Thomas Tuchel praised “amazing” history-making debutant Myles Lewis-Skelly but wants better from England having started his reign with a Wembley win against Albania.
After being named Sir Gareth Southgate’s permanent successor in October, the head coach began life in charge of the back-to-back Euro runners-up with a World Cup qualification victory on Friday night.
All-time top scorer Harry Kane’s 70th England goal complemented Lewis-Skelly’s fine opener as the Arsenal talent met a beautiful, defence-splitting Jude Bellingham pass with a smart finish.
It capped a memorable man-of-the-match display and saw the left-back become the nation’s youngest ever goalscoring debutant at the age of 18 years and 176 days.
“He was amazing in camp,” Tuchel said of Lewis-Skelly. “He’s full of confidence and very full of humour and such an open and mature character.
“Everything you see on the pitch, you see off the pitch, so he was straight away a part of the group. Very impressive.
“He does it with a natural confidence and this is how he plays football. It’s a great performance.
“He is full of courage, full of quality, and even more so that he could be with his little run behind the line, be decisive and open this game for us even better. Amazing.”
Lewis-Skelly was the standout player on a night when Tuchel wants more than the flashes of quality against well-drilled Albania, who are 65th in the FIFA world rankings.
“We will get better, we will get more rhythm,” the England head coach said. “We will understand better now, I will understand the players better, so where do they feel confident? Where do we struggle? Why is it for us hard to find more runs and to find more aggressive movements into the very last third?
“And from there we will get better, to implement the higher rhythm and be simply look more dangerous also in front of goal.
“But it’s step by step. It was a complicated opponent, they play an unorthodox style and individually, of course, we can have more impact from the wingers, we can play more diagonal through the gaps and not always around the block.
“But I need also to have a look at it if it was really open, or if they defended just so, so deep.
“I re-watched the first goal, and I think Jude played a played a ball against 10 defenders in a depth of eight meters.
“We struggled to find chipped balls and to understand the timing of the runs, but we will get better at this. I’m sure.
“We will look at it, have video sessions, and make sure that we find solutions for it for Monday.”
Latvia, ranked 140th in the world, are the visitors for a match Anthony Gordon looks set to miss with an issue sustained as a second-half substitute on Friday.
“He looks injured,” Tuchel said. “First of all I thought it’s his stomach, but it’s his hip and it does not look good. It’s a bit worrying, yeah.”
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