Tuchel's Intensity: Djed Spence's Response to Coaching Style

Thomas Tuchel’s roar cut straight through the Kansas City heat.

“Djed, Djed, Djed, wake up! Wake up!”

The words snapped across the training pitch as England fine‑tuned their plans for a World Cup group clash with Ghana. One hesitant movement from Djed Spence in a tactical drill was all it took for the German to erupt, a brief lapse punished with a very public reminder of his standards.

The clip hit social media within hours. Tuchel, veins up, voice booming. Spence, momentarily frozen in the drill. It looked brutal. It looked personal.

Spence insists it was neither.

Tuchel’s hard edge, Spence’s calm response

For the 25-year-old defender, this is simply life under an elite coach with no time for passengers.

“Yeah, I think it's normal,” Spence said, brushing away any hint of a rift. “He's a great manager and he wants the best from his players. He demands high standards, and for this tournament, we need to be ready, we need to be honest. I think every session needs to be up to high quality and that's what he demands. It's good.”

No sulking. No suggestion of a grudge. Just a player who knows exactly where the bar has been set.

Spence made it clear the blast wasn’t some personal attack, but part of a culture Tuchel is driving through the entire squad.

“No feeling, really,” he admitted. “I wouldn't be there anyway, and he says it to everyone else. No, no, no, freedom is just part of the game. If he needs me to do whatever, I'll do it. It's just part of the game, really.”

The message is simple: if you’re on the pitch, you’re accountable. Every run, every trigger, every angle.

Building a family, not a comfort zone

Behind the sharp edges, Spence sees something more constructive taking shape under Tuchel.

“I think he's a great manager, he's a great guy. Very detailed in what he wants to do,” he said. “I think the boys really love him and have a great respect for him. I think it's like what he always says, we're building a family here and we've built a family... I think if everyone's on the same path, we can do special things. He's built an environment in the squad.”

That word – family – matters. It hints at a camp where confrontation isn’t chaos, it’s currency. Where being shouted at in front of the cameras doesn’t fracture trust, it underlines it.

Tuchel’s intensity, then, isn’t an act for the viral clips. It’s the daily reality of a manager trying to squeeze every last detail out of a group with ambitions of going deep into the tournament.

Watkins: “I was lucky it wasn’t me”

Ollie Watkins knows exactly how thin the margin for error is.

The Aston Villa striker watched the same incident unfold at close quarters and admitted Spence wasn’t the only one flirting with Tuchel’s temper during that drill.

“I think he's not afraid to shout at you,” Watkins told reporters. “He's always demanding from you, making sure you're on it every day. You saw it with Djed that he was saying, 'Wake up, wake up!'”

Then came the confession.

“I was lucky that it wasn't me, I think I made a mistake just before Djed did and he ended up shouting at him, luckily... But I think it just shows you that he's a winner at the end of the day, driving the standards and I think that's what you need.”

One misstep, one wrong cue, and the manager is on you. If it wasn’t Spence in that viral clip, it might well have been Watkins. Or someone else. That’s the point.

No hiding places. Not in Kansas City, and certainly not at a World Cup.

As England move towards their meeting with Ghana, the message from Tuchel could not be clearer: switch off for a second, and you’ll hear about it. Stay locked in, and this “family” he keeps talking about might just be capable of those “special things” Spence believes are within reach.