Spurs disappoint in AZ Alkamaar defeat | Should Man Utd prioritise Sociedad over Arsenal? | Is Tuchel a good fit for England?
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Welcome to Back Pages, where we take a first look at the sports stories that are making the morning's newspapers. And joining us are Jonathan New, sports writer for The Guardian, and also Sam Wallace from The Daily Telegraph. Welcome along to you both. Welcome once again to Jonathan and to Sam. Let's start off with tonight's Europa League ties, obviously conference as well for Chelsea.

For both Tottenham and Manchester United, this could be season-defining. Neither side tonight recorded victories and Tottenham Hotspur beaten away by AZ Alkmaar. Let's have a look at the Telegraph on this one. I mean, Jonathan, decent draw in the last 16. Second leg at home, real chance for Tottenham. This felt like a real case of them fluffing their lines.

Yeah, I mean, if you've been following the narrative at Spurs over the last few months, obviously there's been a thin squad that has been absolutely ravaged by injuries in key positions. And they haven't had the time in between games to prepare. Now fit players are coming back. We've had players like Brennan Johnson and Destinio Doggi and Odobeer who are back from injury.

And post-hoc, we had eight full days to prepare for that game. And the two new January signings on the pitch, and that is the result. And I think, you know,

hugely disappointing for Spurs. And I think people obviously still go to make excuses for Ander because, you know, people like him. People like kind of his jib. But I think for a lot of Spurs fans who went through kind of the Mourinho years and the Conte years and the Nuno weeks, I guess, it's kind of hard to face up to the possibility that this guy who they... I think, you know, a lot of fans went all in on in the first season and still in the second season might not be this...

saviour that he's cracked up to be. Obviously, there's a lot of time for them to turn this around in the tie. You take it back to London and they can turn this round. They have the capability of doing that. But from what I saw out there, the total inability to keep the ball, to play it through the midfield, to test a defence that is there to be got at. AZ have been actually quite in different form this season. That seems to me

it felt a bit like a team and a season that is slowly disintegrating. They're welcome to prove me wrong, but I didn't see a team there that is going in the right direction at all. Aside the Lucas Bergkamp own goal, the words both from Anshul Koglu and Anshul Menton are very, very strong on this. A wake-up call, nowhere near the required level, very, very poor. At sunset, this is very disappointing, including from myself,

What was the most disappointing aspect of this, Sam? Well, one might wish to start with Troy Parrott, who was one of AZ's best players, who, of course, for a brief period under Mourinho, was the bright young thing of the Spurs academy, and they sold him £7 million in the summer. And, of course, not every big club can keep every good player that comes through, and PSR puts a greater pressure on that. But it's always a little bit more...

when it's one of your own who comes back and plays well in a game such as this. I mean, it's interesting that I think some said wake-up call. I mean, it's not really anything new. Spurs have lost. I was just going through their record in 2025 alone. They've lost 8-1-5, drawn 1. I mean, they're just in this sort of spiral, really. They've now lost two in a row. They've got Bournemouth at the weekend, and they're not really... One couldn't make them favourites for that. So, yeah.

I like Postakoglu. I think there should be a place in the game for a manager like that and someone who is quite ready to entertain, as he likes to say, and plays a different kind of football. But increasingly, I think the game at the Premier League level and at the elite level in Europe just finds you out if you're not as tactically tight as others are.

I do think that he'll probably go in the summer. I think that's the way it's looking. And the club seems to have that feel, really, of a trudge towards the end of the season. Of course, they could turn it around. They could win the Europa League. But it's certainly not the way their form is pointing at the moment. Yeah, and you could probably argue and be so the same for...

For Manchester United, if they go out of the Europa League 1-1, it finished away to Real Sociedad in their last 16, first leg. The headline in the Mirror, we must be more ruthless. Pun on Amurim, Ruben Amurim there. And I think, you know, as far as he's concerned...

Do you feel, Jonathan, this was really a kind of missed opportunity because it's a tougher draw against Real Sociedad and they were ahead in the tie and yet again they've let the lead slip and now they go back to Old Trafford where they have not made that anything like a fortress.

