‘The quality and bravery of the play were wonderful’
Southgate delighted by response to criticism England ‘maintaining progress’ from Russia
Gareth Southgate says England’s exciting 3-2 victory over Spain has proved that their exploits in reaching the World Cup semi-finals in the summer were not a “one-off ”.
The England manager said he had also spoken to Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford before the Uefa Nations League tie to remind them what good players they were after the “understandable” criticism they have faced over their lack of goals.
All three repaid Southgate’s faith, as Sterling scored twice and Rashford once in a brilliant first-half performance against Spain. Kane led the line superbly and provided two assists.
“The players should be incredibly proud of their performance,” Southgate said after a result which opens up the possibility of England winning their group. “We spoke to the forward players before the game to remind them what a threat they are and they were outstanding, causing all sorts of problems.
“All three of them have understandably had questions asked, and all three responded with really top performances. We were able to play off them. They retained the ball well and allowed us to build. Their speed was an obvious threat, but the quality of their passes and finishing was top quality. For a team to play the way we did was a great reference point for the future.”
Southgate added: “I don’t think the World Cup was a one-off anyway. It’s judged however you want to judge it, really. For this group of players, the first team for a decade to get a knockout win [at a major finals], a quarter-final victory against Sweden, which was a bit dismissed, given our record against Sweden.
“I felt there was really good progress, and that’s what we had to maintain. Spain were better than us at Wembley [last month], but we could have had a draw at the end with the decision [to disallow a Danny Welbeck’s late effort].
“We’ve shown an energy this week, really good defensive organisation in our pressing, and belief and quality on the ball: the other night [in the goalless draw against Croatia] on a difficult pitch, and tonight against a good opponent and the pressure of a vocal home crowd. I was pleased we sustained that.”
The victory is also a vindication of Southgate’s continued bold approach as he changed his formation against Croatia and Spain, to a 4-3-3, and fielded the youngest England team since 1959 to defeat Spain. “People have chosen to analyse the summer as they see fit. What the players achieved was incredible,” Southgate said.
“The next challenge was ‘can we advance and look at new systems and new players?’ Some players have emerged to give us more options … they played with huge courage. We knew that, to come here and defend for 90 minutes, you’re unlikely to get a result. So we needed to be brave with the ball.
“We talked about the threat our front three have, but they need to believe in themselves and we need to get the ball to them. You have to get the first couple of passes out of their press spot on. We ran the risk of losing the ball near our goal, but we were a huge threat on the counter-attack. The quality and bravery of the play were wonderful.”
Beating Spain constitutes a significant moment for England, who have struggled to beat leading nations in competitive matches.
“The fact they have a reference to what it’s like to play in a stadium like this, a lot of young players … it’s important they enjoy playing for England, feel the way we want to play, and they should be able to progress from this,” Southgate said.
In many ways Eric Dier’s robust tackle on Sergio Ramos in the first half, for which he was harshly booked, set the tone. “You know Sergio Ramos and [Sergio] Busquets will run the game if we allow them to,” Southgate said.
“Between them, they have more caps than our entire squad. So we did talk about the mentality of going into the game: you have to show the nous with tactical awareness, but also the nerve to go and take those guys on.”