Jamie O’Hara believes Thomas Tuchel is England’s ‘best chance’ of winning the World Cup and says the players will not have given any thought to his nationality.
O’Hara took issue with the ‘our best against their best’ argument, instead believing that the former Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint Germain boss was the best man for the job.
The German will begin his reign in January on an initial 18-month contract and talkSport pundit O’Hara says England fans should be excited.
“He’s a brilliant manager and we’ve got an unbelievable group of young English talent with some world class players and you need a world class manager to go with that,” said O’Hara, speaking at the Copa del Cure Leukaemia tournament at St George’s Park.
“People have said about him being German but who cares? We would love an English manager but what do you do if they’re not available? It’s one of the biggest jobs in the world. You need someone who can handle the media, deal with the pressure of being England manager and deal with big egos and big players.
“Tuchel was available and has been there and done it. He’s won all the big trophies. As a player, you don’t care where he’s from. You want the best manager to get the best out of the group.
“I’m sure there will be an English manager at some point again but he wasn’t available.
“He loves the English game, he knows the players and we know how he sets up a team. He’s a tournament manager, a top manager and we should be happy with him.”
While The FA has been criticised for not producing a pool of talented, top-level English coaches, O’Hara believes they deserve credit for their bold approach of going for a big, international name.
“The FA’s job is to bring through top, young, English coaches,” he said. “I know John McDermott (FA technical director), I worked with him when he was at Spurs and he knows what he’s doing. He’s a top class guy and he knows his stuff, he’s not got that role by luck.
“He’s worked hard and he’s not an old bod who is an FA man, he knows exactly what he wants to do and he’s picked Thomas Tuchel because he think he’s the right man to get the most out of the players we’ve got.
“Credit to him because it would have been easy to give it to Lee Carsley. We want to win something and we’ve got the best chance with Tuchel.”
For now, Tuchel’s contract will take him no further than the 2026 World Cup in North America. In an era where players are handed absurdly long contracts, Tuchel’s short commitment seems slightly out of kilter but O’Hara believes it was the sensible option.
“Why do you need to give the manager a long contract? His job is to win trophies,” he added.
“It’s not like a club where he needs time to bring in his own players and mould his philosophy. If he doesn’t do the job, you can reassess it.
“He’s got an opportunity to win the World Cup and that keeps it fresh. If he does brilliantly and everyone’s happy, I’m sure he’ll carry on.”
Cure Leukaemia is a UK-based blood cancer charity founded in 2003, working to accelerate the process of bringing life-saving treatments to leukaemia patients by funding specialist Research Nurses across the country
