Elliot Anderson can be the answer to England's midfield problem: Winners and losers as Thomas Tuchel is failing in bid to make Three Lions exciting

The Nottingham Forest midfielder had been knocking on Tuchel's door throughout last season and when he finally got his chance he sure made the most of it. Anderson repeatedly shuttled the ball from defence into attack, helping them move the ball about quickly and it was from one such move that England found their opening goal. 

The midfielder did everything asked of his temporary role as a No. 6 but couldn't help from playing like the No. 8 he is most weeks for his club. He showed more attacking ambition in the second half, getting into an excellent shooting position and he really should have done better from Harry Kane's cut-back.

This might have been a bleak performance overall from England but Anderson's display was good news for Tuchel, as well as for Rice and Jude Bellingham. Anderson's solid work deep down the pitch gave Rice the freedom to get forward while his display also bodes well for the injured Real Madrid ace, who wants to play as the No. 10 but has often been tasked with running the engine room owing to a lack of convincing alternatives.

The coach claimed that he "liked the performance", which he described as "good" and "solid" against a low-block. But he was fooling no-one. On the sidelines Tuchel had looked unimpressed with what he saw, cursing his team's wastefulness. At other times he just looked bored, sitting on a Lucozade box.

A 2-0 win at home in front of an extremely quiet crowd can be forgiven against a respectable side that is also hoping to qualify for the World Cup. It is harder to excuse when the team you have just toiled to beat is ranked 174th in the world, has only won seven competitive matches in its history and can draw on just 80,000 people, the equivalent population of Scunthorpe.

There was another inconvenient truth: England should be used to facing 'low blocks' by now and they are going to meet many more stubbornly defensive teams between now and next summer. Any team that they come up against at the World Cup is going to have much more quality than Andorra and they will also be skilled at counter-attacking, a weapon the visitors barely managed to unsheath during the game. This was also Tuchel's fifth game with England and there is little indication that his team are getting to grips with his methods or playing with any sense of swagger.

Tuchel's decision to drop both Kyle Walker and Trent Alexander-Arnold was the equivalent to advertising a new permanent vacancy for the role of England right-back. And Reece James got his application in early and showed himself to be the truly outstanding candidate for the job.

James was one of Tuchel's most valuable players during his brief but glorious spell in charge of Chelsea and he showed that he can play just as important a role for him for England. Andorra's low-block made James play like the wing-back he was for Tuchel at Stamford Bridge and all of England's best spells in this otherwise lacklustre spell came from his right channel.

James was inches away from breaking the deadlock in the first half and just as England were huffing and puffing with no reward in the second half, it was his postage-stamp delivery to Rice which gave them their second goal. With Walker's international career all but over and Alexander-Arnold's defensive weaknesses still plaguing him, James should have the right-back position locked down for the World Cup. And after a display like this the only thing holding him back is his worrying injury history.

Tuchel had explained before the game that Kane was going to start because there was no room for experiments, even against a team as lowly-ranked as Andorra. England's captain and all-time top scorer - who had struck the only goal against the minnows in June - should have been licking his lips at the prospect of facing Andorra at home and adding at least a couple more goals to his tally of 73. 

But he saw very little goalmouth action and the most noticeable thing he did all day was to lead the team on a lap of honour of the pitch at full-time, although most of the fans had already poured out of the stadium.

Kane was crowded out by the three centre-backs in Andorra's five-man defence and had just one effort on goal in the 90 minutes. His attempts to drop back and influence the game from deeper did not go to plan either, even if he should have got an assist when he teed up Anderson.

England were forced to take on Andorra at Villa Park on Saturday as Coldplay were playing at Wembley Stadium. The Three Lions were missing three of their usual headline acts as Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham and Cole Palmer were all out injured, as were the highly experienced pair of John Stones and Phil Foden. This was a golden opportunity for other players to show what they were made of but none of the injured trio will have been particularly worried about their place in the team from wherever they watched the game. That is, of course, if they managed to stay awake during it.

Noni Madueke showed glimmers of excitement while stepping in for Saka but he didn't come close to giving England the same speed and excitement that his new Arsenal team-mate offers. No player, meanwhile, gave the team the power and determination of Bellingham and England lacked their usual driving force without the Real Madrid star. 

None of the starters or substitutes, meanwhile, showed Palmer's ability to conjure something out of nothing, as the Chelsea man did in the key moments at Euro 2024. Tuchel sure will be glad to have the attacking trio back for the next set of fixtures against Wales and Latvia because the team were badly missing their stardust.

Marcus Rashford has started three of England's four qualifiers under Tuchel and had it not been for injury he would likely have started the away game against Andorra too. But just as against Albania and Latvia, the forward failed to justify his inclusion in this most competitive of starting XIs and even raised the question of whether he should be in the squad at all.

Villa Park was where Rashford got his career back on track after being cast aside by Ruben Amorim at Manchester United although talk of him being truly revitalised during his short loan spell was exaggerated. But here he looked more like the player that drove Red Devils' fans to madness in his final year at Old Trafford. He looked disinterested at times and when he did get in good positions he was wasteful. He played a hospital pass to Myles Lewis-Skelley which undid a promising move down the left-flank and also shanked a pass out of play. The worst was to come - when he fired a glorious opportunity over the bar on the rebound.

Considering Alexander-Arnold was left out of this England squad after not starting a couple of games for Real Madrid, it was surprising that Rashford got the call from Tuchel given his inauspicious start to his loan spell at Barcelona - which the Catalan club are already considering pulling the plug on. Unless he can make amends against Serbia, it might be the last call he gets.