Southgate Praises “super” Bellingham For Euro 2024 Win Over Serbia

England manager, Gareth Southgate has praised “super” Jude Bellingham for his match-winning goal in their win over Serbia at UEFA Euro 2024. 

Bellingham nodded in a 13th minute winner from Bukayo Saka’s deflected cross as England scraped past Serbia to clinch their fourth win in their opening game at a major tournament under Southgate’s reign.

Southgate however believed that their single-goal win was needed for his team’s character especially after a lacklustre second-half, which saw the Serbians dominate unlike in the first half.

“Serbia are a strong team. We had to suffer a bit, which I think is really good for us to come through and to defend our box in the way we did under pressure is important for the group. That’s the reality of tournaments.”

Southgate though felt that his team “had good chances to extend the lead and kill the game,” yet wasted their chances, which included Harry Kane’s header hitting the woodwork late into the second half but was pleased with the overall performance.

“I was really pleased with a lot of the play, especially the first half. I thought we used the ball really well. Second half we didn’t keep it quite as well as we need to but to get the win and the start that we have is really important.”

Bellingham in particular drew praise from Southgate for his goal as the manager explained: “The timing of his run, it’s a super bit of play in the build up to his goal as well. I thought at different moments all of our forward players looked dangerous and did a job for a team.”

Looking ahead to their clash against Denmark – who they beat in Euro 2020 semi-finals, Southgate believes that their end product needs to be better.

“Today was just the finishing. It was good save from the goalkeeper from Harry Kane’s header at the end. That will come, I am confident we will score goals.

“You are playing against a back five, it is not easy to create chances but we did. In the end one was enough. I liked the fact we had to suffer a bit, that’s an area we have worked on a lot this week and we were so much better than last week in doing that.”