Trust is a two-way street. Players need to trust their manager AND a manager needs to trust his players. Tuchel did not trust his players to play out the rest of the SF. The players trusted Tuchel to make good decisions and he did not.

OTD - the Yeovil player behind Bailham has a blue shirt, even though his team mates have red shirts. All if them should of course have green shirts.

Elite players should be good enough to adapt to most circumstances once they’re over the white line there’s only so much input a manager can give

We did look very good all over the pitch last night. Hopefully Tuchel is rebuilding the squad’s confidence in him.

lol Spit

I dont know whose worse tuchel for his one mistake or the Dons trust?:-)

Going defensive isn’t inherently wrong we just did it so badly because Tuchel just threw more defenders into our box and pulled all outfield players back too deep. We invited wave after wave of pressure with no escape route and with so many players back inside the box there were still massive gaps (their winner was an uncontested header.)

Like it or not defences win you things like the Euros, even Greece in 2004 won it with an incredibly defensive strategy

I’m certainly not raging about not winning the World Cup. Seems a popular view that if we’d made it to the final then Spain would most likely have beaten us. But Tuchel messed up in the semi-final with his scaredy-cat tactics after we took the lead. That’s where (many) other managers would have done a far better job and that’s where he now has a big job to do to ahead of the next tournament.

It is not about winning at all costs but giving yourself the best chance of winning which is different. We were leading Argentina playing our football and in my mind going all defensive was anti-football for us. Make like for like substitutions and if that didn't prevail then so be it. I enjoyed our 3-2 defeat against Spain because we didn't go defensive at 2-1 and if Kane had scored the penalty to put us 3-1 up it could have won us the match. Tuchel was unlucky against Spain but that is no reason not to abandon going defensive in that moment.

Also fans would hate it if we suddenly became as cynical and anti football as Argentina were in the WC final, win at all costs isn’t what sport is all about

Not many England fans thought they would win the 2026 World Cup. [Link]

I think managers like Pep or Klopp would have won the game v Argentina even if they would have probably lost the game v Spain. That is the difference.

Leamington Pete was spotted on a Facebook recently enquiring about Sheffield Weds tickets so anyone who wants to catch up with him may see him there

Trouble with some England fans is they expect the team to be world beaters and win all competition (thats been happening for 60 years:-) the more realistic fan realises that we are about the 5th best team in the world, (so overachieved in the world cup) sort the defence we will have achance one day

In the end I did volunteer for the ESG before the deadline, 23rd September I think. I got a prompt reply from Gary saying he was going to wait till the end of the week before inviting people. Since then nothing. I don't know if this is the modern approach to hiring for jobs, where you only hear if you got the job or if he is considering his options still. I'm really not concerned either way, if I can help I will, if not needed I am free to criticise or praise candidates as much as I wish. But we do need to get on with the elections.

Yay "Ronan" is back and, speaking of oldies, I just got an invitation in an email from LinkedIn (I haven't logged in for at least 5 years) to congratulate Leamington Pete on 16 years at Leamington FC Supporters Co-operative Limited

I think you’re right Silk, but I also think that if we’d made the final, Spain still would have smashed us, and people would moan about Tuchel then too. I’m not too fussed, I expected England to get to the quarters, and any further would be a bonus - that’s pretty much my expectation for every single tournament now (based on history I guess…).

CW - the mistake made by a lot of Tuchel defenders is to think this is about whether we won that game or the World Cup. There was no rational decision remove Gordon. He had scored and was playing well. And to swop him for a centre back was an admission that we was going to sit back back and defend that lead. If you are going to do that then have a couple of quick forwards on to play on the break - Kane is slow and was tiring. And if you are replacing a tiring Rice actually put on another centre midfielder like Mainoo rather than play a left back there.

The thing about international football is that you can’t go and buy better players you have to make do with what you have. Going forward we have great players but defensively we don’t so the likes of Spain and Argentina are always going to have the edge over us. No manager can overcome that unless they have a lot of luck

Tuchel has fooled a lot of people that he is an elite manager when in reality he is the Tim Henman of football managers. Talented but found wanting against the very best. Poor decision maker when under pressure. He has lost jobs because of this and it is part of his make up.

Seems unlikely Yeovil who have always worn green would have changed to red against us OTD

Did I hear the magical phrase "DT Election"?

Chris Bush scored for Boreham Wood as well.

And speaking of Canada, a certain Owen Goodman kept a clean sheet on his international debut in a 2-0 win v Peru yesterday.