Roy Keane believes Ivan Toney might 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 within the seventh minute but Senegal were level before the break as Ismaila Sarr met Nicolas Jackson’s cross to fireplace past Dean Henderson.
England struggled to get out of the blocks initially of the second half and Habib Diarra gave Senegal a deserved lead within the 62nd minute.
Former Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy made two superb saves to keep up Senegal’s lead before England thought that they had equalised through Jude Bellingham.
Nevertheless, referee Stephanie Frappart disallowed the goal with the assistance of VAR after the ball hit Levi Colwill’s arm within the construct up.
Senegal then sealed their win with an outstanding counter-attack within the ninetieth 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 in its place within 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, might be unhappy with Tuchel’s decision.
‘The opposite subs had a little bit of an impact, higher than the opposite day [against Andorra], in order that’s a little bit of a plus,’ Keane told ITV.
‘But when you’re Toney and also you’re getting three, 4, five minutes, do you understand what you’d be fuming.’
Former Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright added: ‘I can only have a look at it like he’s seen him all week, he didn’t look to place him on until that late, I don’t know what he’s seen in training that he may not like up so far.
‘I used to be very surprised to see him not come on, especially after we saw Morgan Gibbs-White and Morgan Rogers come on, I could be upset if I used to be him but you’ve got to maintain going.’
When asked by ITV about his decision to bring on Toney so late in the sport, Tuchel replied: ‘To begin with it was greater than three minutes.
‘Second of all, I feel Ivan is a specialist for these situations, we created loads of probabilities with Morgan Gibbs-White, with Ebs [Eberechi Eze], with Morgan Rogers and with Jude [Bellingham] in fluid positions.
‘I feel Ivan is the strongest if now we have a phase where now we have loads of balls into the box, and that was the case so after 80 minutes we made him ready.
‘Then we scored and so they took the goal away so it took some time longer than we wanted.
‘Mainly that’s what he may give – presence within the box and a goal late within the match.’
Tuchel then added in his post-match press conference: ‘No, it was too early.
‘We desired to play there with Morgan Rogers, more fluid, far more physical player, I feel it was too early for Ivan since the game was so, so physical, the opponent was so physical, we weren’t 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 long run within the box and use his experience in ending.
‘For me, he’s on this sort of level, a player who must be within the box, and he must be in and really, very near the box, and within the moment earlier after we had the changes we weren’t so close within the box, it was a more open game, it was loads of intensity needed against the ball to get into a better pressing situation because we struggled on the ball, so we desired to bring more bodies into the opponent’s half to play a better press and we selected different players for that.’
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