“I’m not so sure…” – Thomas Tuchel disagrees with Enzo Maresca over key tactical decision | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has become a big fan of playing Reece James in midfield, and said he sees the full back’s future in that position. He’s used him there a few times now, almost always in bigger games where he wants another physical presence to back up Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez.

For England Thomas Tuchel has put him at right back however, and when asked for his thoughts on James’ future he made it pretty clear he wasn’t on the same page as Maresca:

“I think we did [use James in midfield] but very, very rarely [when I managed] Chelsea. If you play a dominant match like today he can be like in the last 20 minutes as a hybrid midfielder where he comes from the left or right full back position and helps in midfield to create an overload because he has the quality on the ball to accelerate with his passes, to play chipped balls through, to switch sides. He’s very confident. Once it’s an open game with a lot of transitions through midfield I’m not so sure it would suit him perfectly.

You can see Tuchel speaking in the clip embedded here:

https://twitter.com/HaytersTV/status/1904313935488032949

Tuchel assures fans that no risks taken over James

Reece James fires one over the wall for England.

On the more general subject of the risks of calling James up shortly after his first proper run of games in two years, Tuchel made it very clear that not even the smallest risk was taken on his part:

“There cannot be any doubt about Reece’s quality in itself, it’s the highest level. We were in close contact [with Chelsea] in the last few weeks and were absolutely sure and clear that he trained for several weeks without pause,” the England coach said.

“If he didn’t play it [for Chelsea] was a choice of the club, he wasn’t injured, they protected him, which is fair enough. So we knew he’s in good shape, and we knew he’s in a good space mentally, and that’s what he proved. He was very positive throughout the camp and full of quality and it showed today on the pitch.