Roy Keane believes Ivan Toney will be ‘fuming’ with Thomas Tuchel after England’s 3-1 defeat to Senegal on Tuesday night.
Tuchel suffered his first loss as England manager as his players were booed off at The City Ground.
Harry Kane put England in front from close range in the seventh minute but Senegal were level before the break as Ismaila Sarr met Nicolas Jackson’s cross to fire past Dean Henderson.
England struggled to get out of the blocks at the start of the second half and Habib Diarra gave Senegal a deserved lead in the 62nd minute.
Former Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy made two fine saves to maintain Senegal’s lead before England thought they had equalised through Jude Bellingham.
However, referee Stephanie Frappart disallowed the goal with the help of VAR after the ball hit Levi Colwill’s arm in the build up.
Senegal then sealed their win with a superb counter-attack in the 90th minute which was finished by Cheikh Sabaly.
Toney, meanwhile, was left on the bench for the 1-0 win over Andorra on Saturday and was brought on as a substitute in the 88th minute for the defeat to Senegal.
And Keane feels the 29-year-old, who scored 30 goals in his first season for Saudi Pro League side Al-Ahli this season, will be unhappy with Tuchel’s decision.
‘The other subs had a bit of an impact, better than the other day [against Andorra], so that’s a bit of a plus,’ Keane told ITV.
‘But if you’re Toney and you’re getting three, four, five minutes, do you know what you’d be fuming.’
Former Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright added: ‘I can only look at it like he’s seen him all week, he didn’t look to put him on until that late, I don’t know what he’s seen in training that he may not like up to this point.
‘I was very surprised to see him not come on, especially when we saw Morgan Gibbs-White and Morgan Rogers come on, I would be disappointed if I was him but you’ve got to keep going.’
When asked by ITV about his decision to bring on Toney so late in the game, Tuchel replied: ‘First of all it was more than three minutes.
‘Second of all, I think Ivan is a specialist for these situations, we created a lot of chances with Morgan Gibbs-White, with Ebs [Eberechi Eze], with Morgan Rogers and with Jude [Bellingham] in fluid positions.
‘I think Ivan is the strongest if we have a phase where we have a lot of balls into the box, and that was the case so after 80 minutes we made him ready.
‘Then we scored and they took the goal away so it took a while longer than we wanted.
‘Basically that’s what he can give – presence in the box and a goal late in the match.’
Tuchel then added in his post-match press conference: ‘No, it was too early.
‘We wanted to play there with Morgan Rogers, more fluid, much more physical player, I think it was too early for Ivan because the game was so, so physical, the opponent was so physical, we were not close enough to the goal consistently to get his strengths into play.
‘We tried to bring him on for a special task to be in the end in the box and use his experience in finishing.
‘For me, he is on this kind of level, a player who needs to be in the box, and he needs to be in and very, very close to the box, and in the moment earlier when we had the changes we were not so close in the box, it was a more open game, it was a lot of intensity needed against the ball to get into a higher pressing situation because we struggled on the ball, so we wanted to bring more bodies into the opponent’s half to play a higher press and we chose different players for that.’
For more stories like this, check our sport page.
Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
