England: Thomas Tuchel claims Three Lions were a danger to themselves in possession as he plays down defensive frailties

Thomas Tuchel believes England were a danger to themselves on the ball during their 3-2 defeat to Spain.

The Three Lions made several crucial mistakes in their loss to the reigning world and European champions on Saturday and were made to pay with goals from Lamine Yamal, Alex Baena and Mikel Oyarzabal.

Having gone the whole of the World Cup qualifying campaign without conceding, Tuchel’s side have now let in nine from their last three internationals against Argentina, France and Spain.

Despite showing frailties against elite opposition, Tuchel does not think England’s issue lies with their defensive set-up and instead insists that their mistakes have come from causing their own issues in possession.

“It’s not a concern yet,” Tuchel said ahead of England’s second Nations League game against Czech Republic on Tuesday.

“I felt that in terms of organised defending, block defending and active defending, we were at a higher level than in many other matches.

“If you want to look at it in isolation on how we did within the structure and in the units of the sides, I was quite happy and I think it was a step ahead.

“We suffered clearly from individual mistakes when we had the ball, especially in the deep build-up, so that is of course something we cannot repeat. Not at this level.

“Strangely enough, when we had the ball, we were the biggest danger to ourselves around the box because we just had too many individual mistakes. Purely in defending, I have no concerns and I trust that we can do it.”

Tuchel’s comments come off the back of widespread criticism of his tactics during England’s World Cup semi-final defeat to Argentina, where he opted to defend a one-goal lead rather than looking to extend their advantage.

The German 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 following their exit.

It raised scrutiny over England’s footballing identity, but Tuchel believed his players showcased exactly that in the defeat to Luis de la Fuente’s side at Wembley.

“I think there was a lot of discussion about this before [the Spain game],” Tuchel stated.

“I think we showed our style and we showed our courage. The players showed an identity and they showed it throughout the 90 minutes.

“We gave them a lot of problems. We caused ourselves some problems with individual mistakes. Mistakes can sometimes happen. They shouldn’t, but they did happen.

“We had the world and European champions on the edge of a defeat. In the decisive moments we played our best football. We kept attacking when we were a goal ahead. We were even more dominant and more of a threat.

“We were a little bit self-responsible for the break in momentum towards the end of the match. But overall we have a lot of positives to take away.”