“It needs to be channelled towards the opponent and towards our goal, not to intimidate team-mates or be over-aggressive towards team-mates and officials, but always towards the solution, towards winning.
“He has the fire and I don’t want to dim this down. He should play with this kind of fire, but the fire comes with some attributes that can intimidate you, maybe even as a team-mate.
“You sometimes see the explosion towards referees and the anger in his game. If he can channel this in the right way, and we can help him with this, then for sure he has the something we need and a certain edge that is hard to find.
“He’s a nice kid, very open, very intelligent and he’s been very easy [to manage] so far.”
It was put to Tuchel that there may be some fans who feel England would be better without Bellingham in the team, to which he replied: “I struggle to see that and I think it has to be the other way around – how we can have the best version of him, that people understand what he brings to us and he’s bringing a certain edge.
“I see it can bring mixed emotions. I see this with my parents, with my mum, that she sometimes cannot see the nice, well-educated, well-behaved guy that I see.
“If he smiles, he wins everyone. But sometimes you see the rage, the hunger and the fire and it comes out in a way that can be a bit repulsive, for example, for my mother when she sits in front of the TV. I see that but, in general, we are very happy to have him. He’s a special boy.”
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