Thomas Tuchel

FRANK LAMPARD has told England’s players that silence is golden if they want to earn a World Cup spot.

The former Three Lions great is advising Thomas Tuchel’s latest squad that mum’s the word when it comes to the German’s team selection.

4

4

The Three Lions’ chief has an array of attacking talent at his disposal and Lampard, who spent the majority of his 106-cap international career being shoehorned into a midfield with Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes, knows all about compromise.

And he suggested that keeping schtum worked for him — as he went on to score 29 international goals and played in three World Cups and one European Championship as part of the ‘golden generation’.

He said: “I just got on with it. You’re a professional, you get on with it — you are playing different ways, you respect the manager and you crack on. You can have your own opinions — but I tended to keep mine to myself and think about what could I do best if I was asked to play.

“The truth is, I never really played for England much like I played for Chelsea.

“There were times, like in 2004, when Sven-Goran Eriksson was there when I played at the top of a diamond — that wasn’t my ideal, either — but if you are representing your country and the manager’s got an idea, you just go with it.

“That was my story and it’s been documented and people talk about it many years later with a different view to how it felt at the time,

“They just sort of say, ‘It did work or it didn’t work’. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. But I’m not interested in that conversation.

“Personally, I got on with it, as did Stevie and Scholesy.”

BEST ONLINE CASINOS – TOP SITES IN THE UK

Lampard is in a unique position to comment now he has crossed over to frontline management.

His Coventry side are sitting top of the Championship this season, having scored an impressive 27 goals this season as he attempts to orchestrate a return to the Premier League.

He believes that times may have changed and that Tuchel might  operate a more relaxed policy.

The German has plenty of options up front — all of whom will make a claim to start alongside skipper Harry Kane.

Bukayo Saka, Anthony Gordon, Eberechi Eze, Jarrod Bowen, Marcus Rashford and Ollie Watkins were all in the squad for the double header against Wales and Latvia.

But the likes of Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish will all be wanting to board the plane to North America for the World Cup next summer.

There are only so many places in Tuchel’s starting XI — and Lampard added: “Now I’m a manager, I understand selection difficulties.

“I’ve had big squads at Chelsea. When I was first there, I went back and they had the 29 players — of which some were disgruntled — that’s another story.

“But in terms of trying to fit players in, you have to make tough decisions as a manager — you have  ideas, you have to work with the squad you’ve got and think, ‘What is the best?’ So that’s why I never really comment on what decisions other managers take because I don’t know the context, what they’re thinking and who and how they want to play.

4

4

“However, I do think it’s more common in the modern day for a conversation to be more open between player and manager.

“It goes manager by manager – some don’t want to talk and say, “This is the team, I’m the boss, you get on with it.’

“There are those who will have individual conversations, and then other people will open up to the group. That all depends on who’s in charge. And players react differently.

“I think there’s a balance to it. I think the players have to feel your authority and believe in what you’re doing.

“It’s not always an open conversation. Our job is to get that bit right. And our job is to be like that.

“But as a manager also, you want to have constant communication in that players feel that they can speak to you because you might find something that you didn’t know.

‘A DIFFERENT ANIMAL’

“England’s a bit of a different animal because you only turn up every now and again.

“At Chelsea, sometimes you’re playing at the weekend and through the week, and you’re training every day and the conversations are there throughout the year much more.” One chat with a great former Chelsea manager sticks in Lampard’s mind.

He added: “I remember once having a conversation with  Carlo Ancelotti about my position at Chelsea when he played a diamond formation.

“It didn’t feel really fluid, not just for me, but for the team.

“That was one of the beauties of Carlo, he would be very open with that chat and I’m not saying he changed his mind, but he was taking on information and then adapting around it.

“That’s why he’s one of the greatest managers, that’s his style — I think those things should be authentic.

“If you want to do your thing and you stick to your guns, you may  succeed or you may fail, that’s what you do. That’s one person’s approach.

“I am more open with my players to try to speak to them, because I want to get better. So every conversation I have with a player may help me, whether I agree with it or not.”

“In the end, the decision is mine — and then hopefully it works.”

WIMBLEDON legends are thrilled to see Thomas Tuchel go full Crazy Gang in England’s bid for World Cup glory.

