THREE LIONS ARE SITTING PRETTY

YOU want the good news? Given the arrangement of the current European Championship, England might already be through. There have been 24 groups contested in the World Cup and Euros in this format — where 16 from 24 have progressed to knockout rounds — and only once has a team with three points finished bottom, the tragic Colombians at the 1994 World Cup. On just three other occasions a team with three points has been eliminated on goal difference in the third-place evaluations: Albania and Turkey at the 2016 European Championship and Russia in 1994. That leaves 20 groups from which three points were enough — and a mere two got Bulgaria and Uruguay through at the 1986 World Cup. Certainly, with one more point, England progress: not that Gareth Southgate, or his players, should be settling now.