sort out his defence. Isn’t this what we wanted?
England were limp and passive when they lost their World Cup semi-final against Argentina. At least the mindset was positive when Tuchel’s side opened their Nations League campaign with a sprightly but flawed 3-2 defeat against Spain last Saturday. England played on the front foot and led after a thrilling surge.
They had Spain on the ropes but it was unsustainable. Another lead was squandered against elite opposition, and although a lack of ambition was not to blame this time Tuchel still came away with tactical issues to solve before facing Czechia in Prague on Tuesday evening. This is England’s second of four games during this break and they need a win to give themselves a proper shot of reaching the quarter-finals in March.
Croatia await in Rijeka on Saturday and are likely to be tougher than a Czechia side who failed to make it out of a weak group at the World Cup. England could do with a confidence-boosting clean sheet. They were worryingly fragile against Spain, who created an expected goals of 3.08 from open play, and could have been 4-0 down by the time Anthony Gordon cancelled out Lamine Yamal’s early goal.
Neutralising Albania, Andorra, Latvia and Serbia during World Cup qualifying told us nothing. England have since been breached by Uruguay, Japan, Croatia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mexico, Norway, Argentina, France and Spain. They were not tested when they kept clean sheets in World Cup warm-ups against against New Zealand and Costa Rica.
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