Yeah, it did feel pretty scrappy first half. Xerxe puts in the head and it does feel like, you know, it's going to at that point, it's going to be one of those games where United might just show a bit of maturity and grind out a victory.

But I think the concern for United is just how quickly, after Oyar Thebel equalizes, just how quickly the structure seems to disintegrate after that. The shape goes, players start stepping up for balls they can't win. Real Sociedad have chance after chance after chance. And it's not for Inanna, who makes two big saves in the last 10 minutes. United probably lose that. It is interesting, though, seeing...

If you take a little bit of a step back, seeing those back pages, which are all kind of, I think, uniformly quite negative,

But if you take a step back, a one-all draw away from home against Real Sociedad, who have been very good at home this season in La Liga, it's not a terrible result. It's a pretty good result. It's a tough place to go. And certainly in the Europa League this season, I haven't seen a team go to Real Sociedad and actually take the game to them, as United did for large periods.

Yeah, they could have been a little bit more clinical. They actually didn't create as many chances as they probably would have liked for the amount of counterplay they had. But this tie is very much alive. I think if United can almost sort of block out the wall of negativity that seems to follow them around wherever they go. And yeah, obviously this stuff kind of, these kind of headlines sell papers and it's what the prevailing mood is.

around the club is always going to be when they don't win. But if they can block that out, they actually have a really good chance of progressing in this tie still. The back page of The Sun goes to the headline Bruno Vars talking about the equaliser from Raul Sossiab, which was as a result of VAR spotting a handball from Bruno Fernandes. Although, was it for you, a handball, Sam? And was it one of those, oh, you've seen them given it's a little harsh, but there we are and it's just the rub of the green that United aren't getting right now?

Yeah, those ones are, at the end of the season, they are the smaller details. I mean, I think that what United really need is a momentum that just seems to elude Amarim at the moment. And the Europa League is a really important competition because of what winning it qualifies for. But it's still hard to sort of pick out a kind of,

a trend that says to you yes I mean this team's adapting to their new manager they look okay they look like they look like they're going to come through this it still feels that in different periods of the game as Jonathan said they do tend to go to pieces and say they rely so heavily on Bruno Fernandes for that kind of having an inspiration for that to be that real sort of one high quality player that they have who can make things happen so

Again, it's similar to Spurs, is that they can't seem to put a run together of wins. And you're right in the sense that

This isn't a bad first leg result. There were many times when United, even in their best years, would go to Spain and would settle for a result like that against an opponent outside of the big two in Spain. But now it's more the performance that's getting analysed and their failure really to hold on to a lead.

I guess, yeah, the question now will be, and it's a bit of a conundrum for Ruben Amram as well, is, you know, they play Arsenal on Super Sunday. You know, which is the bigger game, right? You know, you've got this huge game against, you know, a big, big sort of, you know, traditional rival. Just briefly, Jonathan, what would you do if you were Ruben Amram for that game? Do you try and actually save the legs for the game next Thursday, back at Old Trafford against Real Sociedad? Or do you prioritise the next opponent, which is Arsenal?

I think the next game has always got to be the biggest game, especially against what you say, like a traditional rival such as Arsenal. I think...

Arguably, that's what Amarim was doing tonight. I think he tried to keep the changes to a minimum. I think he left the changes quite late because he wanted to save the legs on the bench. And I suppose you could argue that he could have made those changes and tried to change the game tonight a little bit earlier. But I think he was obviously trying to manage the workload with that game on Sunday in mind.

We've got to talk about the former Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho and his Fenerbahce team who lost 3-1 at home against Rangers. Sam, what did you make of the game and the result? What an achievement early on in his tenure for Barry Ferguson. Yes, again, we're talking about European away legs and those winning away in Turkey is a real achievement against one of the

Again, the big two in Turkey. So it's a huge result for Rangers. And now I think the tie is under their control. I mean, that would have been where Mourinho would have expected to establish a sort of a good platform to go and win the second leg and certainly try and have a lead that he could defend. So it behoves him now to go out and try and win it in that second leg, which is going to be difficult.

