Southgate says 'responsibility lies with me' after England's worst home defeat in 94 years

Hungary thrashed England 4-0 away on Tuesday to go top of their Nations League group and hand the Three Lions their worst home defeat for 94 years in a competition Gareth Southgate's side had hoped would be a good warm up for the World Cup later this year.

Southgate made nine changes from the team that drew with Italy at the weekend to give players on the fringe a chance. But despite dominating possession, England created few chances and the experiment backfired.

The result was the Three Lions' worst home defeat since 1928. It was the worst possible end to England's run of four Nations League games in 11 days and will leave a bitter taste in the mouth of fans with just two games in September to go until the World Cup. However, manager Southgate urged his detractors to judge his team at full strength.

"It's a chastening night," said Southgate.

"When you lose so heavily at home, especially, 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 picked teams where I tried to balance the squad, gave 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 those players are going to be beyond Qatar as well. But of course a night like tonight is really difficult and it's important that I take that off of their shoulders, because that's totally down to me."

ENGLAND RATINGS: Aaron Ramsdale - 6: Left badly exposed due to defensive shambles in front