Gareth Southgate not ducking criticism after heavy home defeat to Hungary

Gareth Southgate is not ducking criticism and knew there would be calls for change after a humiliating home loss to Hungary that has not shaken the manager’s belief that England are World Cup contenders.

The afterglow from last summer’s unforgettable run to the Euro 2020 final has well and truly gone, with fans turning on the Three Lions boss and his players just five months out from Qatar.

“You don’t know what you’re doing” echoed around Molineux as Hungary inflicted a 4-0 loss on Tuesday evening – England’s biggest home defeat since 1928.

Southgate is in the eye of the storm after the “most difficult night” of his near six years in charge, which ended a difficult winless run of four Nations League matches in 11 days.

Asked how he judged that viewpoint after the loss to Hungary, he told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Well, I don’t think now is a good time to reflect on those sorts of things because I think everything needs time.

“I know there’ll be a lot of criticism and there’ll be a lot of call for change I’m sure.

“But I go back to the fact when we’ve had our strongest teams we’ve had excellent results, I think, and I believe the players have still given everything.

“This has been a really unique set of fixtures. I was concerned about it before because I knew we were going to have to make changes and I knew we couldn’t field a full team for every game.

“We highlighted the Germany one as one that was really important to test the strongest group.

“But we needed to find out about other players ahead of the World Cup and maybe even beyond the World Cup because a team has to keep evolving, so that was the reason for the decisions.

“But of course when you lose the matches as we have and you have a game at home like tonight has been,