And it's going to require Fede Bacci to risk a little to win it. So I think the tie is obviously, it's in Rangers' hands now. And it's not often that Mourinho loses at home in Europe like that. And so, yeah, a big achievement for Rangers, you know, potentially a big win and maybe all the more so because it's Jose and he's a bit of a master of the European competition.

Yeah, a real sort of shot in the arm for Rangers. And for Barry Ferguson, of course, he's just taken over there as interim boss after the departure of Philippe Clément. So we've covered Tottenham, Hotspur, Manchester United, Rangers, but we have to mention Chelsea as well, who were in Conference League action. They won 2-1 away to Copenhagen. Sam, how do you like the idea of Rhys James doing a Trent Alexander-Arnold playing in central midfield and helping Chelsea to that narrow advantage they'll take back to Stamford Bridge?

Yeah, it was certainly one of the best moments for him for a while. He has struggled so much with injuries. It's a competition that has... I mean, I went to one of their group stages games and I'm struggling to remember the opposition now, but it felt, obviously in the group stages, that Maresca was just playing his... the B-string of what was an extensive squad and...

and it worked, it worked fine, really. Um, they never expected to find themselves in this competition. They are. And, um, really they look, I mean, they're, they're runaway favorites for it. They really should win it. So, um,

Yeah, I think it's proven quite useful. Clearly, since December, their league form has really struggled since the end of the group stages. But they should be able to compete in this competition right to the final without their first choice. I think as it gets closer, he'll probably want to have those players available. It's interesting that Cole Palmer played again tonight and hasn't scored. So that's eight games now without him playing.

him finding the back of the net and that is that's probably more symptomatic of their decline sort of that started around Christmas and as you know they were Premier League contenders weren't they were title contenders but they've really fallen away but yeah it'll be interesting to see if Rhys James can get a run of games now

Let's turn our attention to Thomas Tuchel. We know that Mark Bullingham from the FA has done an interview with our very own chief reporter, Carvey Solicol, and he's been speaking to the press and lots of different things have come up from Mark Bullingham and Solicol.

He said that Tuchel's put a lot of effort into calling players. In fact, he has a long list of 55 players that he's been calling, trying to kind of establish these relationships early in his tenure. Obviously, officially started work on the 1st of Jan, but only gets underway really in March in the international break. What really jumped off the page for you, Jonathan? The attention to detail. I mean, the fact that he's obviously not managed a game yet. Tuchel's not managed a game. He's barely got his feet under the desk, so to speak. But Bullingham was...

Very bullish about, like incredibly bullish, actually. He's saying he's already made an incredible impact. And talking about the amount of groundwork that he's been putting in, in terms of not only casting his net, in terms of scouting players and, you know, potential call-ups, but actually getting in touch with players who might not necessarily consider themselves to be, you know, in the...

in the main core England squad, but Tuchel is still reaching out to them. And this goes back to his attention to detail. One of the things that I think was overlooked when he was appointed in all this kind of confected outrage about whether he was German or, well, obviously he's German, but whether it was white that he was German, whether it was correct that a German should be doing this job, is it a good fit for England? And if you go all the way back to Dortmund, to Mainz,

The attention to detail was what everyone else, everyone who worked with him looked at and paid tribute to. Going back to training session, the innovation,

and the intricacy in which he'd plot out training sessions, in which he'd map out the whole season, and he'd plan ahead. And these are the kind of skills, when you're in international management, and you only get maybe 60 days or contact time with players, the rest of it is all planning. It's all strategy. And this is the kind of thing that he's actually going to be good at. And so that struck me. He's not managed a game yet, but I think that struck me as what came through from his comments today.

One of the lines about that it actually was Thomas Tuchel's own wish or decision to have an 18-month contract after, you know, rather than anything longer. Is that at all an element of concern for you, Sam? Does the job of managing not just the national team, but particularly the English national team, require or maybe you should have more longevity? Or is that Thomas Tuchel maybe just, I suppose, giving himself...

you know, a little bit of a more immediate target and a get out if he wants it? Um...

