Thomas Tuchel is set to make highly-rated coach Justin Cochrane the latest addition to his senior England backroom staff.
The Football Association is in advanced talks with Brentford to appoint Cochrane, the club’s Head of Coaching, before England’s World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia next month.
A former coach at Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United’s academy, Cochrane has already held key roles within the Football Association in charge of the under-16 and under-17s teams.
With Ashley Cole returning to the England under-21s with Lee Carsley, and following the recent employment of Chris Powell, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Joleon Lescott, Cochrane will become the latest black or minority ethnic (BME) coach to join the senior set-up.
Cochrane, 43, has been targeted by Tuchel and John McDermott, the FA’s technical director, and negotiations are close to completion with the Premier League club.
McDermott previously worked with Cochrane at Tottenham during his time as the Head of Academy and Player Development.
The expectation is that Cochrane will work part-time with England and retain his job at Brentford, where he has worked with Thomas Frank’s first-team since June 2022.
He has already worked with a number of England senior squad members during his spells with the junior levels, including United’s Kobbie Mainoo and Chelsea’s Noni Madueke.
Tuchel officially started work on January 1 and has already confirmed the majority of his backroom staff with assistant Anthony Barry, performance coach Nicolas Mayer, goalkeeper coach Henrique Hilario and analyst James Melbourne.
The German worked with Hilario at Chelsea, where he also had Melbourne as an analyst. Mayer previously worked with Tuchel at Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich.
Tuchel has been keen to add another experienced coach and Cochrane, a former centre-back and defensive midfielder, is set to join the staff at St. George’s Park for the first time when the England squad reports for training next month.
The former Chelsea manager kicks off his England reign with two games at Wembley next month, before a qualifier in Andorra in June and a friendly against Senegal at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground.
