Nicky Butt Urges Mainoo to Reject ‘Nonsense’ Third-Place Play-Off
Nicky Butt has lit a fuse under England’s World Cup fallout, urging Kobbie Mainoo to refuse to play in Saturday’s third-place play-off against France and insisting Thomas Tuchel must be sacked after the semi-final defeat to Argentina.
The former Manchester United midfielder did not dance around his words. He tore straight into the situation: the treatment of Mainoo, the style of football, and the future of the England job.
“I’d just refuse to play”
Mainoo’s rise this year has been one of the few unqualified positives in English football. The 21-year-old forced his way into Tuchel’s final World Cup squad on the back of a superb second half of the season at Old Trafford, thriving once Michael Carrick took over as interim manager.
Then came the tournament. Seven games. Not a single minute.
England’s run ended in heartbreak on Wednesday night, beaten by a very beatable Argentina side in the semi-final. Now Tuchel is expected to shuffle his pack for the third-place decider against France on Saturday (10pm BST), with Mainoo tipped to finally make his World Cup bow.
Butt’s response to that prospect was blunt.
“I do not know what is going on there, there’s something not quite right with it,” he 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 not about opportunity at last. It is about principle. A young midfielder has watched an entire campaign from the bench, then is asked to risk his club season in a game many inside the sport regard as little more than a ceremonial afterthought.
No way he can stay on
If Butt’s verdict on Mainoo was strong, his view on Tuchel’s future was even more uncompromising.
“There’s no way he [Tuchel] can stay on. Not a cat in hell’s chance after that,” Butt said. “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.
“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 criticism cut on several levels. Style. Identity. Connection with supporters. Butt believes Tuchel has failed on all three, and that the fallout will only grow.
“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 the Guardiola dream
Once Butt had made it clear he sees no future for Tuchel in the role, attention turned to who should come next.
If timing were different, Butt admits his first call would be obvious.
“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 his eyes, lie elsewhere.
“Eddie Howe would be brilliant. I’d love him to go in, it’d be great.”
Then came a familiar name with deep FA connections.
“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.”
The warning followed immediately.
“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 crossroads for England – and for Mainoo
Strip away the emotion and Butt’s message lands in two clear places.
For Mainoo: protect yourself, value your season at Manchester United, and do not let a token World Cup appearance in a game he calls “pointless” define your summer.
For the FA: accept that Tuchel’s reign, in his view, is broken beyond repair, and move decisively towards a manager who can restore both belief and identity.
England head into a third-place play-off few players truly want and many supporters will treat as background noise. For Kobbie Mainoo and Thomas Tuchel, though, the decisions made around this “nonsense game” could echo long after the final whistle.
