\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“Was it him? Or was it just the team doing it? Was that his instruction? I’m not sure it was. I’m sure he saw it happen and then he tried to counteract it, but he would have had the praise of all praises from me if his substitutions made the effect and they’d have come away with a one-nil win over Argentina, or if they had broken away and got another. They didn’t; he tried to make a difference by hanging onto it, by the looks of it.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nAllardyce pointed to one of the greatest managers in football history when explaining how England should have approached the closing stages.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“I always remember Alex Ferguson telling me, ‘I will never tell my team to sit back and defend a lead, I’ll tell them to get forward on the front foot and score another goal’.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“I said to him, ‘That’s alright for you with the talent you’ve got’, but we’ve got a lot of talent in the England team.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“If you were like me, challenging at the foot of the Premier League, defending like that was the obvious for us to get a result because we weren’t as good as the opposition.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“England proved up to that point that they were just as good as the opposition. Argentina were scared, frightened; they were fouling us.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nInstead of capitalising on that momentum, Allardyce believes England retreated at exactly the wrong moment.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“It was a game plan without a doubt, but when they got the fear in them when we scored, we didn’t counteract that; we didn’t put the right subs on and press.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nThe former England boss also believes Tuchel now faces a major review of his squad ahead of the next international cycle, suggesting some of his selection decisions ultimately cost England when the pressure was at its highest.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“They now need to sit down and work out which is the best way forward. Whether Thomas Tuchel will stay, which he probably will, how can he make it better?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“For me, it will be his next squad selection because I think that was one of his downfalls during this World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n“There were more experienced international players that would’ve made a bigger difference to the team, coming on as a sub, or starting from the beginning.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nEngland’s run to the semi-finals showed progress under Tuchel in comparison to Qatar’s outing. It ended with a bronze medal after an extraordinary victory over France, but after coming within minutes of a first World Cup final in 60 years, the feeling remains one of what might have been.<\/p>\n
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