Southgate on Serbia win: "I'm pleased with a lot of our play"

Gareth Southgate admitted England had to suffer during their 1-0 win over Serbia at EURO 2024 but was also pleased with plenty of the performance.

The Three Lions were victorious thanks to Jude Bellingham's first-half header before seeing out the match in the second period.

The boss thought his side started the game brighter than they finished it and hopes they can keep growing into the tournament.

He said: "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.

"We had good chances to extend the lead and kill the game, which we didn't manage to take. 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."

Southgate also heaped praise on Bellingham – as well as Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was fielded next to Declan Rice in midfield.

He said: "He [Bellingham] writes his own scripts. 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.

Important 3️⃣ points on MD1! 💪 pic.twitter.com/Svr80wmY0a

— England (@England) June 16, 2024

"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.

"I have to say Trent has been really diligent in getting his positioning right, balancing it off as Jude goes forward a lot. I thought Trent adapted and adjusted to his positioning really well. He used the ball well and had a really good effort on goal. In the end we wanted some fresh legs in there and Conor [Gallagher] can get to the ball quickly. We have a squad and we need to use it."