Marcus Rashford and Anthony Gordon: England's Tactical Shift
Marcus Rashford used to be the poster boy. Manchester United’s homegrown star, the kid who carried Old Trafford’s hopes on his shoulders. Then came the fall-out with Ruben Amorim, the admission that he was “ready for a new challenge”, and a career that looked like it was drifting towards the margins.
A loan to Aston Villa hinted at recovery, not resurrection. Rashford showed flashes, but it felt like a holding pattern, not a new era. He needed a permanent reset, a club that would build a season – not a cameo – around him.
Barcelona stepped in, cautiously. A loan, not a buy, with a €30m option that barely registers in the modern market. He arrived as one more name in a crowded forward line: Lamine Yamal, Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski, Ferran Torres. A gamble for him, a low-risk roll of the dice for them.
Hansi Flick knew what he wanted. Deco knew what he was looking for. They brought Rashford to Camp Nou and the Englishman delivered: 14 goals, 11 assists, and that outrageous free-kick in May’s Clasico, a moment that didn’t just decorate the title win – it underlined it.
No wonder Rashford has been vocal about wanting to stay. No wonder his team-mates have pushed publicly and privately for Barca to trigger the option. His form has stretched the lifeline Thomas Tuchel threw him in March 2025 all the way into what will be his fifth major international tournament.
Yet for England, for this version of England, Rashford is no longer the automatic starter. Because what Anthony Gordon brings cannot be measured only in goals and assists.
The runner Tuchel has been waiting for
Modern international football belongs to the system coaches. Tuchel is one of them. The days of building everything around one mercurial talent and hoping for the best are gone. Now the stars need runners, foils, sidekicks who do the unglamorous work so the structure holds.
Gordon lives in that space.
He runs. Then runs again. And when the move breaks down, he makes the same sprint, the same selfless angle, one more time. Down the channels, across the line, always offering the pass that might not come. It looks repetitive. It is. That’s the point.
Without the ball, he becomes something else entirely: a menace. A relentless presser, snapping at heels, closing passing lanes, hounding full-backs who think they’ve got a second to breathe. Ask Trent Alexander-Arnold. During the 2023-24 season, Gordon picked his pocket, surged past three Liverpool defenders and finished the move himself. One sequence that summed up his game: intensity, directness, end product.
The numbers back the eye test. Last season, Gordon ran further per game than Rashford – 7.43 kilometres on average. Statsbomb data has him in the 96th percentile for defensive actions, 98th for pressures, 94th for counter-pressures in the Premier League. Those are elite pressing metrics, the kind that make a systems coach sit up.
And tactically, he fits like a glove.
Phil Foden and Cole Palmer are arguably more gifted in pure technical terms. They see passes others don’t, manipulate the ball in tight spaces, glide between lines. But Tuchel has left them at home this summer because they don’t knit into his plan as cleanly as Gordon does. The decision is brutal, but it’s coherent.
Built around Kane, powered by Gordon
This England revolves around Harry Kane. Tuchel has embraced the version of Kane that likes to drop, to create, to thread passes from deeper pockets of space. The trade-off is obvious: when your No.9 wanders, someone has to attack the space he leaves behind.
Gordon is that someone.
Raised as a traditional touchline winger, he learned to hug the line, isolate his full-back and make the same outside-to-in run until defenders crack. He has played as a No.9 at Everton and Newcastle, and might yet do that for Barcelona if Lewandowski’s departure opens a central void, but his instincts remain those of a wide runner who stretches the pitch.
With the ball, he complements Kane. Without it, he protects him. Gordon’s work-rate lets the captain conserve energy, pick his moments, and avoid chasing shadows in the heat that awaits in North America. Their partnership is not theoretical, either. The two have already logged 528 minutes together for England across 12 games, winning nine of them. In one of those, a 5-0 dismantling of Latvia, both found the net.
This is what Tuchel craves: patterns, partnerships, repeatable actions. Not just talent, but fit.
Tuchel’s England is not Southgate’s England
There is risk in benching a player of Rashford’s stature and pedigree. Tuchel will not pretend otherwise. But this is precisely what England signed up for when they turned to him: a manager who will pick the system over the name on the back of the shirt.
The contrast with Sir Gareth Southgate’s final act at Euro 2024 is stark. Southgate remained loyal to certain players even as performances sagged and the structure frayed. Tuchel has no such sentimentality. If the data, the tape and the tactical plan all point one way, he follows them.
Gordon is not just a runner, not just a presser. He can thrill too. Last season he completed more take-ons per 90 than any other Newcastle player. He can beat a man, change a game, lift a crowd. But it is the less glamorous parts of his game – the pressing triggers, the covering runs, the constant availability – that make him the better starting option for this England side.
Rashford is more explosive, more unpredictable. On his day, he can win a game with a single moment. Tuchel knows that. He also knows tournaments are rarely won by the player who provides the best YouTube highlights.
The starter and the game-changer
None of this means Rashford is reduced to a spectator. Quite the opposite. With Palmer, Foden and others absent, Tuchel has very few genuine game-changers on the bench. Rashford is one of them.
In the sweltering conditions England expect in North America, rotation will be a necessity, not a luxury. Legs will go. Minds will tire. Patterns will fray. That is when a fresh Rashford, with his direct running and eye for goal, becomes a weapon.
If England are chasing a game, he offers a different dimension – more chaos, more risk, more individualism. Flip the scenario and imagine Gordon coming on when England need to overturn a deficit. It is harder to see the same impact. His strengths lie in starting the press, not in detonating a broken match.
So Tuchel’s path is clear. Gordon from the first whistle, Rashford as the knife off the bench.
Barcelona still have their own decision to make: whether to turn Rashford’s loan into a permanent deal and, in doing so, potentially pit him directly against Gordon for minutes at club level in the future.
For England, there is no such ambiguity. Tuchel has built a system. Gordon fits it. He cost €80m for a reason.
