DECLAN RICE declares: 'Now you'll see the best of England'
Once settled inside the MetLife's dressing room, goalless against Panama at half-time, Thomas Tuchel calmly delivered another sermon that soothed the sort of England concerns that were being shared by millions back home.
It's becoming a running theme, England emerging rejuvenated after the break following a cool debrief, but Declan Rice knows that the mindset around this World Cup campaign changes when they arrive in Atlanta, where DR Congo lie in wait.
Rice wants a team soon to boast three midfielders worth more than £100million to attack games from the off and truly show why others ought to fear them.
'I think now it (knockout football) probably changes the mentality,' he said. 'We're going to be really motivated to continuing pushing on. These are teams who want to beat England.
'I feel like now the knockouts come, you're going to keep seeing the best versions of everyone. The real key is if you can get an early goal in games against low blocks - I think that's when you'll see teams start to open up.
Declan Rice says England are ready to show their real selves in the World Cup knock-outs
Thomas Tuchel has been preparing England's players to be at their best in the latter stages
'To a neutral, when you're playing against 10 behind the ball, when you look at the quality of an England side, you would say, "Right, how are we not scoring four or five?"
'I understand how teams have a way of playing against us and doing anything to win. But we need to find ways to keep counteracting that. We've been trying to attack and threaten teams, even though the goals haven't come in the second and third games as much as we wanted.'
There have been moments, patches, for England. That 15 minutes against Croatia, the quick double in New Jersey on Saturday. Those have been enough until now for a team tending too many injuries across the pitch.
While Rice maintained that a calf issue sustained last week has cleared, he has been managing a neural hamstring complaint for months, putting his body on the line for club and country. The peculiar nature of it has taken some adjusting to.
'You could be sat at home and you'd feel a little pain shoot up your leg,' he revealed. 'It's just something that is obviously a bit unusual for me because I've never had anything (like that) before.
'It's strange because you can just feel it like sitting there. It's something I've just managed. I've tried to get my rest when I can and last season I was just prioritising games.'
Tuchel did similar on Saturday, Rice watching from the bench to rest but – on a booking for the tournament - also to steer clear of a suspension. That has now reset and he is ready to line up next to Elliot Anderson, who was completing a medical ahead of a £116m move to Manchester City on Sunday.
'We had a great chat the other day,' Rice added. 'We were sat outside on the beanbags. I just said to him that he can't control the price that he's going for.
'I couldn't control what I went for, he can't control what he's going for. Why he's going for that price is because he's been one of the best players in Europe this season.
Elliot Anderson and Rice form a £216m partnership in England's midfield now
'If you watch him play every game, everything goes through him at Nottingham Forest. He's constantly on the ball, he's the engine room. I was trying to give him a bit of perspective that the price tag is just noise. Just go and do what you've been doing and you'll be just fine.'
Much to do before then, though. Rice believes England's midfield core – him, Anderson and Jude Bellingham – have more to give. If England are to make history over the course of the coming weeks, that trio has to purr.
There have been murmurings about style, just as Arsenal had to contend all season before lifting the Premier League and reaching the Champions League final. The clip of Rice shouting 'it's not over' at full time on losing away at City in April went viral and it is that attitude he wants to impart on others when the chips are down. Be it against Congo or whoever else.
'There are definitely going to be moments of that,' Rice said. 'There are going to be moments where we're going to have setbacks in games. Tough periods. The best teams are left. The best players are left.'
England have a few of those too, as Tuchel has been quietly reminding them.
Ford's AI experiment backfires as car giant rehires humans
Ford has admitted its push to rely heavily on AI fell short, revealing it has hired hundreds of veteran engineers after concluding the technology alone could not deliver the quality improvements it expected.
The US automaker has hired more than 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to help address quality problems that have cost the company billions of dollars.
Ford, however, insisted it is not abandoning AI and said the improvements have come from combining the technology with decades of engineering expertise.
'This reorg allowed us to look at the entire lifecycle of a vehicle – from software development to suppliers on our plant floor - as one continuous and collaborative flow,' a Ford spokesperson told the Daily Mail.
'At the same time, we have rallied the whole company around a clear vision: Quality Comes First. We've built a culture of relentless problem-solving and recognizing our teams when they prevent issues from reaching customers.
'Using AI is just a small part of this. One tool in a toolbox and culture that relies on experience and expertise as it does modern manufacturing tools.'
The so-called 'gray beard' engineers - many of them former Ford employees or recruits from suppliers - were brought in to reprogram the company's AI tools and tackle quality problems that have cost Ford billions of dollars.
'Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it,' Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told Bloomberg and other reporters on a call Wednesday.
Ford has admitted its push to rely heavily on AI fell short, revealing it has hired hundreds of veteran engineers after concluding the technology alone could not deliver the quality improvements it expected
Chief operating officer Kumar Galhotra told the outlet the company implemented mandatory meetings to troubleshoot quality issues and reprogrammed AI tools to identify glitches before they occur
The US automaker has hired more than 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to help address quality problems that have cost the company billions of dollars
'Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles.'
Chief operating officer Kumar Galhotra told the outlet the company implemented mandatory meetings to troubleshoot quality issues and reprogrammed AI tools to identify glitches before they occur.
Galhotra acknowledged Ford's reliance on automated quality systems alone did not produce the 'desired results,' prompting the automaker to bring back technical specialists to 'hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor.'
Ford says pairing experienced engineers with its AI tools has helped improve vehicle quality.
'We're seeing our warranty coverages come down. We're seeing our recall costs come down,' Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley said Thursday on Bloomberg TV.
'These are all contributing to literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of a tailwind for Ford on cost.'
The company also remains on track to achieve its goal of cutting $1 billion in costs this year.
Ford learned that AI could not replace the expertise accumulated by longtime engineers.
Ford says pairing experienced engineers with its AI tools has helped improve vehicle quality
Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley said the company is seeing warranty and recall costs decline, helping drive hundreds of millions of dollars in savings
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'Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product,' Poon said.
He added that the only way to get the most out of the company's automation, machine learning and AI tools is to ensure 'they were trained by the most experienced individuals.'
The strategy appears to have paid off. Ford climbed to the top of J.D. Power's closely watched Initial Quality Study among mainstream brands, finishing ahead of rivals Toyota and Honda and behind only luxury brands Porsche and Genesis overall.
The result marked a significant turnaround after Ford ranked 10th among mainstream brands and below the industry average in last year's survey.
Three Ford models - the F-150 pickup, Super Duty truck and Mustang sports car - ranked highest in their respective categories.
Ford nevertheless remains the most recalled automaker in the US despite the improved quality rankings. The company said it expects about $1 billion in warranty and material costs this year.
Galhotra said recalls are a 'lagging indicator' of vehicle quality and predicted they would decline as newer models reach customers.
By focusing on preventing issues 'upfront,' he said Ford expects recall numbers to 'steadily come down with the newer vehicles.'
