Gareth Southgate is willing to accept any criticism that comes his way after making eight changes for England’s World Cup defeat to Belgium. With the World Cup’s leading scorer Harry Kane among the players left on the bench, Marcus Rashford missed England’s best chance to equalise when he was played through by Jamie Vardy.
But Southgate insisted his main priority to give all of his outfield players time on the pitch ahead of the knockout stage. He said: “When you’re a manager you’ve got to make decisions that are right for your group and are right for the primary objective.Sometimes those decisions will be criticised and I understand that. Only one person has to make that decision with the full facts and the intricacies of managing a group and a tournament. As a group of staff, we were very clear on what we felt was needed physically, medically and tactically for the benefit of the group.
“We’ve got 20 outfield players that have played in a World Cup and that’s hugely important for the feeling in our camp over the next few weeks. Maybe we could have pushed a bit more by putting other players into the game tonight but we still created chances. We had one absolutely fantastic chance to tie the game.