New England manager Thomas Tuchel is an all or nothing hire

That was the irritable line from the sometimes irritable manager on the eve of his sacking by Paris Saint-Germain, an acrimonious split in a career of acrimonious splits.

A politician in sport he is not. But Thomas Tuchel is on the verge of accepting a job that very much blurs the lines between manager and minister.

Herein lies the first tension of an appointment of huge risk and huge potential reward, one that is, therefore, an irresistible hire for any fan who indulges in football as soap opera. The setup for the story that’s to follow could scarcely be more enticing.

Gareth Southgate was the proud Englishman whose statesmanlike persona led a quiet revolution despite glaring tactical shortcomings; Tuchel is the German tactical genius with a divisive streak.

Any which way you look at it Tuchel is the anti-Gareth. Either he is the serial winner and final-stage leader England need to finish the job, or he is the Capello-like intruder here to stamp on the inflatable unicorns and bury England back into a tortuous ‘Impossible Job’ melodrama.

Those are only the extreme ends of how this thing will go but in the climate of English football, where the right-wing media still gnash their teeth and darkness still linger in pockets of Wembley Stadium, it’s hard to imagine the outcome going any other way.

Did the Southgate era really quash England fans’ more carnal instincts or was the flag-waving Starmerism of the last eight years a mere interlude as sinister forces re-emerge? If that sounds like too large a question to pose during analysis of a managerial appointment then Southgate’s remarkable job detoxifying the atmosphere has been undersold. Remember what it was like before. Think about where the country is at today.

Tuchel is not a manager who tends to speak diplomatically, although players and journalists took to him in Germany, France, and indeed England. He is not a man to moralise with the same ambassadorial spirit of Southgate at his best, either, as we can gather from Tuchel’s willingness to take employment at Qatar-owned PSG. His nationality should not matter and we must not let it, but it would be remiss not to wonder what an England devouring itself with culture wars might make of a German in charge. There is a mixture of elements here that some will be keen to stir.

But there is another side to consider. The FA have gambled that Tuchel is the finishing touch to a project built securely enough to require only a brilliant tactical mind to cap it off, and if that’s the case there really isn’t anyone more qualified.

Tuchel won the Champions League with Chelsea and reached the final of the competition with PSG, both times by fusing possession control and complex pressing with surprisingly pragmatic football that brought humility to star players. On both occasions the journey wasn’t unlike Didier Deschamps and France, only with a baseline far higher; a tactical intelligence and dexterity that ensured his teams controlled the game with or without the ball.

Control was the vital missing ingredient from knockout-stage England under Southgate, of course, and this is the point most clearly in Tuchel’s favour. One would hope such a flexible manager (Tuchel holds his formations and playing styles lightly) will rise to the challenge of international football by seeking control without imposing a vision that requires club-level training time.

Whether reactive or not, there are Tuchel trademarks we can predict. Possession will be urgent and decisive, moves carefully designed to create space for sudden gear-changing lurches forward in straight lines. There will be two number tens operating behind a striker, hovering in the half-spaces to dictate the play. And there will be pressing traps that far surpass anything Southgate’s team could conjure.

The England squad seems ripe for all this. England’s surplus of number tens - Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, and Jude Bellingham – is no longer an issue under Tuchel, who loves to swarm the central area with playmakers and coach the rest of the team to revolve around them.

Harry Kane enjoyed his best-ever goalscoring season with tens behind him at Bayern, although if there is an early concern about the tactical fit it’s that England do not possess the pace out wide that Tuchel teams need to counterbalance all that narrowness.

This is one of the reasons - alongside the Deschampian knowledge of knockout football – why Tuchel is likely to implement his Chelsea era 3-4-3, where a back three would allow for penetrating runs from an outside centre-back like Levi Colwill and double number tens can naturally flit around Kane. But that brings its own headaches, among them Bukayo Saka shunted to right wing-back or else dropped entirely for Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Here’s where Tuchel’s tinkering and brilliant in-game management (there’s that anti-Southgate angle again) comes to the fore, and where he stands the best chance of fighting against the forces that drag down every England manager in the end. It’s still a results business after all and Tuchel tends to get them. Just not always.

England’s next incarnation is all or nothing. If it’s like the catastrophe at Bayern then Southgate’s hard work will be wasted. But if an international job simplifies relationships, if removing transfers and the day-to-day PR allows focus on the coaching, then Tuchel can take England that final step. Either way, it’ll be one hell of a ride finding out.

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