New manager, same England: Thomas Tuchel has not been able to rid the Three Lions of the biggest issue that held back Sir Gareth Southgate's side

Euro 2024 was strange for England. Southgate was all-but begged by fans and media alike to 'take the handbrake off' and get his best players on the pitch. So, he tried to rip the thing from its hinges, pick everyone, and play off the cuff. The result was England getting to the final without turning in one particularly impressive performance.

England's run that summer contained two draws and a poor 1-0 win over Serbia in the group stage. Knockout football yielded a 2-1 win against Slovakia that required stoppage-time heroics from Jude Bellingham, a penalty win over Switzerland, and a late winner from Ollie Watkins to beat a middling Netherlands side. England's best team performance came in the final, but they were still outplayed by Spain. It was a masterclass on how to get to a final without playing very well.

The reason it happened? Well, England were pretty tough to beat. But they also, for the most part, relied on the big names to bail them out. Bellingham and Harry Kane netted against Slovakia. Bukayo Saka buried an equaliser against Switzerland. Cole Palmer came off the bench to score against Spain in the final. This was a rigid team that lacked attacking ideas, but had enough individual talent to produce some big moments.

Yet in the biggest of moments - even if individuals shined - the collective seemed to slump under the weight of the shirt. Consider the last 15 minutes of the Euro 2024 final, with England and Spain deadlocked at 1-1. From a Kyle Walker throw-in in the 75th minute to full-time, England were absolutely battered by a side that knew how to control a game.

Spain completed 105 passes to England's 27. They made 39 passes in the final third; England made 10. Spain passed the ball forward 63 times; England only 15. It was a horrifically risk-averse period, and Spain took advantage. An 86th-minute goal won it. At that very point, with the game on the line, and England simply needing to go for it, they shrank.

"We had a throw-in in their third of the pitch and we definitely had an opportunity to keep the ball in that area of the pitch but we played backwards," said Gareth Southgate after full-time. "And then there was a long period after that where we didn't get the ball again. There was a turning point within that."

Spain are a tough team to beat, and were always going to be favourites. But England completely turned off when they needed to push on. The intensity dropped, the urgency left them. World-class individuals and seasoned vets of the international game alike succumbed to the enormity of the occasion.

And there were similar signs at various points against DR Congo. England started flat, and struggled to get into a passing rhythm early. Declan Rice made the wrong pass a couple of times. Kane lost control once and then played it backwards on another occasion. DR Congo took the lead after seven minutes with a clinical counter-attack.

The discussion immediately after was around Djed Spence's defending at the far post. The truth is, it should have never gotten to that point. Only when chasing the game did England come alive a bit. But even then, it still felt a bit over-cautious, a bit too scared. England were lucky, in fact, to not go 2-0 down in the first half after Yoane Wissa hit the post.

The attacking ideas, meanwhile, were lacking. There was a lot of 'give the ball to Bellingham and hope.' Marcus Rashford, though lively, lacked edge. Noni Madueke made the same run over and over. Elliot Anderson looked lost in midfield. Ezri Konsa, a centre-back, was the player who played the most passes into the final third.

And then Kane played hero. He scored twice in the final 15 minutes - both excellent goals in different ways. He was hailed as England's saviour. There was 'England GOAT' talk. But his excellence should have been required.

It was put to Tuchel after the game that England might have felt the weight of the shirt for long stretches of the game. He said it was nonsense. "I did not see any of that today, and it would be so easy to see. It would be so easy to accept that narrative. I don't see any of that," Tuchel said.

Tuchel has to say that, of course. He is an honest man, but he would never throw his players under the bus like that. It's also a really easy way to get an already-hungry media corps to act up.

But he can only lie to himself so much. The reliance on big names here is truly frightening. England have scored eight goals at this World Cup. Kane and Bellingham have combined for seven. The other was a 'garbage-time' finish from Marcus Rashford - which Saka assisted. Anthony Gordon has two assists to his name - both of which came on Wednesday - but otherwise the creative drive has come only from Bellingham and Saka in frighteningly short spurts.

The rest of the side, meanwhile, is disciplined, tidy, cautious. England haven't really made any big mistakes - other than perhaps Pickford's poor effort to save Congo's opener. But they're just a bit tepid. They have the majority of the ball, and don't do loads with it.

Konsa and Marc Guehi have been England's highest-volume passers by some distance. Against Congo, England resorted to crossing the ball a lot and hoping it would work out. That it did is testament to Kane - but hardly reassuring.

Tuchel's preference was unsurprisingly to focus on the positives, his perspective that his team's relentlessness had been rightly rewarded in the end. "The message was always the same: Keep pounding the rock. Keep on knocking, knocking, knocking. Keep believing, keep on doing what we do. Don't give in," the manager said post-match. And sure, he can take some heart from that. ]

England never truly gave up in Atalanta; they just resorted to doing the same thing over and over. And yes, DR Congo's keeper made some quite incredible stops, but England never truly threatened for extended spells. At no point did it feel like a goal was coming. If anything, there was pent-up anxiety about things going wrong the other way.

The question, then, becomes, who is to blame? Perhaps the answer is a bit of both. Managers have systems, and Tuchel was appointed because he has a clear philosophy. He likes wide players who will swing the ball in. He likes strikers. He likes creative attacking players. He is also pretty risk-averse, and terrified of conceding on the counter (he has consistently mentioned the fact that England did not give up much on the break in a 0-0 against Ghana).

He has picked a squad that backs that very philosophy. Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Adam Wharton and Trent Alexander-Arnold have been left at home for that reason. They are position-less. They don't fit. They do a bit too much. They can offer a spark, but that one clinical moment, Tuchel has effectively said, is not worth the risk that comes over the course of a full game.

The issue is, that method of thinking only reinforces some of the deep-lying insecurities that will always be at play here. It's a difficult situation, through and through. Southgate went for solidity at first when his squad wasn't very good. Then he perhaps overcorrected a little, going for a bit too much expression, and by his last tournament felt more of a patriotic caretaker than a football manager.

Tuchel is a happy medium. He likes solidity, but knows he has world-class talent. He wants to empower Kane and Bellingham, but needs buy-in from everyone else to get them in the right areas. It is up to the team, then, to try to shed some of those old memories. Russia 2018, England 2021, Qatar 2022, Germany 2024 - these were all glorious failures under a manager that everyone really liked as a person. Even losing with Southgate felt alright because he was a good bloke who had built this thing from a true mess.

And now they have a bit less of a safety net. Tuchel is a shrewd manager, an excellent coach, far more capable than Southgate as a tactician. But he is perhaps being steadily exposed to the fundamental flaw of this team: they are too scared to fully express themselves. Meet the new England - same as the old England.