Gareth Southgate talks up 'outstanding' Switzerland ahead of Euro quarter-final

Gareth Southgate knows stumbling England have to raise their game if they are to stand a chance of beating "outstanding" Switzerland in Saturday's Euro 2024 quarter-final.

A trip to Dusseldorf awaits after Jude Bellingham came to the rescue with a 95th-minute overhead equaliser against wily Slovakia on Sunday before Harry Kane sealed a 2-1 extra-time win.

England were seconds away from their tournament coming to an end in humiliating fashion, only to squeak through to a fourth successive major quarter-final under Southgate.

After an alarming performance in Gelsenkirchen, far better will be needed from the Euro 2020 runners-up against the Swiss on Saturday.

"You build on the spirit that they’ve shown, the belief that they’ll have gained from that," Southgate said.

"Equally, we’re not naive. We’re going to play a team that have looked outstanding, not just in this tournament but for quite a while as well. That’s going to be a big tactical challenge for us.

"We know that the level of our game will need to be higher, but there was a spirit and there was a togetherness that has been building.

"We’ve had a lot of problems to solve through this whole lead into the camp, through the tournament.

"We’re putting a plaster over different things and giving young players opportunities. We’re somehow finding a way.

"I can imagine how everybody is going to react to that, even though we’ve won. But we’re still in there and the one thing that can’t be questioned is the desire, the commitment, the character."

Young star Bellingham epitomised that spirit when acrobatically striking home in stoppage time to salvage England’s campaign before hitting back at those talking "rubbish" about them afterwards.

"He was 21 yesterday and he’s doing unbelievably