Anthony Barry's Tactical Shift Transforms Declan Rice's Role

In the chaos of a game that threatened to spiral out of control, the key adjustment didn’t come from the man in the spotlight on the touchline, but from the assistant just behind him.

Thomas Tuchel revealed after the match that it was his assistant, Anthony Barry, who spotted the opening and pulled the tactical lever that changed England’s right flank – and with it, the rhythm of the contest.

“Anthony Barry had a brilliant idea to put Declan there,” Tuchel admitted, as quoted by The Sun.

The thinking was simple but sharp: move Declan Rice out to the side, use his delivery and composure from wider areas, and turn hopeful balls into punishing crosses.

The impact was immediate. With Rice stationed on the right, England found better angles, nastier outswingers, and a more secure platform to attack from that side. What had been a loose, open channel suddenly became a weapon.

Tuchel didn’t try to dress it up as his own masterstroke. “To have his quality from the side, to get more difficult crosses in there, more difficult to defend, more crosses and outswingers,” he said, before underlining the secondary benefit: support for Bukayo Saka and a clearer connection with Eberechi Eze. That triangle on the right began to hum. “So full credit to my assistant.”

The pressure finally told. Rice played a central role in the build-up to the equaliser, knitting together possession and giving England a foothold in a match that had been veering into end-to-end chaos.

For Rice, though, the tactical tweak came with a personal cost. The Arsenal midfielder was pushed into a makeshift defensive role, asked to patrol an exposed right-back zone against pacey wingers in a game that had lost its structure.

“It was probably the hardest 12 minutes of the game having a stint at right back,” he admitted afterwards.

That wasn’t exaggeration. The match had turned into what he called “too much of a basketball match at times, back and forth,” the sort of frantic, stretched contest that leaves defenders gasping and midfielders chasing shadows.

England needed to slow it down. “We had to take the sting out of it because they have fast wingers,” Rice said, acknowledging how dangerous the opposition looked whenever space appeared on the break. The tactical switch was as much about survival as it was about supply.

Rice didn’t pretend the performance was perfect. “I think we made more hard work of it than we needed to,” he reflected, a blunt assessment of a game that could have slipped away. Yet he understood why he was the one sent to plug the gap.

“I have played there two or three times this season, I know the role, it is probably not my biggest strength but to do anything for the team and the manager,” he said. With 12 minutes left, there was no time for debate, only commitment. “12 minutes left I said I would do my best and I think I did well there.”

It summed up Rice’s standing in this England side: a midfielder trusted to step into the fire, even in a position that doesn’t come naturally, if it helps drag the team over the line.

As for the future, he made no secret of his preference. “Let’s see what happens next game but hopefully I don’t have to be at right back.”