Nicky Butt urges Mainoo to skip England's third-place game

Nicky Butt has lit a fuse under England’s bruised World Cup campaign, urging Kobbie Mainoo to snub a first World Cup appearance and demanding the Football Association sack Thomas Tuchel after the semi-final defeat to Argentina.

The former Manchester United midfielder, never one to sugar-coat an opinion, believes Mainoo should turn his back on Saturday night’s third-place play-off against France, branding the fixture “a nonsense game” and a risk to the youngster’s season.

‘I’d just refuse to play’

Mainoo forced his way into Tuchel’s final squad on the back of a superb second half of the season at Old Trafford under interim boss Michael Carrick. The 21-year-old’s rise felt perfectly timed: a dynamic United midfielder, technically sharp, tactically mature, and seemingly made for tournament football.

He has not played a single minute.

Seven matches. Seven times on the bench. England’s run ended in heartbreak against Argentina on Wednesday, and only now is Tuchel expected to turn to him, with multiple changes planned for the meeting with France (kick-off 10pm BST).

Butt thinks Mainoo should say no.

“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 about respect as much as risk. A player ignored when it mattered most, suddenly asked to step in when the stakes have dropped and the cameras have half-turned away. In his eyes, Mainoo has earned more than a consolation cap in a game many players privately dread.

‘No way he can stay on’

Butt’s criticism does not stop at team selection. He believes England’s entire direction under Tuchel has hit a dead end.

“There’s no way he [Tuchel] can stay on. Not a cat in hell’s chance after that,” he said, pointing squarely at the semi-final defeat to Argentina and the manner of it.

Tuchel, a Champions League winner and serial club operator, was hired to sharpen England’s edge at the highest level. Butt sees the opposite.

“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.”

The fallout, Butt argues, cannot be limited to the dugout.

“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.”

Tuchel’s nationality, Butt warns, will only deepen the hostility.

“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’.”

Howe, Pochettino… and a distant dream of Pep

If Tuchel goes, who comes next? Butt has a clear shortlist and one fantasy name.

“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 the realistic options, in Butt’s view, sit closer to home and across the Atlantic.

“Eddie Howe would be brilliant. I’d love him to go in, it’d be great.”

Howe’s work at Newcastle has impressed coaches and players across the country, and Butt sees an international manager in waiting: detailed, progressive, and comfortable working with both stars and prospects.

Then there is Mauricio Pochettino, whose relationship with McDermott dates back to their days together at Tottenham.

“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.”

That, Butt notes, is what was once said about Tuchel too.

“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.”

A third-place game with a different kind of tension

So England head into a third-place decider that suddenly feels loaded. For Tuchel, a match he is tipped to approach with sweeping changes. For Mainoo, a potential debut wrapped in controversy. For the FA, a night played under the shadow of questions about what comes next.

Butt has made his stance brutally clear: Mainoo should sit it out, Tuchel should walk away, and England should reset with a new face and a new idea of what this team should be.

The 90 minutes against France might not carry the weight of a final. The decisions made around it, and after it, very much will.