The England boss is taking a leaf out of the Dons playbook by telling his Three Lions to use long throws and big goal-kicks to secure their first major trophy since 1966.

2

2

Wimbledon were renowned for their direct and physical style of play both during the 1980s and 1990s.

As well as climbing from non-league to the top tier, they also pulled off one of football’s biggest shocks to beat Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final at Wembley.

Former Dons manager Dave Bassett told Sun Sport: “I think Tuchel’s on the right lines.

“The purists have been living in fantasy land. Even Manchester City use the long ball more. Our old ways are catching on.

“If you can get the ball forward — not aimlessly — and get players running in behind, it unsettles defences.

“People panic more with long throws than they ever do with corners — they become frightened to death.

“Going sideways and backwards doesn’t get you goals.

“We didn’t hang around. The ­players knew it was one-touch and going into the box. But we did not get the credit because people called it anti-football.”

BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS

Bassett backs Tuchel’s decision to leave Jude Bellingham out of his latest squad — raising the ­possibility the Real Madrid superstar may not even feature in the USA, Canada and Mexico next summer.

The 81-year-old added: “Tuchel needs to decide what formation he wants and which players best suit his system and share his vision.

“Bellingham is a very good player but if he’s not conducive to the team spirit, then tough luck on Bellingham. One person cannot hold the team to ransom.

“When you go away, Tuchel can’t have moody, selfish people who are not sold on his ideas.

“If players are suspect he won’t take them — even if they may be great players.”

Bobby Gould took the reins after Bassett fell out with Dons owner Sam Hammam — and led them to their most famous win.

His first masterstroke after taking over the Crazy Gang was hiring ex-England coach Don Howe.

And Gould, 79, said: “England’s loss was Wimbledon’s gain with Don.

“We just added a bit more quality rather than ripping it up and starting again. It worked wonders.

“Don was Arsenal through and through and steeped in tradition — but even he got into the mind games.

“In the Wembley dressing room he told every player and staff member to put their watch back ten minutes.

“When the referee came to tell us to get into the tunnel, Don said, ‘no, not yet your watch must be wrong’. So off the ref went, we kept Kenny Dalglish & Co waiting — and that was our first ­victory of the day.”

Tuchel’s England exploits remind Gould of the Dons’ good old days.

He added: “England have scored a couple of goals under Tuchel right out of the Wimbledon playbook.

“But it showed our much-maligned tactics still work because the opposition don’t know what’s hit them when you get forward quickly and slaughter them with crosses or long throws.

“Mentally and physically you’ve got to be in it together and that gets the opposition thinking, ‘what have we got to do to stop them?’”

Wembley goal hero Lawrie Sanchez went on to use his Wimbledon experience as Northern Ireland manager.

And he masterminded a shock 1-0 victory over Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England at Windsor Park 20 years ago.

Sanchez, 65, said: “The thing the Crazy Gang had is we were greater than the sum of our parts.

“Whether you could get away with half the gamesmanship we got up to with 24 cameras focused on games is a different matter.

“But on the football side, the set-plays, strength of the characters, strong team ethic and belief in what we were doing would still stand us in good stead.

“We were stats-based well before stats came into play and our set-plays were the logical development from that stat-based stuff. We did set-plays in training ­boringly for hours on Thursdays and Fridays — but it paid off.

“Whether you can get that in an England team in a short space of time is a different matter.

“But they’ve been doing the same thing for the last 59 years and not won anything.”

Full-back Nigel Winterburn helped Wimbledon to a couple of promotions under Bassett but left for Arsenal a year before the cup glory.

He said: “No one liked us because of the way we played but we were often cast-offs with a determination to prove people wrong.

“Boy-oh-boy we intimidated a lot of teams.”

But the likes of John ­Fashanu and Vinny Jones met their match when they faced the British Army.

Winterburn, 61, said: “Dave Bassett liked to bond everyone in pre-season.

“We’d get a typed itinerary saying which five-star hotel awaited.

“But we would end up in the most basic places — usually with the army.

“Once we had to camp out overnight, attack a mock fort and rescue a so-called prisoner.

“It ended up in chaos with Fash and Vinny fighting soldiers.

“There were weird and wonderful times. It forged a togetherness that made sure we were always there to help team-mates.”