Thomas Tuchel resists change against Czechia despite England defensive errors

Thomas Tuchel will resist making drastic changes to his defence despite England going six games without a clean sheet before facing Czechia in the Nations League on Tuesday.

Although Tuchel acknowledged that his side were a “danger to ourselves” when they lost 3-2 against Spain last Saturday, the head coach stood by Marc Guéhi and Nico O’Reilly after their errors against the world champions.

The message was one of continuity as England arrived in Prague for their second game in Nations League Group A3. Tuchel has injury concerns over O’Reilly and Ezri Konsa but is likely to keep the changes to a minimum at the back. James Trafford will continue in goal and Tuchel believes the defeat against Spain was down to individual mistakes rather than structural issues with England’s defending.

“I didn’t see a pattern,” the German said. “It was individual mistakes. I didn’t see a pattern in defending. I think we defended very well in a block when we were organised, but we had just big individual mistakes. But I could not see any defensive pattern that would concern me.

“From a purely defensive approach I felt that we defended much more disciplined, cohesive and organised than in some matches in the World Cup. That was a step in the right direction. We constantly pushed out from our middle block, we tried to go into the opponent’s half and pushed out of the deep block. We didn’t suffer too for long periods of time in defending. We never lost our structure.

“I will not change now because someone made an individual mistake, and they’ve been good for us through all the other matches.”

Two of Spain’s goals came from Guéhi and O’Reilly losing the ball in dangerous positions. “We need to improve these things but when we had the ball we were the biggest danger to ourselves around the box because we just had too many individual mistakes,” Tuchel said. “Purely in defending, I have no concerns.”

Lewis Hall is in line to replace O’Reilly at left-back against Czechia and Trevoh Chalobah will hope to get the nod over Jarrad Branthwaite as Guéhi’s partner in the middle if Konsa is out. England want to reach next year’s finals and losing to Spain means they cannot experiment too much against Czechia, who were beaten by Croatia in their opening game.

The big question is whether Trent Alexander-Arnold replaces Jarell Quansah at right-back and wins his first cap since June 2025. Alexander-Arnold, who did not go to the World Cup, was an unused substitute against Spain.

“He had a very good training week and an excellent training in Wembley after the match, where he showed that he absolutely wants to play and wants to be with us,” Tuchel said. “Today was a good training session. Everything is fine. He’s ready to go.”

Tuchel has explained that starting Trafford in England’s first two Nations League games is to see whether the Leeds goalkeeper can compete at this level. Jordan Pickford, who has been the No 1 since 2018, will return for the trip to Croatia on Saturday and the home game against Czechia next Tuesday.

“We use the Nations League to see where we are with the other goalkeepers,” Tuchel said. “There was no reason from performances to open up this position for competition.

“I think it’s necessary with every other player that we are aware of ‘what if’. If a player that starts a season well, like Traff at Leeds, [he] has the chance to prove it and to play in our style. We just need to see it at some point. We use this competition to actually give him the chance to push on.”