SOUTHGATE DELIGHTED WITH SHOW OF CHARACTER

ENGLAND manager Gareth Southgate was delighted with the fighting qualities on show from his team as they all but booked their place in next summer’s World Cup finals — and kept Scotland’s play-off hopes alive. Marcus Rashford was at fault as Slovakia shocked Wembley with Stanislav Lobotka’s early goal, but the young Manchester United forward redeemed himself by claiming an assist for Eric Dier’s equaliser, then scoring the winner with a superb shot from 23 yards. England are five points clear of secondplaced Slovakia with two games left and Southgate said: ‘To come from behind against a side with very good footballers, we had to show character. ‘Marcus showed, like the rest of the team, great character. He made the mistake for their goal, but he kept persevering.’ Rashford added: ‘It was an important goal. We started slowly as a team and me on a personal level, too. We had to go back to basics and what we had been working on as a team.’ Fellow scorer Dier praised Rashford for his resilience, adding: ‘It was a fantastic show of character from Marcus after making a mistake to score and then score the winner which got us closer to the World Cup. ‘We weren’t aggressive enough and were two seconds behind them in every pass. The way we turned it around was positive. I had belief. At 1-1, we went in to the dressing room and the feeling was we would go on to win. ‘We want to have a relationship with the fans. We need their support and want to play in a way that gets that.’ England midfielder Dele Alli could face a ban after appearing to direct a middle finger gesture at referee Clement Turpin after a bad-tempered incident. The Tottenham playmaker thought that he had been fouled by former Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel and was grumbling at the referee as play continued. The incident was highlighted in ITV’s coverage and pundit Lee Dixon said: ‘If the ref has seen it and it is in his report, then he’s in trouble.’ England manager Southgate added: ‘I haven’t seen it, but we will deal with it in the next couple of days.’