Anthony Gordon has backed Thomas Tuchel's view that England's players have an inbuilt inability to control matches with possession - and has urged the team to embrace the country's traditional strengths. Tuchel was criticised for England's defensive retreat after Gordon's goal gave them the lead against Argentina in the World Cup semi-finals, an approach which ultimately allowed their rivals to turn the match around in the final stages. Tuchel responded by hitting out at the 'DNA' of English players.
"I think ball possession plays a crucial role; it's maybe not in our DNA like it is in Spanish DNA or in Argentinian-Brazilian DNA, to take the ball and control the game with the ball," he said. Tuchel made those comments despite leaving some of England's most technical players - Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Trent Alexander-Arnold - out of his World Cup squad, and not giving midfielder Kobbie Mainoo a minute of game time during the tournament. However, speaking ahead of England's Nations League opener with world champions Spain, Gordon has backed his manager's view.
"England, as a nation, we don't have that strength, like the Spanish, where we control games like they do," said Gordon in a press conference. "It's not in us." Gordon was speaking at St George's Park, a venue created to develop young English players in a technical style inspired by countries such as Spain, where former FA chief football officer Dan Ashworth outlined what became known as the 'England DNA' - an ironic backdrop given Tuchel's remarks. Gordon, who now plays his club football in Spain for Barcelona, came through that system, starring in the country's successful youth teams, but said: "I'm not sure it's something that can be [taught].
"Playing in Spain, I can speak with an educated view on the way they keep the ball is different. It's much different than I've ever experienced playing in this country. "I'm not sure we can ever get that but we can definitely get better, or maybe go the other way and really play to our strengths, which is play physical, play direct football, and on the counter-attack." "I felt we weren't performing in the matches like we did in training because if we did, we would have dominated everyone, which wasn't the case.
Every match was quite close. Even in the Norway game, I didn't feel like they were really at our level. We could have dominated that game, but for some reason, we just didn't do it."So it makes a lot of sense to me why the manager would then go more safe and more defensive and really tune into what got us through the previous two rounds in that moment [against Argentina]."It might not to other people, but it does to me being a part of the group."I felt like, as players, we could have done more to take the initiative, to control the game.
If we do that, the manager doesn't make the decision [with defensive subs]."So I think everyone likes to blame the manager because that's football. Managers always take responsibility. But in my opinion, one person shouldn't be responsible for a million different decisions that are happening at one time."For me, we had the best team, we had the best players on the pitch in that semi-final and in the last 20 minutes we didn't play the best football.
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