The honeymoon lasted longer than the 55 hours Britney Spears stayed married to her one-time school friend Jason Alexander. But not by much.
And the boos which chased Thomas Tuchel out of the City Ground after England’s lame defeat by Senegal were far louder than the boo-hoos which followed Britney to the divorce court from her boozy wedding in the fabled Little White Chapel on the Las Vegas Strip.
Spears blamed the briefest wedlock in celebrity history on being ‘very bored’, And so say the England faithful a mere four games into the reign of Herr Tuchel.
The unrest festering with the tedium of each of his matches found raucous voice as a shaky and narrow win over Andorra (population 82,759) was followed by a 3-1 home humiliation by the ecstatic Senegalese on Tuesday.
It took the faithful somewhat longer to twig the folly of England’s previous costly experiments with over-hyped foreign mercenaries but they are sensing already that this German will go the same way as Sweden’s Sven-Goran Eriksson and Italy’s Fabio Capello. Namely nowhere when it comes to achieving England’s first triumph since 1966 and all that.
If it goes on like this much longer the question which dare not speak its name will start being asked. Should the FA cut their losses and find someone else, anyone more inspirational, to pick up the World Cup pieces next summer?
My answer: ‘Yes. Already.’
Given his afternoon-after-Senegal outburst against Jude Bellingham, it sounds as if Tuchel might welcome early release from the stress of striving to inject energy, ambition, enthusiasm into this job-lot of footballers. In fact, any sign of life. A task made no easier by the apparent absence of any kind of strategy and organisation for this ramshackle team.
It is impossible to disagree with his despair of Bellingham. The boy who promised to grow into the standard-bearer for English football now appears on the brink of following Dele Alli — of whom there were similar hopes — down the dark hole of premature fame and rampant ego. Into the nightclubs of wasted manhood — as Real Madrid are fearing — and the blinding light of sunshine reflecting off bikini bodies in millionaire resorts which are as morally ghastly as they are glamorously fake.
Hey, Jude! Instead of telling the referee how to do his or her job, how about doing your own? Not that you are alone in being over-rated by increasingly sycophantic sections of the media.
Kyle Walker is further past his sell-by date than a stale cornershop sandwich. The glorification of Declan Rice as world class is a delusion ignited by that £100million transfer fee.
Yet Harry Kane is one being called out even though he keeps scoring England’s odd goals. For that, we can forgive him for joining the others in clamorous objection to Bellingham’s goal being disallowed on Tuesday.
That was a shabby excuse made of desperation. VAR clearly showed Levi Colwell directing the ball with his upper arm.
Bring on new blood, they cry. Actually, Tuchel has been doing just that. A gaggle of youngsters have been elevated to his teams. Few if any have lit up these barren performances. Not that it is easy to do so without an effective plan.
When Tuchel finally pitched up here, he did so brandishing a record of some success and endorsements for his supposedly visionary coaching. Closer examination points in part to short stays with quick profit from the work of his immediate predecessors.
His Champions League success with Chelsea painted a better picture of Frank Lampard’s management than the criticism which followed his sacking.
Some of us began having our doubts when Tuchel proved a reluctant England bridegroom. So hesitant that he declined to move to this country until shortly before his first fixture. Even then he preferred working from home.
What he has proved is exactly what many employers have discovered — that working from home doesn’t work. It leads to being left behind by progress in the wider universe.
Tuchel is a disciple of pressing. Admired as such by Pep Guardiola, for a decade the Messiah of that method. But the global game is moving on from the philosophy of prolonged possession being nine-tenths of the law.
Spanish football is closing on world supremacy by following a winning of the ball by instant transition into high-speed attack and multiple attempts on goal. The self-same style with which Spanish master coach Luis Enrique has just delivered unto Paris Saint-Germain the first Champions League for all their money. An achievement which proved beyond Tuchel during his short stay in Paris.
Can Herr Thomas adapt to a new age? Can England’s players rouse themselves from their false sense of superiority and put in the hard work and deep thinking now required? No sign of it so far.