Having already been booked for a foul on Dmitrijs Zelenkovs as half-time approached, Tuchel has revealed that he feared that Bellingham would be sent off if he stayed on the pitch any longer against Latvia. Bellingham looked fortunate to escape a second yellow for a mistimed challenge on Raivis Jurkovskis shortly after the restart and was promptly replace by Phil Foden.
“In general, you could see the huge effort that Jude put in in the first game. You could see he did not feel so fresh.
"That is my observation, I’m not sure he would agree. I didn’t want to take the risk and took him off.”
The German head coach called for Bellingham to be “more disciplined” before the game and admitted to ITV Sport that he believes the Madrid star was lucky to stay on the pitch.
“We were a bit lucky, and took straight away the decision to not take the risk and take him off.”
A 2-0 win against Albania and a 3-0 win against Latvia secured a great start for Tuchel after taking over from Gareth Southgate last year. He will be hoping to do the same against Andorra and Senegal in June as he attempts to implement his tactical style into an England side in need of tweaking.