I think if the next World Cup goes poorly, it gives him a way out, which is a slightly pessimistic way of looking at it. But I do think that England or the FA rather have made mistakes in the past with contracts that have just gone on too long. I mean, obviously the one everyone remembers was the contract that Capello signed before the 2010 World Cup. He'd done very well in qualifying and then the tournament was pretty dismal and he sort of limped on

to just before Euro 2012 when he quit and in the row over John Turrey in the captaincy so I do think that I think that's quite sensible um

I'm still not sure why Tuchel didn't take the November games. He was appointed in October. It feels like he's been England manager for ages and he's not actually taken a game yet. That made no sense to me that he wasn't there for the Greece and the Ireland games, especially when every England manager, and he did it, his first prescript said that England managers don't, or international managers in general, don't get enough time with their teams.

So let's see. He's got the benefit of a great generation of England players. And he's got a lot to choose from. There's weaknesses in some positions. And we shall see. I think he's...

I think what Pullingham seemed to be saying in this interview really is that they'll make their minds up after the World Cup. And that seems, it's always felt to me like a short-term measure, one that the FA were sort of in a little bit of a panic had to go for. And yeah, and it suited Tuchel at this stage in his career.

Talking of World Cups, you know that obviously the next one that he will be leading England in is 48 teams. Back page of The Times, FIFA considers mad 64-team World Cup. It was raised by Uruguay's FIFA Council member Ignacio Alonso and the idea of adding...

more teams beyond the 48. And that FIFA said a statement, it was raised in the miscellaneous agenda item near the end of the FIFA Council meeting held on March the 5th. Is this one going to be just laughed out of town, Jonathan, or FIFA being FIFA and madness being kind of normal for them, this could actually happen in 2030? Well, first things first, I don't hate it. 64 is actually...

like better than 48 in terms of the fidelity of like the symmetry of the competition, whether it'll happen. I mean, no FIFA president ever got poor on FIFA.

uh reducing or contracting a world cup the the whole the whole idea behind fifa the fifa executive is to expand uh participation like or you know the carrot world cup participation to as many of the member nations as possible and this does that and if it is a temporary you know a centenary short-term measure then i think it makes a lot more sense than a 48 team world cup because you know i i

And like the real, like it just feels really dissatisfying to me to have 16, 13 groups or 12, 14 groups or to have that kind of, you know,

At that stage in a tournament where you have to reduce the numbers in actually quite an unsatisfactory way. Obviously, you know, the two main caveats I would say is obviously the volume of games and the carbon footprint, you know, the environmental impact flying all those teams around the world. And, you know, I guess because we're pitching quite far into the future, are there still going to be 64 nations in the world in 2030? Yeah.

There's lots of other elements. I mean, you mentioned the environmental impact. Obviously, you know, more teams, more games. The fact that this tournament, Sam, is meant to be held over six countries, three continents. What's your take on it? Because, you know, is it going to maybe appeal to a younger audience who want more games? The player welfare piece is also important here. How do you see it? It's just...

It's a terrible idea. I'm always very dubious when people say it was suggested by the Uruguayan FA. I mean, clearly, I would feel that they wouldn't have done this without some encouragement from somewhere

FIFA is desperate to expand. I mean, it actually makes per annum, it turns over less than UEFA, which is the wealthiest of all the federations, although it is below FIFA in the kind of hierarchy. Clearly, the Men's World Cup is pretty much FIFA's only earner. Everything else it does is loss-leading. So it's a massive earner for them, but it's only every four years.

And clearly, that's why they've launched a fee for Club World Cup. They want a bit of that club rights market as well. And so the bigger the World Cup gets, presumably they feel the bigger the fee they can get from broadcasters. I don't think anyone is jumping up and down saying there's too little football. I mean, clearly there's loads of football. There's football on all the time. And competitions are getting bigger. As I mentioned, we've got the Club World Cup. I mean...

I can just, well, I can't remember, but I was alive when the 78 World Cup was still 16 teams. I mean, England didn't qualify for that one. And it went up to 24 for 1982. I mean, literally qualifying for the World Cup then was the equivalent of getting out of the group stages at the last World Cup. So the world has changed. And whether people want it, I'm not going to do this.

Yes, 64 teams in the World Cup. That's almost a quarter of the teams there are in the world. Thank you very much indeed, Sam. Thank you very much indeed, Jonathan. It's been great chatting to you.