Thomas Tuchel targets ‘more enthusiasm’ from England against Andorra

Thomas Tuchel likened the challenge of breaking down Andorra to “chewing gum” and wants England to show “more enthusiasm” than they did against the minnows in June’s narrow win.

The road to next summer’s World Cup continues with Saturday’s Villa Park clash against the 174th-ranked side before attention turns to Tuesday’s tough-looking trip to Serbia.

It would be an almighty shock if England head to Belgrade on the back of anything other than a victory considering Andorra have lost all seven of the nations’ previous meetings without so much as scoring a goal.

But the microstate made life hard for Tuchel’s side in June, when the candid coach said his team “played with fire” due to their lack of “seriousness and urgency” in a stuttering 1-0 win.

“I didn’t like, it’s also down to me,” the England boss said as he reflected on a night in Barcelona where his side were booed. “The structure was not ideal to speed the game up.

“We made it a bit too easy for Andorra to find the moments to close us down and to find the right moments to slow our game down.

“We tried already to give some new solutions to the players, to break down the block a bit easier, to be more aggressive.

“But we always have to balance our expectations because Andorra is a well-drilled team. I know it sounds maybe silly, but it is like this.

“It’s a well-drilled team in a 5-4-1. They know what they’re doing. They do this, eight, 10 years I think with the same coach.

“They will know everything about us because everything is available, they will be very well prepared.

“It can also feel a little bit like chewing gum to break a block down like this but in general we have to play with more energy, we have to play with more enthusiasm and so far I’m pretty sure that we will.”

But eagerness is not enough for Tuchel as he wants England’s players to love representing their country – something predecessor Gareth Southgate worked to achieve.

“It comes down again to does the group have the right energy together,” he said.

“Is the group happy to be with each other, is the group happy to go and get going, does the group love to play for England or do they just like to play for England? This will have a huge impact and we are just ready to be well aware of that.”

Saturday’s match in Birmingham should be far more straightforward than the Serbia game threatens to be but Tuchel will not be protecting key players with that game in mind.

The England boss, who confirmed captain Harry Kane will start, continued: “It’s World Cup season.

“We have a condensed period of three camps, competition is on and that means we will start with the team that we trust and with the best team possible for this game, and then we will manage the second game.

“We will not do it backwards and manage (a) theoretically more difficult away game than a home game. We will not start getting caught up in experiments like this.

“Everything that counts is today and tomorrow, and then we do our assessment after the match and see who’s available.

“The players will start anyway to play two matches a week, three matches a week after international camp, so I don’t see a problem why they cannot start one week earlier and play a Saturday-Tuesday.”

John Stones was due to start Saturday’s match at Villa Park, but withdrew on the eve of the match due to minor muscle issue.

Marc Guehi is available at the end of a week that started with the Crystal Palace defender seeing a deadline-day move to Liverpool halted at the last minute.

“Of course we had a chat with him, and he looks absolutely fine,” Tuchel said. “He looks very impressive on the field. He has a couple of very impressive weeks behind him.

“On the sportive side and the performance side, he is the main driver of Crystal Palace’s success.

“He’s the captain and the leader and played very, very impressive in the end of last season and in the start of this season, and continued exactly like this in camp.

“So (he) was very impressive. He handles it with respect and with grace and with a brilliant attitude.”