Southgate warns England stars to raise their game

Coach says to be a ‘top team’ standards must be higher criticised despite 2-0 qualifying win in Albania

Gareth Southgate demanded “higher standards” from his England players last night as he warned them they are not yet a “top team”.

England’s manager told his players in the dressing room that the mistakes they made while beating Albania would be punished against better opposition.

Harry Kane and Mason Mount scored either side of half-time in the

World Cup qualifying victory in Tirana, but England were left in no doubt they will need a significant improvement on Wednesday when they face their biggest group rivals, Poland, and Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski.

“There is a lot of talk about this team, but if we want to deliver we have to have r e a l l y h i g h standards,” Southgate (right) said. “I’m pushing for a bit more because that’s the standard we want to set to be a top team.

“I thought at the end of the game we had opportunities to make it 3-0 and should have killed the game off and I didn’t like the way we managed the game in the last 15 minutes, charging forward when we didn’t need to and a throw-in at the end that we nearly conceded a goal from. I’m pleased with the win, but there are areas we can certainly tighten up on.

“There were some decisions that needed to be better to score more or not invite pressure. We have to learn how to see games through. I’m determined that our standards are really high.” Albania’s national stadium has suffered problems with its playing surface since opening in 2019, which made it a slow start for England. Kane put them ahead before halftime with a header from Luke Shaw’s cross.

Southgate tweaked his formation to push Kalvin Phillips further forward, which helped England take control.

“The pitch didn’t help but no excuses, we know we made a couple of mistakes,” Shaw said. “Gareth spoke afterwards and said we needed to control it better against higher opposition and maybe we might have been punished.”

Kane’s goal ended a run of six England matches without finding the net, then he struck the crossbar before setting up Mount’s second.

“I’ve always said as a striker you

go through spells where everything you touch goes in and sometimes it doesn’t quite go your way,” Kane said. “I had a few off the line in that spell and an offside goal that I didn’t think was offside.

“That is part of being a striker, you have to be focused on doing your job for the team and thankfully we did that in this game and it is great to get three points. We’re not the finished article yet but we’re in a good place.

“Poland will be the toughest game in the group but we are ready for that, it’s a quick turnaround so it is all about recovery in the next few days. If we can win that, it puts us in a great position going into the games after the Euros.”

Mount’s goal came after Raheem Sterling won the ball in Albania territory and Kane teed up the Chelsea midfielder, who has now played in England’s past seven matches.

“I was saying in the autumn that Mason is a very good player,” South