England boss Tuchel made seven changes to the side that beat Serbia 2-0 in midweek. The Three Lions had to be patient at Arena Kombetare, with Kane scoring in the 74th and 82nd minutes. For the ex-Spurs man, Albania provided a stern test for him and his team-mates.
“I think it was a really tough game, probably one of the toughest games we’ve had in the group, and we had to be patient, we had to grind them down defensively, really solid, and we’ve done that, and we ended up with a two-nil win, another clean sheet, we can be really happy,” he said. “Yeah so we kind of changed it, first half we went in a different out swing and then when Saka come on, we know how good he is at hitting that kind of front post zone and we kind of went to the front post, got a little bit lucky with the flick on but thankfully I was there to put it away. If you’re going to go far in any tournament you need a whole squad, you need the players who don’t start to come off the bench and make an impact, that’s what football’s about, it’s not just the 11 that play so we’re going to need everyone and you know the guys who come on today made a big difference. I think we’ve set the standard now, especially in the last few camps, and we carried it on into this camp, and it’s an important win, you don’t want to finish with a loss on the end of the year and then have to wait until March to play again, we can go away and enjoy this now.”