Inside FA’s Tuchel chase after missing out on Guardiola and Ancelotti

THE FA’s hunt for a new England boss saw them miss out on Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti before Manchester United pushed them into a stunning deal for Thomas Tuchel.

The former Chelsea manager is returning to these shores as the new Three Lions boss after agreeing terms on an 18-month contract worth £7.5million.

Tuchel, who was being targeted by United and AC Milan, is set to be announced in a major press conference at Wembley later today.

And the German will be tasked with ending England’s trophy drought after Gareth Southgate led the nation to two consecutive Euros finals.

Interim boss Lee Carsley will see out the remaining Nations League games in November before Tuchel takes charge from January.

But the FA’s path to securing his signature was not a straightforward one.

Speaking on the Rest is Football podcast, Gary Lineker revealed that Wembley beaks initially tried to lure Pep Guardiola from Manchester City over the summer.

They even made contact with Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti after deciding to target trophy-laden foreign gaffers.

He said: “It’s confirmed apparently that they did reach out in the summer to Pep Guardiola.

“And also I understand that they spoke to Carlo Ancelotti.”

The FA’s determination to go international was also summed up by their decision NOT to interview Newcastle boss Eddie Howe.

Alan Shearer explained: “I’m told they didn’t speak to Eddie Howe, or they didn’t sound him out at all, I’m reliably told.

“Which is a big surprise for me considering he would be the outstanding English candidate.”

Around this point, Tuchel was also contacted following his Bayern Munich exit.

The German expressed a slight interest in replacing Gareth Southgate after the Euros final defeat to Spain.

But Tuchel was instead waiting to see what happened at Manchester United, with Erik ten Hag’s future under the spotlight.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe eventually decided to stick with the Dutchman.

Yet United links with Tuchel re-emerged this month after Ratcliffe and other United big-wigs held a fresh meeting over Ten Hag’s role.

Shearer and Lineker believe this spurred the FA into stepping up talks with Tuchel for fears they would miss out on another top candidate.

Shearer said: “They sounded out Pep, fine, he’s the best in the world, you then have to look at what’s available to you.

“They’ve looked at whoever, they’ve come up with Tuchel and thought there’s a real chance he could get the United job pretty soon.

“So their opportunity lies now. If they didn’t act quick now, they weren’t going to get one of the outstanding candidates for the England job because there’s every chance that vacancy could become available soon.”

Lineker continued: “I wonder whether that had any influence on it. There was a big meeting at United in London, there were a lot of rumours that maybe they were going to fire Ten Hag.

“I have no inside info on that but we know they went for Tuchel in the summer and it didn’t happen, so maybe they were thinking again.

“Maybe the FA have gone ‘crikey, we don’t want to miss out to United’, and it maybe pushed them because it does seem slightly odd with the timing.”

Meanwhile, SunSport understands that England’s shock defeat to Greece pushed the FA into wrapping up a deal for Tuchel.

Lee Carsley’s tactical disaster resulted in a 2-1 defeat at Wembley as he shunted all of England’s playmakers into an unbalanced XI.

And Three Lions supremos moved quickly to sign up Tuchel, with Carsley also giving mixed messages over his future in press conferences.

But Lineker suspects Carsley already knew he wasn’t getting the job on a permanent basis, leading to his bizarre team selection against Greece.

Lineker added: “I think he knew even before the Greece game, which maybe was one of the reasons he thought ‘f**k it, I’m going to play them all’.

“‘I’m going to play all the superstars in all different positions, not going to bother with a number nine because Harry Kane’s not fit, and just to try something’.

“Now we know they’ve gone for Tuchel and it’s pretty much a done deal, I suspect that was the case. And in the other match, his quotes after the game, I just thought he knows something.

“I think it’s happened so quickly that the FA thought ‘we have to act here or there’s a chance we’re going to lose one of our outstanding candidates in Tuchel to a club management job’.

“That could have happened really soon and I think that fits in with everything. Why would he start in January and not immediately? The thought, well, ‘let’s get this deal done now’.”