"It's not down to our preparation." Marcus Trescothick chatting to me after a chastening day for England in Brisbane. #BBCCricket #Ashes

He’s opening his mouth and words are coming out, but you can clearly see that Tres doesn’t believe a word he’s saying.

Can't be down to preparation - they didn't do any

McCullum a coward not fronting to media sending trescothick to speak shows him for who he is.

Apart from batting, bowling, fielding, application, effort, bravery, intelligence, match awareness and grit i think england did really well today.

Easy to see where the players get their attitude and their refusal to accept responsibility from …

“It’s the same preparation as when India or Australia go to England, or when we go to India” Not sure that listing loads of tours where the away team doesn’t win is quite the defence you think it is Marcus…

Didn’t the Aussies play county championship ahead of the 2023 tour and also those in the hundred ahead of that……???? Sick of the bullshit excuses - admit you got it wrong and work out how to learn from it….people will support/respect you more

But when the Aussies come over here, they infiltrate the County Championship and prepare that way.

There lies the problem : No accountability, nobody faces upto the truth. Players who continue to fail picked regardless. Rinse and repeat

Get Crawley, Smith, Pope out for an interview. Ask some proper questions of the players. Embarrassing Tress is doing it. To Smith… ‘why playing zero pink balls in your life did you think you’d score any runs and take any catches?’ Should be the first question!

Someone needs to haul McCullum in front of a microphone to account for this shambles. Shame on him for sending someone else out to do his dirty work.

It's down to ineptitude

Ok its not your preparation. So basically this is a very poor team then. Coaches denying how shocking the preparation was just part of the malaise. Very 90s feel to this England team.

That’s B******t!! It’s not the same regarding preparation, when India and Australia come to England to play there batters and bowlers that play on our country in the run up to a series. I have them in my fantasy cricket team through out the season. 😡

Correct, it’s down to your lack of preparation.

The “special innings” narrative from the first game is so annoying. They won by 8 wickets. It only needed two partnerships, and all it took was one.

But hasn't England given Ashes ⚱️ as an excuse for all the bad performances and resting players in the past few years. They made Jimmy Anderson retire because they didn't see him playing 5 tests in Nov-Dec 2025.

Maybe they should all be made to watch the West Indies batting performance over the last 2 days, but won’t happen as it’ll interfere with their golf.

Apart from batting bowling catching and game awareness there’s not a lot of improvement needed 😉

How is this guy even in the setup? Whats his role. Not bringing his history into this, but how can u have mentally weak players in your coaching setup. He was such a defensive batsman in his own time. Very strange!

Now I like Tres, but I’ve never heard so much crap spouted. Stop defending that! Three major facets to cricket and not one of them was good enough. Also making out that if it wasn’t for Head we’d have had a chance in the first test. Do me a favour! I’d ditch 90% of them.

Towing the party line about preparation, then says the pitches were different!. Well, had you done homework you should have know that and practiced accordingly. Series in over quickly so homework should have been done early. Why doesn’t the manager face the press?. Sack Key & Baz

Before the next Ashes series in England, Smith, Labuschagne, Lyon, etc, sign up for county cricket to get used to conditions. NONE of England's players play Shield cricket before playing the Ashes in Australia. And we wonder in amazement why our chaps fail with the bat? Lol.

They always throw out Tres after a bad day 😂

They’re all deluded morons. Top to bottom. English cricket has never been more of a laughing stock worldwide.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Been preparing for four years, and it’s all a pile of crap! I could captain Australia to a win over England One bowler bowl line and length at the stumps, Other push the ball across the batsman have patience, because they will eventually chase the wider ball.

Arrogant, deluded, average batter, even worse coach. Has he ever won in australia? How about get a coach that has. None of the batters have improved under him. No wonder theyve all got the same mentality as him

Well if it ain’t preparation as a regime you’ve picked players that just aren’t good enough……..Pope and Smith are prime examples.

I wouldn't say its 100% down to poor preparation but that the biggest single thing they were in control of. Sorry to me they are undercooked. NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!

After just 2 days in Perth you chose not to play any of the Test players in a pink ball practice match. Yeah. That’s great preparation.

The entire coaching team needs to be sacked. England have been poor for a while but this is a new level of embarrassing

Oh for another Lord MacLaurin to shake things up.

If it's not preparation, then it must be attitude and ability and that's far more damming!