Gareth Southgate has told England’s players that the victory in Italy will only be a fantastic result if they follow it up by beating Ukraine in Sunday’s European Championship qualifier.
The road to next year’s finals in Germany got off to a perfect start at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Thursday night, with Declan Rice’s early strike followed by a historic Harry Kane penalty.
The skipper’s spot-kick saw him break England’s all-time scoring record at the end of an amazing first half performance that was followed by a stuttering second period display against the reigning European champions.
Debutant Mateo Retegui deservedly pulled a goal back and Luke Shaw received a late red card but Southgate’s side dug deep to secure his 50th win in charge and the national team’s first win away to Italy since 1961.
Southgate said it was a “massive result” at the start of the Group C campaign but warned it will count for little unless they follow it up by beating Ukraine at a sold-out Wembley this weekend.
“We have to go and get a result at Wembley now because this will be a fantastic result if we win and that’s exactly what we’ve said to the players straight after the game,” the England manager said.
“Then (on) Monday they can head off wherever they want but it is going to be hard because Ukraine have had no competitive game (on Thursday).
“We’ve got to fly, we’ve got to recover, we’ve got quite a few knocks, so we’re going to need Wembley at its most vocal and supportive on Sunday because it will give us a huge lift.
“If we can play as we did in the first half, then I am sure the fans will enjoy that but we are going to be playing against a very good team and we’ve got to get that right.”
The issues Southgate alluded to regarding player fitness led to him saying “we will have to have a think about the squad” before the Ukraine match. Marcus Rashford, Mason Mount and Nick Pope have already withdrawn from the initial selection, with Fraser Forster so far the only player to be brought in.
Southgate said the players are in a period of the season “where energy is in limited supply” but downplayed concerns over Jordan Henderson having surprisingly not called on the experienced midfielder from the bench as England saw out Thursday’s victory.
“He’s missed a lot of training, basically,” the 52-year-old explained. “And the less that we could take out of him (against Italy) the better for the next game, so, yeah, he’s fine.”
First-choice left-back Shaw is definitely out of the match against Ukraine – ranked 26th in the FIFA world rankings – after picking up a pair of quickfire bookings against Italy.
Ben Chilwell will surely come in for his first England appearance in 16 months after Shaw was dismissed amid a flurry of yellow cards from referee Srdjan Jovanovic in Naples.
“I think he tried to kick the ball against the fence for it to bounce back to him and it went over the fence,” Southgate said, reflecting on Shaw’s first booking for time-wasting.
“I just thought there were a lot of counter-attacks that were stopped going the other way that weren’t yellow cards.
“But, yeah, other than that referees have a difficult job and there’s always a lot of pressure from the opposition as well, so we just have to accept it and get on.”
