Nicky Butt Urges Mainoo to Snub Third-Place Play-Off
Nicky Butt has urged Kobbie Mainoo to refuse a late World Cup call from Thomas Tuchel – and says the England manager should be sacked after the semi-final defeat to Argentina.
Mainoo, who forced his way into Tuchel’s squad on the back of a superb second half of the season at Manchester United under interim boss Michael Carrick, has not played a single minute in Qatar. Seven games, seven times on the bench. Not a second on the pitch.
Now, with England consigned to Saturday’s third-place play-off against France, Tuchel is expected to ring the changes for the 10pm BST kick-off and finally hand the 21-year-old his World Cup debut.
Butt’s message? Don’t do it.
‘I’d refuse to play’
The former United midfielder, who knows Mainoo’s pathway and the demands of a long club season, did not hold back when asked about the prospect of the youngster starting what he clearly views as a hollow fixture.
“I do not know what is going on there, there’s something not quite right with it,” Butt said.
“Now they’re going to play the bomb squad in the stupid third-place game.
“I’d just refuse to play if I was Kobbie Mainoo. I’d say I was injured. It’s a nonsense game, especially when you’ve been treated like that.
“He’s not played a minute of football, now to go and start this pointless jumped-up friendly and potentially get injured for the whole season… no.”
For Butt, this is not about petulance. It is about principle and risk. A player overlooked all summer, suddenly thrown into a game many senior pros privately resent, with nothing on the line except pride and the possibility of an ill-timed injury.
‘No way he can stay on’
Butt’s frustration does not stop with Mainoo’s treatment. It runs straight through Tuchel’s future as England manager.
In his eyes, the semi-final defeat to an Argentina side he describes as “beatable” has to be the end of the German’s international reign.
“There’s no way he [Tuchel] can stay on. Not a cat in hell’s chance after that,” Butt said.
“If he stays on, John McDermott [the FA’s technical director] needs to be sacked as well.
“There’s no way you can keep him now. He’s not a Sir Bobby Robson or Kevin Keegan, someone that the nation loves.
“You’re talking about a manager that’s come in and played negative football, crazy negative football, in the semi-final against a beatable Argentina team.
“And it shouldn’t really matter, but people will go against him because he’s German as well, so he’s going to have a nightmare.
“He’s an unbelievable club manager, so just let him go. He won’t want to stay. He might say he does, but deep down he’ll be thinking, ‘pay up, I’m out of here’.”
It is a brutal assessment of a coach widely respected in the club game, but one Butt believes has never clicked with the unique pressures and politics of the England job.
Howe, Pochettino – and the Guardiola dream
If Tuchel goes, the obvious question is: who comes in? Butt has a clear shortlist and a long shot.
“If we were nine months down the line, I’d definitely be going for Pep Guardiola. But Pep can’t leave Man City a month ago, saying he needs a rest from football, and then go straight back in. He can’t do that.”
So attention, in Butt’s mind, turns to two names already embedded in the modern English game.
“Eddie Howe would be brilliant. I’d love him to go in, it’d be great.
“Mauricio Pochettino’s got an unbelievable relationship with John McDermott. When McDermott was the academy manager at Tottenham, Pochettino was the manager, and they had a really, really good relationship.
“I was in and around it with the Manchester United academy, we would do training camps there so I’ve seen it first hand.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened and I wouldn’t be against it at all. He’s a very, very good manager. A likeable person, plays good football everywhere he goes.
“But we all said the same about Tuchel, yet when they go into that England dynamic, they just change, it’s crazy. I can’t put my finger on why.”
Howe brings meticulous structure and a reputation for improving players. Pochettino offers high-energy football and a proven track record of developing young talent in England. Both, in Butt’s view, would fit the national-team brief better than Tuchel has managed.
For now, though, Tuchel remains in charge, Mainoo waits for a first World Cup minute that may or may not come, and England head into a third-place game that one of their former midfielders dismisses as “pointless”.
Whether the FA listens to Butt’s warning – about both the manager and the midfielder – will say plenty about where England go next.
