Phil Foden sought out Gareth Southgate after suffering the indignity of being subbed as a sub - and said he completely understood.
Foden was on the pitch for just 12 minutes after coming on as a 69th minute substitute and then getting hooked after Luke Shaw ’s red card as Gareth Southgate tried to shore up his defence. But rather than sulk and be difficult about it, Foden actually saved his manager a difficult conversation by reassuring him.
England boss Southgate said: “No, he came up to me and said ‘I know, I get it’ - he knew exactly what we needed to do.
“You obviously don't want to do that but we needed to get the full-back on and we felt the change of the shape with them having to play around us but with enough bodies to deal with crosses but with wing-backs to stop those crosses was the right way to get around that.”
Foden, 22, has often struggled to capture his Manchester City form for England because of a lack of opportunities. But Foden may now get his chance on Sunday against Ukraine as Southgate may tweak his line-up again.
Gareth Southgate sings Declan Rice's praises
Declan Rice delivered a “top performance” to conquer one of Europe’s top midfield battles.
That was according to Gareth Southgate who was singing the praises of his midfield trio of Rice, Jude Bellingham and Kalvin Phillips up against the likes of Champions League winner Jorginho and Italy talisman Marco Verratti.
England boss Southgate said: “Yeah, Declan had a top performance level in midfield. I thought he, Kalvin and Jude, and given the experience level of the other team, were excellent.
“We managed to put good pressure onto them. There were a lot of periods where that was a very good team performance and a lot of moments when the midfield had to do the basics of winning second balls and then you’re on the attack and it’s an ugly phase. But it was really important in the context of the game.”
England proved they are among elite: Southgate
Gareth Southgate says England have proved again they can compete with the best.
England claimed their first win in Italy since 1961 to get their Euros qualifying Group off to a flying start. That now sets them up for the rest of the campaign as they have won their hardest fixture of all and Southgate says that will only strengthen the squad’s belief.
England boss Southgate said: “One of the questions for all of us is ‘can we go away to the top teams and get that result?’ And we’ve shown that we can.
“There’s more evidence for them - and two different sides that they had to show as well, by the way, they only had to show the second because we couldn’t get the first right. In the first half, I thought we played really well, used the ball really well, we looked dangerous. Second half we had to show resilience.
“We got ourselves into that problem, but we had to show a lot of resilience and character and coming away from home you’re going to have spells where you’re going to have to do that.”
