The clock is ticking for Thomas Tuchel's England. The World Cup is less than one year away. This is the first international break of the 2025-26 season. And the point is not only that England must play better than they did in June -- and rack up four or even six qualifying points -- but they must look more like an organised, coherent, purposeful team than they have done so far under their new manager.
You might think it is unfair to criticise Tuchel too much this early. He has only had four games in charge, three of those competitive, against Albania, Latvia and Andorra. But Tuchel always knew he was on a tight schedule before the World Cup. And no one who watched the June internationals -- the laboured 1-0 win against Andorra and the 3-1 home defeat by Senegal at Nottingham Forest's City Ground -- thought they looked like a team that was one year away from competing in the U.S.
So ahead of playing Andorra on Saturday night at Villa Park and Serbia away on Tuesday, here are the four issues facing the England manager.
When Tuchel announced the squad for this month's games at a hotel outside Wembley Stadium last Friday (the stadium itself was given over to a Coldplay concert), he sounded like a man who wanted to draw a line under his first two camps as England head coach. Those two were learning experiences, about trying to see as many players as possible and learn about what they could offer.
But now that he has done that, the focus is more on instilling the principles of how Tuchel wants his England to play in the group. So, Tuchel has trimmed down his long list of players who are under consideration, picked a smaller squad for this camp, and even called the players in on Tuesday rather than Monday this week. The goal was to get a more streamlined feel about their work.
This week has been about drilling aspects of how Tuchel wants England to play, the things they will need to be better at if they are to succeed next summer. So as Tuchel explained on Friday, the focus has been on very particular phases of the game: deep build-up when England are in possession, how to press in the opposition half, and how to defend in a "middle-block". "The model starts now," Tuchel said last week, "and it starts on Tuesday."
The challenge for Tuchel and his coaching staff is to make these ideas simple enough that the players can learn them quickly. The challenge for the players is to put their club wiring to one side and adapt to Tuchel's style.
"Everyone needs to learn them because we don't have a lot of time," Tuchel said. "So they need to be easy, understandable, and transferable to the pitch."
Part of the challenge for Tuchel has been that the games he has had with England have been so different from what he will experience next summer. There is no way past this; it is just the nature of the gap between international qualifiers and major tournaments.
But perhaps it is even truer this cycle because of the temperatures players will face next year. Tuchel went to the Club World Cup in the U.S. earlier this summer and came back knowing how difficult it would be. "It was very, very hot, very hostile conditions to train and play," he said. "It's one thing to know it, another thing to play in it."
It will be mild at Villa Park on Saturday and warm in Belgrade next week. But nothing compares to what England will likely face next summer. So they will not exactly be tested under tournament conditions. In his press conference, Tuchel discussed whether England should try to play at Villa Park as they would in Orlando. "I think it's simply not possible," he concluded, saying that he hoped England would have "more intensity, more sprints, more intense runs" this month than they will next summer.
Any conclusions from this week's games, especially Andorra, must keep this in mind.
Everyone knows that Declan Rice will start in midfield for England next summer. The real question is which specific role he will be given, in what system, and alongside whom. The traditional understanding of Rice -- shared by Tuchel himself -- is that he was a natural No 6, playing in front of the defence. But in recent years, he has moved forward at Arsenal, almost becoming a box-to-box player. He is not a true sitting midfielder any more.
Tuchel wants to take advantage of this, but there is another issue: England do not have any other natural No 6s. And Jude Bellingham, who is injured for this camp, wants to take up even more advanced positions than Rice does. This break does give Tuchel the chance to think of some new combinations, most likely Rice and one other in a 'double No 6'. He called up Elliot Anderson and Adam Wharton, only for the Crystal Palace man to get injured before the players met up.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek is in now, as is Jordan Henderson, Morgan Rogers and Morgan Gibbs-White. Tuchel mentioned that John Stones could be drafted in as the No 6, but this is a huge opportunity for Anderson and maybe even Loftus-Cheek to show what they can do.
Bellingham, Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer are all out injured, while Phil Foden has not been selected for this group. They were the young attacking players who Gareth Southgate struggled to fit together at Euro 2024.
It felt like when Tuchel took the job that his time would be defined by how he used them too. But their absence has opened up the space for plenty of other new attacking players who can make their case this month. Kane will obviously start up front next summer, but it feels like at least one other attacking position -- maybe even two -- are up for grabs, especially if Foden does not rediscover his form at Manchester City.
Marcus Rashford looks like the likeliest man to benefit from this, someone who Tuchel has put a lot of faith in already. His 17 England goals and the fact that he has proven he can score at this level look a lot more impressive in a squad where no one else, apart from him and Kane, has more than six international goals.
Eberechi Eze has been rewarded for five excellent years at Crystal Palace with a move to Arsenal, and he offers a very different threat down the left. Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke were both trusted by Lee Carsley this time last year, but now need to show they can make the step up in international football. Two solid games from any of these -- or Jarrod Bowen or Ollie Watkins -- and the selection picture will start to look different.