Thomas Tuchel’s England tactics: How might German’s Three Lions play?

But Tuchel is a deep tactical thinker and perhaps too flexible to be anchored to these buzzwords. He is not a ‘philosophy’ manager wedded to one idea like Ruben Amorim or Ange Postecoglou.

At Dortmund he pressed high and hard, only to drop deeper at Chelsea, where he developed a penchant for double number 10s between the lines. At Bayern Munich, tactical fluency never really took hold, yet Tuchel clearly moved towards fast wingers and quick transitions more than in previous jobs.

Even the formation is open to change. He deployed a back three in 55 of his 63 Premier League games for Chelsea but has rarely returned to it since.

There are no absolutes, leaving open the possibility that, for all the talk of a strong tactical vision, Tuchel – like so many England managers before him – will naturally retreat into something altogether more conservative.

His disappointing 14-month spell at Bayern, who finished third in his only full season in charge, was defined by a caution and pragmatism that he, reportedly resisting internal calls to play attacking football, felt forced upon him by a weak defence.

England’s paucity of high-quality defenders, certainly compared to their riches in attack, may ultimately inspire similar caution, especially in an environment that naturally breeds restrictive thinking.

The Didier Deschamps blueprint for international knockout football – a cagey defensive mid-block and low-volume, safety-first attacks – remains in-vogue, and despite his lofty aims, Tuchel could be drawn in, not least because he’s done it once before – and it sparked his greatest achievement to date.