“I don’t care” – Michael Owen suggests radical tactic to prevent issue that could “kill” England at World Cup

Former England star Michael Owen has suggested a slightly radical tactic of reducing key players’ minutes during the 2026 World Cup.

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The Three Lions start their tournament in Group L with an opening match against Croatia next Wednesday, and it seems Owen is already thinking about resting players.

This seems like a slightly risky approach, but the pundit feels that England manager Thomas Tuchel should only be giving 45 minutes to important players during the group stage, or else the heat in the US could “kill” them.

It has, in fairness, been a long and gruelling club season, while last summer’s expanded Club World Cup competition means there are a few players who have barely had a rest for two years.

Owen clearly feels this could be a factor for England to think about, meaning they have to be ready to limit players’ minutes even if they’re performing really well.

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Michael Owen’s advice to England manager Thomas Tuchel

“If I were Thomas Tuchel, I would be literally changing the hell out of those positions constantly and I don’t care if somebody scores a hat-trick in the first game; they still get substituted at half-time and you put on the next three,” Owen told the Metro.

“We’re so strong in those positions and what’s going to win this tournament is freshness, and what’s going to kill us is the heat, tiredness, fatigue so I don’t care who starts there.

“In fact I would go the other way round and if Thomas Tuchel has got his idea on who are the best three players to play in behind Harry Kane then I would put them all on the bench and bring them on in the second half because that’s even more important in the first half if you do what I think we should do and just change the hell out of them all the time.

“I’d be giving them no more than 45 minutes every game because if you’re going to play six players in those positions across the game then I prefer the best ones to be playing at the end when the opponents are fatigued.”

It will be interesting to see if Tuchel ends up trying something like this, but it’s perhaps hard to imagine things going as smoothly as Owen is envisaging here.

For instance, if England find themselves a goal down to Croatia by the 60th minute, there’s surely no way Tuchel is going to be thinking about resting important players like Harry Kane or Declan Rice.

In a short group stage, every result is crucial, so there might not be that many opportunities for the German tactician to think about squad rotation and resting players.

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