Gareth Southgate has accepted responsibility for England’s humiliating 4-0 loss to Hungary in the UEFA Nations League on Tuesday night, and he has encouraged fans to support the team.
Following some poor set-piece defending, the Three Lions fell down after only 16 minutes, with Roland Sallai blasting past Aaron Ramsdale, and the home side posed little chance of leveling the scores in a muted and lethargic display.
With England unable to create any form of cohesiveness, Hungary deservedly increased their lead in the 70th minute through Sallai – who had only scored four times in the Bundesliga all season – before the floodgates burst.
The ball was played back to Zsolt Nagy, who struck a tremendous, fizzing shot from the edge of the box before John Stones was sent off for a shockingly easy second yellow card.
The humiliation for England did not end there, with Daniel Gazdag sneaking in behind in the 89th minute to dink the ball over Ramsdale to hand the Three Lions their biggest home defeat since a 5-1 loss to Scotland in 1928.
England has now gone four games without a win – their worst run since Roy Hodgson took over – and is approaching seven hours without a goal from open play, while also risking relegation from the Nations League after only two points so far.
Fans booed England off the field, as chants of ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ rang out at full-time, but Southgate defended his players and insists he is still the ideal man to lead England to the World Cup
He told Channel 4 that ‘I understand the reaction in the stadium, what I would say is that this group of players have been unbelievable for the country and it’s important that people stay with them because they’re still going to be very strong going forward.’
When asked if he understands the crowd’s reaction, Southgate replied, “Of course, look, in the end, this is about winning matches with England.”
‘Tonight was the sort of night that a lot of my predecessors have experienced and it’s difficult to stand there. I’m not going to say it doesn’t hurt but it’s very clear to me what we were trying to do across these four matches and the irony is that the two Nations League campaigns have been the ones that have heaped negativity and pressure on to us and you wouldn’t normally have that as an England manager.
‘I’ve got to go with that, it’s my job to protect the players, they’ve been exceptional in their attitude, and the results are my responsibility.’
When asked if he still had faith in Southgate ahead of the World Cup, captain Harry Kane responded flatly: ‘Without a question.’ It’s not even a question I should be answering, if I’m honest.’
‘Well, we picked a young team, with energy, and when the game started to go against them, it started to look that way,’ Southgate said, explaining why England suffered so badly against Hungary. ‘That’s my responsibility in the end.’
‘I felt at half-time we needed to go for the game, we made changes that gave us a little bit more of an attacking impetus but then we were a little bit more open as well and at the end we were pushing, but we had so many attacking players on the pitch that we left ourselves wide open.
‘I’ve just said to the players there [in the dressing room] that across the four matches it’s my responsibility, I tried to balance looking at new players, tried to rest players that we couldn’t keep flogging, but in the end the teams I’ve selected haven’t been strong enough to get the results in the two Hungary games.
‘I think the other two performances [against Germany and Italy] have been more positive than perhaps the reaction to it, but I totally understand that tonight is a chastening experience.’