Gareth Southgate backs young England players to bounce back from Hungary defeat

Gareth Southgate believes his young players will not suffer lasting damage from a “chastening” and “painful” Nations League defeat to Hungary – calling for his critics to judge his side when it is at full strength.

The Three Lions were humbled with a shock 4-0 loss at Molineux as Roland Sallai’s brace was complemented by a Zsolt Nagy screamer and – shortly after John Stones’ red card – Daniel Gazdag’s cool finish on a night when fans booed the team and chanted “you don’t know what you’re doing” at Southgate.

This was the worst possible end to England’s taxing run of four Nations League matches in just 11 days and leaves a bitter taste in the mouth with just two September games to go until the World Cup.

Southgate took full responsibility for the record-breaking loss, the first time they have suffered a home defeat by four or more goals without scoring.

At the end of a season which kicked off 311 days ago with the Community Shield, Southgate had to continually shuffle his pack as he also wanted to look at options ahead of Qatar.

“It’s a chastening night,” admitted Southgate.

“We’ve not lost not many football matches and when you lose so heavily at home, especially, with England that’s going to be very, very painful.

“It was a difficult night for the players, I feel for them, because in the end, in the two Hungry games in particular, I pick teams where I tried to balance the squad, give young players opportunities and I didn’t get the balance right to help them to be able to perform at the level that they needed to to win those matches.

“The responsibility lies with me on that but there was also a fact that it was really difficult to put the strongest team out in every game.

“So we used it to prepare for Qatar, some of