England topped their group at the European Championships but another dull draw will only increase the criticism aimed at the players and manager Gareth Southgate.
The team were already guaranteed to go through to the last 16 but limped to a goalless draw with Slovenia - the same result as the night’s other game between Denmark and Serbia - with late appearances by Chelsea’s Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon providing a little impetus to their meek efforts.
It comes after Southgate - often criticised for being too conservative in his team choices and tactics - only made one change to his starting 11 by drafting Conor Gallagher into the England midfield replacing Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold who had been given the nod in the first two Group C games which saw a 1-0 win over Serbia and a 1-1 draw with Denmark.
The Chelsea man only managed 45 minutes before being replaced by Manchester United teenager Kobbie Mainoo.
Slovenia, who have never won at game at the Euros or ever been victorious against England celebrated as if they had won when the whistle blew.
England defender John Stones said he thought there had been “a lot of improvement from the other two games” but added: "I can get the fans frustration not taking chances, but that is football - it is never an easy game."
Former England striker Ian Wright said the team’s performance was well below the standard required to succeed in the tournament.
Wright told ITV: “Obviously you’d like to get over with more confidence, a bit more momentum.
“I think what we saw, especially at the start of the second half, was a little bit more playing in the opposing half but, at the same time, it was still nowhere near good enough.
“I thought Palmer and Mainoo did well when they came on and I’d have loved to have seen Gordon come on earlier.
“But, at the moment, it’s still not happening. We’re very fortunate to be getting through at this stage.
“There’s still so much work to be done in terms of confidence and momentum.”
Fellow pundit Gary Neville said the first half performance had been “basic”.
He said: “It was a struggle to watch that. It moved forward a lot in the second half. We didn’t get the result, but there were glimpses of what we can be.”Speaking before the final group game, Southgate insisted he was “oblivious” to external assessments of his team after their performances were heavilycriticised by former players.
Both Gary Lineker and fellow ex-England captain Alan Shearer have been outspoken about the form of captain Harry Kane and the team’s overall display after they laboured to a draw against Denmark in their second group game on Saturday.
Lineker labelled the performance “s***” on his ‘The Rest is Football’ podcast, having said that Kane “needs to do a lot better”, with the Bayern Munich striker claiming on Sunday such comments were not helpful coming from former England internationals.
Southgate, whose team had already progressed to the knockout stages on Monday evening courtesy of Albania’s failure to beat Spain, said: “I am oblivious to it, it is not important to me at all. What is important to me is that I’ve got to guide this group of players confidently through the terrain that is a tournament.
“We are a high-profile team with expectations and we fully understand everything we do will be scrutinised so I am very comfortable living that life and I don’t need to engage in external because I am my own biggest critic, I think our players are as well.
“So there is nothing to be gained from us that is going to help improve us listening to external criticism. We know what we have done well, we are very honest about that. We know when we need to be better, we are brutallyhonest about that. That is how you work as a team, that is how you coach a team and that is how you improve performance.”
