“It was a good team performance” 💪 Bellingham, Alexander-Arnold & Southgate | Serbia 0-1 England

“It was a good team performance” 💪 Bellingham, Alexander-Arnold & Southgate | Serbia 0-1 England

Jude well done is that what they call an ugly win don’t know about that I thought we we move the ball really well at times I think there was times you had to be a bit rough a bit dogged but I think overall there was some really nice bits of play you know I think with England sometimes people look to highlight the negatives a little bit too much and I’m sure they will today as they always do but I think that we play some very nice stuff at times and I think it’s um it’s important that we take the positives and the negatives and we don’t just worry too much about the negatives well it’s a win it’s an opening day win which which is vital of course you had to suffer though and I suppose that’s credit to the defense and the team as a whole but especially the defense first clean sheet of the tournament yeah yeah I think we had there was times where we had to defend our box well I think every game I’ve watched so far other teams have had to defend their box well as well I think like I said there’s always a a kind of an instant negative reaction to the games that we play I think we just need to you know be calm analyze it for what it is take the good with the bad um and move on to the next game yeah we we had to suffer at times we had to be really tough defensively The Lads at the back were brilliant but we also did some good stuff going forward and with the ball as well no and we’ll talk about the goal what a goal yeah brilliant from from the whole team the the work through the lines and to work the ball wide too I think it was Bayo um who who put the cross in and you know um something that I’ve got used to at um Madrid kind of attacking the box and getting my timing right to to score and helps the team win the game so happy days there was a bravery about about that header there had to be a bravery I don’t really remember it too well it might have been the bang on my head but I think yeah I just remember seeing the ball there my eyes lit up and I just wanted to go and attack it I didn’t really feel any contact after so you know um like I’ve said before I’ll do anything to try and help my teams win um in particular England for the next seven games so uh really important goal and really important win it was Mark Gay’s first start in a tournament how did he do brilliant brilliant he picked the lines amazingly he played against two for me really good Center forwards at this level for Lovich and MIT I think two really really tricky customers and he was unbelievable you know it helps a lot when you have stones in beside him one of the best around uh but yeah I thought he was fantastic and Trent into Midfield his first tournament start in Midfield only a second tournament start brilliant brilliant you know he makes it so easy for me because you can control the game so well uh defensively I think in that position I know people talk a lot of rubbish but I think he was so aggressive um with the back tog goal pressure and it really helped me as well because it meant that I got a breather when he went out um and I think we understand each other well with the ball uh he wants to play positive all the time he wants to play forward all the time and I think we accept as teammates who have that kind of quality that we’re going to lose the ball and that’s fine we’ll win it back for each other and we’ll keep playing I thought it was brilliant it’s a great start it’s a winning three points and the fans and the reception at the end because they’ve traveled in their thousands of course yeah excellent as always you know England fans you know um what like I said they like to pile the pressure on us but while we’re playing well we’ll always be rewarded by them and I think that’s the the key message for us to um use the energy that we can create with our perform performances from the fans and uh stick together throughout the tournament because there’s going to be times when maybe we don’t play as well where moments where we’re going to need that support and I think today instead of going under um we we kind of rose to it because the fans were so positive well done tonight thank you very much gab very thank you my friend hold on I know yeah thank you very much Happy good Trent well done tough night but it’s a win uh an ugly win or a beautiful win a win um I think in tournament football it’s all about winning winning um especially first game it makes it um a lot easier to to make out to your group if you get that first win so that was our intention we knew it was going to be a difficult game and whether people call it ugly or not I’m not I’m not quite sure but we call it a win we know there’s there’s things that we could have worked on we could have done better um and we’ll work on that but we we done a lot of things a lot of things right that we talked about throughout the week we knew what we were going to come up against a team that wanted to play you know a little bit of long ball um bully bu yeah very physical team put crosses into the box um and I think we stopped them from doing what they wanted to do as much as possible and then when you’ve got the quality that we’ve got we go we go and get our goal L as well where’ you place the performance by Jude Bellingham tonight um well he W the match so that’s that’s that’s that’s all I can say I think he was everywhere on the pitch she put everything in and um know he’s a player with the quality that um any team’s lucky to have and especially your coming into that role in Midfield uh just your second tournament start for England but in Midfield how was it uh yeah not as good I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it I felt prepared through the conversations and the work that we’ve done throughout the week this is something that is not you know may seem brand new but it’s not we been working me the manager Steve Holland been working very hard um on this on this role for the past year um so a lot of prep’s gone into it um a lot of information a lot of learning um and a lot of analyzing has gone into it so now they gave me a a role to do today um and hopefully they feel like I executed it help contribute to to the win and keep the clean sheet thanks Tren thank you very much well Gareth you talked to us in the week about you you felt you were going to have to suffer at some point in this game so how do you sum up the the way in which your players came through and obviously the win is all important yeah well I thought first half we really played well I thought we used the ball really well um and quite possibly should have had a second goal really with the opportunities we had um second half we didn’t keep the ball as well um we used a lot of energy in that first half and it meant we ended up defending a little bit deeper uh um but that meant we had to show another side and to have that resilience and to get a clean sheet actually builds a lot of spirit in the group and and belief so um although you’d rather a more comfortable end to the game um in actual fact it was a good experience for us to go through Jude Bellingham gets the goal he gets the man of the match award where where would you place Jude’s performance tonight well uh I mean he he had some really decisive moments in the game um some really big tackles um the goal is you know is classic of what he does really timing his run so well into the box and arriving with the finish I thought really good bit of play in the buildup as well so um yeah he he had a big impact on the game and um I think you know the the rest of the team also played very well so quite rightly he’ll get the headlines but I think it was a good team performance Mark Gay’s first tournament start and um he part of a clean sheet the only clean sheet in the tournament so far yeah no I thought he was excellent he showed what I see for his Club he reads the game well he uses the ball well um he was aggressive in the in the challenges and of course he’s not huge in stature so this sort of game is a is a big test and he came through that really strongly how did Trent Alexander Arnold do for you because you you did Mark this game you’ve discussed that role a lot with him how was his performance good very pleased um I think in particular the way he balanced off you know Jude goes forward Can’t Always Get Back Trent had to balance that off and he was um very disciplined in the way he positionally was with his defending um some good moments with the ball as you as you expect so um yeah really really pleased with how he did a lot of the players have gone deep in their Seasons like Jude some of them have missed game time how do you feel the squad are physically yeah well I mean I think that was a concern coming into this game I mean that’s Kieran trippier’s first 90 minutes for a long time and to play the way he did was you know epitomized what he is really for us um so I’m I’m pleased to have got the game under our belt I think again play players needed minutes you get a huge amount of emotion with the first game and uh I think you could see that in uh in the stadium and in the first half especially and yeah I was a little bit concerned that we we would run out of gas but I thought the players that came on added energy and uh saw us over the line do you expect to have to rotate next game’s only four days away will there be a bit of need to be some rest and recovery but maybe Rec considerer rotation a little bit for the second game well we’ll have to see how everybody presents when we get back to uh to the base camp but um you know for for now important that we’re off to a winning start and um the next objective is to try and you know get the qualification sorted well done GTH

Hear from Jude Bellingham, Trent Alexander-Arnold & Gareth Southgate following on from England’s 1-0 Victory over Serbia. #EURO2024

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