Gareth Southgate believes that England’s 3-0 friendly win over Bosnia & Herzegovina was “a good workout” ahead of UEFA Euro 2024.
Having opted to name an England starting line-up without any players from Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United or Tottenham for the first time since 1994, Southgate and fans alike endured a lacklustre first half.
Cole Palmer’s 60th minute penalty plus late goals from Trent Alexander-Arnold and Harry Kane saw England ultimately prevail in a 3-0 win at St James’ Park, Newcastle.
Speaking to Channel 4 post-match, Southgate described the game as “a good workout” for his fringe players looking to secure their spot in the 26-man squad for the Euros, but iterated that patience was key to the result.
“We just had to be patient. We felt that in the end we would create the chances and that’s how it turned out.
“The scoreline reflected the performance. I think scoring more was inevitable. We had a lot of fresh players to bring on as well. There weren’t a lot of caps in the team that started so there was always a chance there would be a sticky start.”
Eberechi Eze though stood out in Southgate’s eyes for his pace and technical play, whilst he was critical of Palmer’s end product.
“Ebere has got a lovely way in which he goes past people through the centre of the pitch. He’s got power, so I’m really happy with what he did.
“I thought Cole a couple of times was trying to be too precise to get the touch to open up the shot and maybe if he’d got his shot away a little earlier a couple of times he could have had more himself.”
Southgate though is relieved to have no injury concerns to deal with despite missing some players due to injury, whilst Jude Bellingham was on club duty as Real Madrid won a 15th Champions League title at Wembley Stadium last weekend.
“The great thing is we have got through the last few days with no big problems. That’s really important, we needed to get through these few matches.”
The ex Middlesbrough boss was also pleased with how some players have put themselves in the frame for his final squad selection, purely through solid performances rather than having to judge on the best of a bad crop of players.
“I may have a few more selection headaches after tonight but that’s a good thing. I would rather we had good performances that caused you to think than poor performances. There were lots of individual things I was really pleased with.”
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