Thomas Tuchel sees Nico O’Reilly as an attacking left-back. He played central midfield in the low-key 1-0 win over New Zealand. O’Reilly obviously played there earlier in his Manchester City development and for England age-groups. “Normally, as a left-back,” Tuchel says of his view of O’Reilly. “But we have nine defenders for eight positions today, and the position from Declan Rice was free.” Rice now reports to England after some rest following Arsenal’s Champions League final exertions.

Tuchel highlighted O’Reilly’s buccaneering strengths from the back. “And even if he plays left-back, he plays as a left-8 and left-10. We saw him many times playing for Pep (Guardiola) in this position for Man City, so we thought, maybe we just do it. But he trains the majority of the time as a left defender. I think both is possible.” This gives some context as to why Lewis Hall was overlooked. Also has Tino Livramento and Djed Spence who can play left-back. O'Reilly *likely* to start left-back v Croatia, inverting into midfield. #ENG #ENGNZL #MCFC

The land of the free-style. Thomas Tuchel said England played “too much freestyle in the first half” of the uninspiring 1-0 friendly win over New Zealand here in Tampa. “On the right side we were lacking width,” Tuchel said. That was partly because he started a centre-forward, Ollie Watkins, on the right wing.

One of Tuchel's many qualities is his willingness to provide detail to situations. He explains. “Players (Watkins) were coming inside in so many moments, (inside) 20 metres of the pitch and narrowing ourselves down, and then slowing ourselves down, and then changing positions for too long."

“It's not a problem to change positions, but to find the position again, so that everyone knows how to start your attack, and then you can just accelerate the game easier. We had a lot of long-range shots which is not our style of play. We played a lot of long balls. We played a lot of long passes. That was not part of training in the last four days. In the second half, I liked (England’s play) more.”

Tuchel said that Jude Bellingham’s arrival at half-time helped. “You can see Jude, for sure, has the decisiveness, the bite, this is the key characteristic (of his). But you can see that he comes from an injury (two months with a hamstring), and he's full of energy, and then happy to be back on the pitch.

"He had his break, unfortunately, in a decisive part of the season, Champions League season, and for the championship in Spain. So this was very unfortunate for Real Madrid and for him personally, but you can see now that he is actually in a sweet spot, he comes back, he's fresh, he wants to play, and he's in top shape”. #ENG #ENGNZL

Eng strong favorite vs NZ; draw remains plausible; NZ hopeful for a surprise. Kickoff 22:00 UTC+02:00.

England 75.1%
Draw 17.6%
Neuseeland 7.3%

#Football #Soccer #ENG #NZL #ENGNZL