England have won another major tournament knockout game - but it wasn't pretty
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00:00And breathe. England came back from a 1-0 deficit against Slovakia to win 2-1 tonight
00:06in a very dramatic fashion. It was a really difficult game. England, it was a hard watch.
00:12England were nowhere near what a lot of people want to see from them. We've said it before
00:17in previous games, they were ponderous. They didn't really seem to have enough impetus
00:21for huge portions of the game. And it looked like they were going out until a moment of
00:26magic from Jude Bellingham. I think it's England's latest ever goal in a major tournament.
00:32And that seemed to give them that kick on. I thought England did step up in the second
00:36half. They needed to. They were awful in the first half. They were a team that seemed to
00:41be lacking in so many areas, not just in terms of the tactical part of the game, but they
00:46were just making loads of unforced errors. The decision-making was poor. There weren't
00:50many players who seemed to be at it. I thought Kobe Meunier was one of the few bright sparks.
00:55I thought Declan Rice in the second half really stepped it up. But you look at the players
00:59like Cole Palmer and Ivan Toni made a huge difference when he came on. And England were
01:04able to do enough. I can say it wasn't pretty. England will need to be a lot better if they're
01:09going to go all the way in this tournament. But they are into the quarter-finals. It's
01:13another knockout win at a major tournament for Gareth Southgate. He will have his critics
01:19after today. There's plenty to go out when it comes to criticisms. There was lots about
01:24England's performance that wasn't good enough. But they did what they had to do in the end.
01:28Jude Bellingham, not his best performance by any stretch for England. We've seen him
01:34score late goals for Real Madrid all season. He's done it for England today. Harry Kane
01:38was exactly where he needed to be in order to get the winning goal as well. Lots of work
01:43to be done, but England are through to the quarter-finals. Now we wait and see how they
01:47perform in the next one. They're one step closer to becoming the champions of Europe.
01:51They're going to need to be a lot better if they're going to go all the way. I'll speak
01:55to you soon. Cheers.