Jordan Henderson, back threes and Harry Kane conundrum: What will Tuchel’s England look like for World Cup qualifiers?
Updated 14/03/2025 at 14:29 GMT
We finally have Thomas Tuchel's first England squad and while there are not quite as many new names as fans might have hoped for, there are still a lot of interesting tactical questions for us to look at. How does Tuchel plan to get the best out of captain Harry Kane? What defensive set-up will he prefer? And why is Jordan Henderson called up to the squad? Pete Sharland ponders these questions.
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Thomas Tuchel’s first squad as England manager threw up a couple of interesting surprises, but for the most part, it was more a continuation of what we saw under Gareth Southgate.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, Tuchel still has over a year until the 2026 World Cup and has plenty of time to experiment, plus he will likely approach things from a different tactical perspective to his predecessor.
The great hallmark of Tuchel’s career has been his tactical flexibility. He has regularly shown himself to be willing to adapt to the players at his disposal rather than impose a rigid structure regardless of the available talent. It will be interesting to watch his first few games to see how he has evaluated these players.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the tactical talking points from the German’s first squad.
The Henderson question
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. A lot of fans were surprised to see Jordan Henderson called up into the midfield whilst the likes of Morgan Gibbs-White and Conor Gallagher both missed out.
Tuchel gave a few clues in his initial reaction to the squad saying, "I think his career and the way he plays now and imposes himself at Ajax is just so impressive, he builds on character, personality and energy that he brings to the team.
"For me, Jordan is a similar call-up for the same reasons as Dan Burn. They carry these values on their shoulders and they carry their teams. It’s absolutely reliable what they bring in terms of energy and this is where the focus is also for us, to build a strong team and a cohesive team. Jordan is a big piece in that puzzle for us."
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"Jordan is a serial winner. He is captain of Ajax. He is available and has played a lot of matches. What he brings to every team is leadership, character, personality, energy.
"He makes sure that everyone lives by standards and with this characterisitic he embodies everything that we try to build. We try to build a team for our fans and a team that they are proud of and can identity with. Jordan embodies everything that we want from this team.
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'He embodies everything we try to build' - Tuchel explains Henderson recall
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"I truly believe that these two things have to be combined. I truly believe Dan Burn and Jordan Henderson have every chance to be with us in the World Cup. Football in general but maybe even more international football is about team spirit.
"It is about building a team that loves to play with each other, that transports the spirit to the fans, the nation and the country. It is about building a brotherhood. We cannot only do this with young players or senior players, it has to be a good balance."
This is a really interesting one. Throughout his career, Henderson has been hailed as a great team-mate whether for club or country. He and Ajax as a whole have been better this season, but he will turn 36 in the first week of the 2026 World Cup.
Does Tuchel believe that Henderson can still play that facilitator role at the highest level? And in that case, does that mean we are locked into seeing England play with a midfield three rather than a two?
Or is he just there as a senior voice alongside someone like Harry Kane to help set the standards Tuchel expects as England manager? Perhaps he will act as cover for Declan Rice as the deepest midfielder. How Tuchel uses him over the next two games will tell us a lot.
Back three or back four? Invert to win?
Most modern managers will tell you they do not really believe in formations and that is something that really only fans and pundits care about. But one aspect of formations managers cannot ignore is how many central defenders they pick.
Tuchel’s favourite formations have often been back threes, and the selection of Dan Burn might point to him trying this again. Burn is an excellent defender and clearly holds an advantage in the air, but he is not known as being the most mobile and could be exposed unless cover is provided by his nearest full-back.
However with injuries in that position, Tuchel might feel more comfortable playing Burn as part of a back three, allowing him to be a dominant presence physically without getting caught out by pacey forwards. There are four other central defenders in the squad as well as three players – Reece James, Kyle Walker and Tino Livramento – who can all play as the right sided centre-back in a three when required, not to mention Rice who can cover there too.
Keep an eye on James and potential debutant Myles Lewis-Skelly too. Many believe James, like his Liverpool rival Trent Alexander-Arnold - who misses this squad due to injury - could end up in midfield in the future, whilst Lewis-Skelly is actually a midfielder by trade who has been assisting at left-back this season. If England play with a four, expect one or both of the full-backs to invert and if it is a three, the wing-backs could get much further forward than they did under Southgate.
Tuchel was tight-lipped on his plan for the March qualifiers, saying, "I don't want to give it away, whether we play with a back four or a back five."
How to get the best out of Kane?
Despite his three goals, Harry Kane had a tough Euros last summer and many wondered whether or not he might actually step away at the end of the tournament. Kane did not, and he has answered his critics in style with a stellar season for champions-elect Bayern Munich in Germany, who are also into the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League after sweeping aside current Bundesliga title-holders Bayer Leverkusen 5-0 on aggregate.
Tuchel supposedly pushed hard for Bayern to sign Kane when he was manager, and he has regularly spoken in glowing admiration of the England captain, both before and after being appointed head coach of the national team. It is clear for this cycle Kane will be Tuchel’s man. Now the question comes, how do you get the best out of him?
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As Bayern's new manager Vincent Kompany has really emphasized pushing Jamal Musiala as close to Kane as possible, almost as a second striker with both the full-backs in his system bombing on. Bayern have been one of the most aggressive teams in Europe this season and whilst many wondered whether Kane would have a place in this style, he has thrived.
The obvious answer is to have a creative, goalscoring player as close to Kane as possible., be that Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Jarrod Bowen, Phil Foden or even the returning Marcus Rashford. The real question is does Tuchel see this as part of a back-three system where you effectively play without wingers but go with two up front? Or is it more of a classic 4-2-3-1 system, similar to what Kompany is doing at Bayern?
With players like Rashford, Bowen, Palmer and Foden, you have plenty of options who are comfortable coming inside to flood the centre of the pitch and create overload opportunities for the full-backs, whilst Bellingham is a natural fit at No. 10 to offer another goalscoring threat for opponents to worry about.
Taking just one other out-and-out striker in Dominic Solanke - rather than also taking Ollie Watkins or Liam Delap - Tuchel is hitching his wagon to the Kane engine. Now he has to figure out how to make that engine hum.
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Attack the best form of defence?
Let’s look again at what Tuchel said in his initial reaction to the squad before his press conference at 11. This is the last thing he said in the video published by England:
"We will prepare for both matches very, very carefully," he said. "We will not over-expect from us in terms of big results and easy matches because this is not the reality. We want to be a tough group, we want to be on the front foot, we want to be in charge of these games and then deserve to win."
Now this is easy to say and we have heard England managers say this before, only to then end up watching what many people would argue was a stodgy, uninspiring style of football. This was barely acceptable to supporters when England were not one of the best teams in the world but with the current talent within the set-up, it is understandable fans want to see more, they want to be excited.
It is a bit of a tired cliche at this point, but being from another country, Tuchel may not be dragged down by the same pressure as someone like Southgate and he has always wanted his teams to be aggressive. If he can unlock the attacking options England have, it might actually be beneficial to their defence.
At times it felt like England’s cautiousness made them too vulnerable in defence as teams knew how to counter them. If England open up and play more expansively under Tuchel, that could in turn alleviate some of the pressure their back line has been under in recent tournaments.
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Thoughts?