Southgate wants more improvements despite two consecutive wins

Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka were on target on Sunday as England continued their winning start to Euro 2024 qualifiers with a 2-0 victory over Ukraine at Wembley Stadium.

The Three Lions started their qualification with a 2:1 win over Euro 2020 champions, Italy, in Naples. Gareth Southgate’s side, in their first home game since the World Cup, dominated from start to finish, and they opened the scoring through their record goalscorer Harry Kane who was on hand to score from a Bukayo Saka’s cross in the 37th minute.

The provider turned a goalscorer three minutes later with a spectacular strike to go into the break ahead. Neither side could get a goal in the second half as the Ukrainians failed to trouble England.

After the game, manager Gareth Southgate was glad the team is winning games but highlighted the need to improve on some aspects of the game.

“We are starting to win those games now, but there is still lots of room for improvement. To back up the Italy result was important, but there is still room to grow. We are always trying to think about now and what is next. We did that with James Maddison today. We thought it was a good game to see him. He was defensively very solid. It was nice to get Ivan Toney on the pitch as well. We will always look at people, but we have to qualify, and we can’t take that for granted.” Southgate said.

England comfortably tops Group C with six points, while Italy are in second after a 2-0 win over Malta, and North Macedonia sit in third. England’s next game is a journey to Malta in June, while Ukraine will play North Macedonia.

In other games, Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice against Luxembourg as Portugal managed a 6-0 scoreline; the two goals took the Al Nasr forward to 122 international goals.

Daniel Ademiju Idowu