Tuchel tells Bellingham: ‘Accept, respect’ decisions
Thomas Tuchel has said Jude Bellingham must accept his decisions after the midfielder expressed frustration at being substituted in the closing stages of England‘s World Cup qualification win in Albania.
Harry Kane‘s late brace secured a 2-0 victory in Tirana that saw the Euro 2024 runners-up complete a flawless Group K campaign with an eighth win and eighth clean sheet.
Bellingham was among seven changes to Thursday’s win against Serbia and was brought off six minutes from the end of his first England start since June.
The 22-year-old put his arms in the air in frustration just after the second goal having seen Morgan Rogers waiting to replace him on the touchline — a reaction that Tuchel did not particularly like.
“That’s the decision, and he has to accept the decision,” the England manager said. “His friend is waiting on the sideline, so you need to accept it, respect it, and keep on going.”
Asked if Bellingham’s reaction flies in the face of what he has spoken about with regards to behaviour, Tuchel said: “I didn’t see it that way, I’m going to have to review it.
“I saw that he was not happy. I don’t want to make it bigger at the moment than it is.
“I think to a certain degree if you have players like Jude, who are so competitive, they will never like it, but, as you said, my word stands.
“It is about standards and level, and it’s a commitment to and respect to each other, so someone is waiting outside, and we will not change our decision just because someone is waving their arms.”
Tuchel said it is a “bad impression” if individual incidents take attention away from the collective, which has been the focus of England’s perfect World Cup qualification campaign.
It has been an impressive first year under the German coach, who will find out next summer’s opponents at the Dec. 5 draw, having become the first European side to play at least six World Cup qualifiers and win them all without conceding.
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“I don’t dare to think about a starting XI [at the World Cup] because there are so many months to play,” Tuchel said.
“But we learned so much today again, because it was a tough match, it was an emotional stadium. It felt like a cup game as a favourite, and then the underdog has quality and is well-drilled and waits for the chance.
“They have conceded five goals, we scored four [of them] and there’s only one other goal they conceded, so we knew we had to be patient.
“We knew we had to stay positive, don’t get frustrated, accept if a bounce, a second ball goes back to them, and they straightaway put it into their strikers.
“They celebrate corners like it’s already a goal, and stay committed to the basic things in football, and I think this is what we did.
“I just told the guys, I think we constantly progressed throughout the three camps. This is what we wanted.
“Congratulations to them, it was a pleasure to fight with them and push them from the sidelines.
“It’s hard to imagine now to not be on Wednesday, Saturday with them. Very hard to imagine that I will only see them again in March, but they did ever so well.”