Should England be appointing Thomas Tuchel as their manager?

That has generally been my thinking over the years.

That international football should be a test of the ability within your own country.

If you arrive at a major tournament with brilliant creative players but no left-back or deep-lying midfielder, then you have to make the best of it.

From within your own country.

It seems a few people think that way, judging from reaction to the appointment of Thomas Tuchel as England boss.

By the way, does today’s news put a couple of recent comments by Lee Carsley into a new light. 

The one where he said he would hopefully return to the under-21s.

And that where he said the England job was one for a coach with a track record of winning trophies.

It feels like he knew exactly what was going to happen if you look at those two replies.

Anyway, back to the eligibility and one person has confused my thinking in recent times.

It’s someone whose team gave me and many others one of the best nights at the Amex over the last three years or so.

Sabrina Wiegman.

The Dutch coach took England’s women’s team to a new level and inspired the nation as they won the Euros on home turf.

The quarter-final against Spain at the Amex was a night of high quality and high drama.

The 8-0 win over Norway wasn’t bad either.

Just remind me. Were there many complaints over the nationality of the coach that night?

Or after the final at Wembley?

And there is another blurred line. How far would the nationality rule stretch?

If, for example, Graham Potter were made England coach, would it matter that his key assistants were Scottish and Catalan?

So the nationality of a national coach. Is it a huge talking point or a red herring?

This morning I worked on a story about Julio Enciso and Gustavo Alfaro.

The latter is an Argentinian who now coaches Paraguay and was previously in charge of Ecuador.

England should be strong enough as a footballing nation to have a coach from their own country.

But we should also be strong enough to have a left-back and a specialist defensive midfielder.

We shouldn’t be going into a major tournament looking for do-a-job stop-gap solutions like a League One side going to Walsall on a Tuesday night in mid-season with injuries, suspensions and a few sniffles in the camp.

We should be strong enough that great players do not make the XI.

As it is, major tournaments continue to come and go with a sense of enjoying the football while trying not to get carried away.

Knowing the intense England disappointment that will come at some stage.

Trying to enjoy the success of others - and sometimes, as with Alexis Mac Allister in 2022, that enjoyment is genuine.

Knowing that with every hurdle cleared, that ultimate disappointment will be more intense.

It’s a generalisation but younger fans seem to to enjoy tournaments more (I recall the buzz from Italia 90, thinking England had restored pride by beating Egypt and Cameroon and weren’t far away from winning a competition).

Older fans sort of know how it will all end and are just wondering how it will get to that moment.

Gareth Southgate did a good job for England to a point - not unlike what Chris Hughton did for Albion.

Southgate seems to encapsulate many of what we see as typical and laudable English qualities. He was an outstanding ambassador in uniquely testing times.

Equally, did these 'English' qualities - a bit of modesty, a bit of caution - contribute to him not taking the final step to glory?

We wait to see what Tuchel does.

There will be probably be questions over whether he sings God Save The King but he really doesn’t need to.

He does not need to pretend. We know he isn’t English. We know why he is here and that it is all within the rules.

The bar will be set higher than for an English coach such as Potter or Eddie Howe.

If he achieves what many of us increasingly think will never happen, certainly in our lifetimes, it wouldn’t be perfect. But it would still be great.

Many of us still believe it will not happen. Prove us wrong, Thomas.