Thomas Tuchel told to calm down in furious rampage at England stars as assistant boss gives damning half-time interview

England boss Thomas Tuchel was seen rowing with Jordan Pickford during the first half of Wednesday’s World Cup meeting with Croatia.

Harry Kane fired the Three Lions in front with his second effort from the penalty spot early on after it was ordered to be retaken.

However, Croatia were level with ten minutes of the first half to play through a fine Martin Baturina strike.

Kane then scored his and England’s second with five minutes of the half to go after getting on the end of Declan Rice’s outswinging corner.

But Tuchel’s men went in at the break level as Petar Musa made no mistake against Pickford from close range on the stroke of half time.

And Tuchel wasn’t happy with Pickford at one stage during the opening 45 minutes in Dallas.

Pitchside reporters heard him saying, ‘you know what you’re supposed to do, do as I told you,’ in the direction of his goalkeeper.

It is understood Pickford pushed back against Tuchel, who had told him to use his right-back, despite being off-balance on his favoured left side.

It wasn’t the first time that Tuchel let rip in the first half, as talkSPORT’s Faye Carruthers reported.

Speaking on talkSPORT’s commentary, Faye suggested that Noni Madueke was also the source of Tuchel’s ire.

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She said: “He has been so animated throughout the first 20 minutes.

“He brought over Madueke at one point, just after he won the penalty, and told him to get higher up the pitch.

“Anthony Barry had to calm him down at one point.”

‘Complicated and confusing first half’

Assistant manager Anthony Barry wasn’t happy with England at the break.

He told ITV in a half-time interview: “A complicated and confusing first half from us, really, I think a lot of nervous energy early on.

“Maybe that should be accepted, and maybe expected in the opening game of a World Cup.

“From there, then we made some decisions where the energy was not free in our mind, playing long when we should play short, playing short when we should play long, really not playing through the gaps, so not allowing us to accelerate our game the way we wanted to.

“Then you think the penalty would free us up, allow us to play more like us, look more like ourselves, but again we fall back into some fearful patterns, and yeah, we’ve always been able to rely on set pieces.

“We get the second goal again. We’re hoping that’s the moment of the gears open, allow us to move forward in the game, but okay, we could see the second goal later on, and now we have to speak about that at half time.”

Barry and Tuchel’s half-time team talk, though, seemed to hit their mark as England quickly restored their one-goal lead through Jude Bellingham.

And as the Three Lions huffed and puffed to bag a fourth, forcing Livakovic into a string of stops to deny Declan Rice, Nico O’Reilly and Kane, substitute Marcus Rashford wrapped up the victory with five minutes of normal time to spare as England got their World Cup campaign up and running with a 4-2 win.

‘We went full gas’

Kane went on to praise Tuchel for the way he turned the game in England’s favour.

The Three Lions came storming out of the blocks for the second half in Dallas, with the England captain giving credit to the former Chelsea and PSG boss.

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“I thought it was a game of two halves, really,” Kane told ITV.

“I thought the first half was OK. Really disappointed to concede in the way we did, the way we dropped off.

“Credit to the manager. The manager gave us a speech at half-time just to say, ‘look, if we lose, we lose. We’re losing our way’. I think you saw that, the way we came out in the second half. We went full gas.

“And they couldn’t live with it, And that’s the level we have to set for every game. So, credit to everyone. The first game of the tournament, a great result against a tough side.”