Gareth Southgate picked out Jesse Lingard as “the real positive” of England’s victory against Malta.
Lingard was handed his England debut by Southgate as the Three Lions cruised to a 2-0 win in their World Cup qualifier at Wembley.
Daniel Sturridge and Dele Alli gave the hopsts a two-goal half-time lead but despite dominating the possession in the second period, Southgate’s side failed to add to their tally.
The manager accepted there was plenty of room for improvement despite the victory.
Southgate told ITV: “I thought in the first half we played well. We could and should have had more goals but their goalkeeper made some very good saves. I thought, subconsciously, one or two players looked after themselves a bit in the second half, physically.
“We were pretty positive __with the substitutions and we missed a couple of chances, but given where we were 10 days ago, I’m pleased __with the result and of course there is room to improve on the performance.”
Southgate accepts that a subdued second-half display reduced England’s momentum ahead of the trip to Slovenia on Tuesday.
“Yeah, that’s fair. But I do think that players subconsciously know the game is won and you start to think about the next game and that comes very quickly.
“Each game is a different challenge so we’ll have to look at all those things. We’ve also got a couple of injuries to assess but we have good depth to make changes.
With @ryanbertrand3 ruled out, @KieranGibbs will join the #ThreeLions squad ahead of the trip to Slovenia. pic.twitter.com/McFi8EcOkh
— England (@England) October 8, 2016
When asked about Dele Alli’s display in the No.10 role, Southgate said: “You have to accept that some days it’s going to come off, some of the flicks and tricks were really exciting.
“But I think the real positive was Jesse Lingard. I thought he had an outstanding debut, really linked the play well and looked a real threat.
“He’s got a strong mentality and he’s an exciting player. The stage was made for him really. He’s scored twice here in the past for Manchester United and I thought he had a very good game.”
Southgate was asked to elaborate on what England could have done better.
“I think we could’ve moved the ball more quickly and we have to be alert not to get caught on counter-attacks,” he said. “But the game against Slovenia will be very different. We played against a 5-4-1 but it was always going to be difficult to break down. We managed it, we’d have liked more but we move on from there.”
Southgate flat-batted questions about what the result and performance meant for his hopes of getting the manager’s job on a permanent basis.
“My job is to get the results that keep us top of the group. We’ve achieved that. I know people will have wanted more but we’ve got to go to Slovenia and get the win.”
“We’d have liked to have given the crowd four or five goals but in their last qualifying campaign, Malta had one-goal defeats against Croatia and Italy. Their keeper played well and they defended in really heavy numbers but we still created a lot of chances and could have won it by more.”