Lingard salutes Gareth’s greats

JESSE LINGARD says England’s World Cup spirit inspired their comeback win against Croatia which sealed a Nations League semi-final place.

Supersub Lingard hit a 78th-minute equaliser, then denied Croatia with a goal-line clearance four minutes later before Harry Kane’s dramatic winner.

And the Manchester United star insists the feelgood factor from the Three Lions’ summer charge to the last four in Russia is still with them.

“We kept the confidence, spirit and togetherness that we’d taken from the World Cup and we brought it here,” said Lingard, who revealed Gareth Southgate sent him on with orders ‘to win the game’.

“It’s brilliant. We were 1-0 down so winning 2-1 is a fabulous feeling.

“We stuck together through the highs and the lows and we’ll now take it on to another semi-final.”

Kane had gone 747 minutes since his last goal for his country, against Colombia, and the skipper said: “It shows how far we’ve come.”

He also paid tribute to the 78,221 crowd who roared his side to victory after Andrej Kramaric had put Croatia ahead in the second half.

He added: “We’ve finished top of this group and shown what we’re capable of. It’s incredible, I’ve never seen Wembley like this in an England shirt.

Strong

“We felt the crowd. We felt their presence. That’s what we need everywhere we go. It felt good. The lads stuck at it, we showed our character, stayed calm and deserved to win.

“We said after the World Cup we want to keep progressing – and the way to do that is by beating top teams. We finished the year strong. We’ll enjoy this one.

“It’s another semi-final so whoever we play will be a tough game when you look at the other groups. We are going to have to beat another top nation but we have shown we can do it.

“Nobody really knows how big this competition is going to become, you don’t really get many opportunities to win a tournament in an England shirt, so we have got to try and take full advantage of that.”

Fabian Delph was a surprise pick after Jordan Henderson wasn’t risked with a tight hamstring and the Manchester City midfielder justified his selection with a fine display.

“It was an absolutely amazing day,” said Delph. “We’ve come a long way in

12 months.

“We came up short in the World Cup but we wanted to put it right and we’ve done that today. They’re a good team.

“The performance was really good. We should have put it to bed in the first half.

“We’re a young team but we have old heads on our shoulders. The chances came and we managed to take them.

“The togetherness has been there for

18 months now. In the dressing room, the energy was electric.”