England fell foul of a couple of hefty mistakes from members of the backline in their defeat to Spain last night. Marc Guehi with the first to put Spain in the lead, before Nico O’Reilly gave the ball away on the edge of his own box, undoing all the good work Tuchel’s men had put in to get themselves ahead.
And it is the latter of those two, more specifically the position O’Reilly was playing in at left-back, that I want to discuss.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend Lewis Hall should have started yesterday because, as we know, he did have an injury scare midweek which Tuchel said himself they wanted to be cautious about. But with the Newcastle United man now back in training and ready to go for the Czech Republic game, surely it is about time the Three Lions start using him as their first choice left-back.
Why O’Reilly doesn’t make sense at left-back
I will admit, this isn’t exactly some revolutionary conversation. In fact, England’s left-back debate has been raging on since well before the World Cup squad was even picked.
But, perhaps now more than ever, it is becoming increasingly clear that Lewis Hall is the choice.
Not because O’Reilly isn’t an excellent footballer, I think he’s top quality. But because the circumstances simply don’t align for him to be keeping the Magpies’ defender out of Tuchel’s team.
O’Reilly has spent this season either on the bench, or playing in midfield under Enzo Maresca. There is an argument that he is better in midfield anyway, but the point is, while he isn’t being deployed at left-back domestically, he can’t be the man chosen to do the job on big international stages like last night.
The Manchester City man looked a threat going forward and got the assist for Harry Kane’s goal, but never really looked assured defensively.
For the most part, O’Reilly played like a midfielder who had been shoehorned into left-back, composed on the ball and aiding the midfield by inverting, but that exposed his defensive frailties and Yamal was a constant threat as a result.
Why Hall makes sense at left-back
So that brings us onto all the reasons why Hall makes much more sense.
Firstly, and probably most importantly, Hall is playing at left-back week in week out for Newcastle. Not only that but he has a body of work that proves he can do it on the big stages, against the big players - namely Lamine Yamal himself.
Hall did a brilliant job of preventing Yamal from impacting the game in the Champions League round of 16 first leg last season. In fact, I’d even go as far as to use the term ‘pocketed’, despite Yamal scoring that late penalty.
This season he has been exceptional too, and I think many Newcastle fans would agree that he has been one of, if not the, best player full stop.
This isn’t to say that O’Reilly should never play football for England, or never get minutes at left-back himself as we have seen how well he can do there, but at present, Lewis Hall is simply the better option.
If Tuchel is looking for a full-back who can do that job tucking into midfield, well, Hall is perfectly capable of that without sacrificing his defensive responsibilities. If he wants someone bombing down the touchline, Hall has proven his ability to do that through his partnership with Harvey Barnes. If he wants someone to be defensively solid and deal with a tricky winger, Hall is the man for that too.
As I’ve mentioned, we won’t read too much into the Spain game specifically because Hall had been injured midweek, but there is an interesting distinction to make when looking at other recent England squads.
World Cup snub a sign of things to come?
As we know, he wasn’t selected for the World Cup squad, or the squad directly before that, despite having the best season of his career and better than any of the other left-back options chosen.
That wasn’t particularly well received by many fans and there was a strong feeling that Hall should have been included in the tournament squad. He was fully fit, absolutely flying, and from a Newcastle fan’s perspective, it felt as though he almost single-handedly prevented us from being dragged into a relegation battle.
So the fact that he wasn’t included raises some questions about whether Thomas Tuchel possibly either doesn’t trust him, or prefers the profile of others.
From an outside perspective, it seems difficult to conceptualise why that would be the case. I mean, Hall has a pedigree going forward, has proven on multiple occasions that he is a very capable 1v1 defender and very rarely puts in a performance lower than a 7/10.
But that’s not to say that Tuchel isn’t seeing something that he just doesn’t quite like when it comes to how he wants his England squad to play. That seems like a massive oversight given Hall looks set to develop into one of the world’s best left-backs before long and, if I was the German, I’d be giving Lewis Hall every start possible for the foreseeable future.
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