Tuchel confident Anthony Barry will stay with England until next Euros despite club interest

Thomas Tuchel has publicly backed England assistant Anthony Barry to resist interest from Crystal Palace and Fulham, saying he expects the coach to remain with the Three Lions until at least the next European Championship.

Barry has been heavily linked with both clubs in recent weeks, with Fulham boss Alvaro Arbeloa under pressure and Sean Dyche reported as the frontrunner for the Palace job should Pierre Sage depart. The Football Association is said to be confident Barry will stay, and Tuchel reinforced that message in comments to the BBC.

“He’s very important to me,” Tuchel said. “That’s why I did everything I could to convince him to join my staff once we met at Chelsea, and join me on my way to Bayern Munich and then in the national team. It’s a privilege for me to have him by my side. He’s challenging me, he’s helping me, he makes me better.”

Barry has followed Tuchel across three separate jobs — Chelsea, Bayern Munich, and now the England national team — and the German manager acknowledged that his assistant’s reputation makes outside interest inevitable.

“He’s just a fantastic person and the highest-level coach, so I am not surprised that there are rumours around him,” Tuchel added. “My understanding, my wish is that we stay together until minimum the next Euros. For me, we are by far not finished, and he will always have a place in my coaching staff, also after the Euros. But he has to follow also his own path.”

Tuchel said he had received no indication from Barry that a move was imminent. “At the moment, I think that we are an excellent team, and I think that he feels that he’s in a good place where he wants to be. As soon as this changes, I think I will be the first to know. At the moment, I don’t know nothing, so I’m pretty confident that he’s in a good place. But I’m not surprised that he has offers.”

Barry has never hidden his long-term ambition to become a manager in his own right, but breaking into Premier League management as a young, untried English coach remains a significant challenge — a factor that may ultimately keep him within the international set-up for now.