England still have one game left in the group. They travel to North Macedonia on Monday, a fixture that can prove tricky for the Three Lions.
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England had to dig deep to get past a spirited Malta side in a Euro 2024 qualifying match. The Three Lions won the game, courtesy of an own goal and a late Harry Kane strike. It was not the performance many expected to see from England, as they anticipated to dominate the match and win it comfortably. However, reality was different, leaving many supporters frustrated at the performance.
But England head coach Gareth Southgate has decided not to criticise his players, as he wants to focus on the good things they contributed so far. “We were disjointed in our pressing at times. We were not the level we would want to be at. We were not the level that we need to be at. But, equally, this group of players have been exceptional and I’m not going to start getting into their ribs too much about a performance like tonight,” Southgate, quoted by skysports.com, said in his press conference after winning Group C of the European qualifiers.
He added: “We made a few changes, we didn’t hit the levels we would have liked to have but they managed to win the game. Not in the style we’d have liked for the supporters but, in the end, we’ve won comfortably, as we should. This group have been exceptional so I’m not going to criticise the players. We made changes, we managed to win the game but not in the style we would have liked for the supporters.”
England still have one game left in the group. They travel to North Macedonia on Monday, a fixture that can prove tricky for the Three Lions despite being the overwhelming favourites in that match. “We’ve had a really good calendar year and we want to finish it well. We want to go into the tournament unbeaten. We have some tough games coming up. It’s good for us to be away from Wembley again, in a challenging environment because that’s where we’ll be next summer. It’s not a worry when a player has so many matches, you almost have to self-regulate. We had to be at a higher level to beat Italy. The reality of football is you can’t be at the same level all the time. I know there are times when sub-consciously you know the level you need to be at to win, and I’ve been there,” he explained.
Shifting his attention back to the Friday night win over Malta, Southgate did find some positives from the win, especially about two of his players. “I thought [Alexander-Arnold] used the ball really well. He has some outstanding quality, him and Phil in the first half were the two that really looked like opening the game up for us. I thought Marc Guehi was [also] very good at the back – he’s got another game under his belt and looked very, very calm. And then the changes brought some quality as well. In the second half we could have scored more. We obviously didn’t create as many chances as we wanted to,” he stated.
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