England suffered a 4-0 home defeat to Hungary that was as remarkable as it was humiliating as fans turned on Gareth Southgate and his players just five months out from the World Cup.
Among the favourites to triumph in Qatar having reached the semi-finals four years ago and finished as Euro 2020 runners-up, the Three Lions boss has plenty of food for thought after failing to win any of June’s four fixtures.
The draws with Germany and Italy were bookended by a famous Hungary double, with the shock 1-0 triumph in Budapest – their first win against England since 1962 – followed by a Molineux massacre.
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 matches to go until the World Cup.
The Three Lions were outthought and outfought in Wolverhampton as Hungary won in England for just the second time. The other victory was the Mighty Magyars’ famous 6-3 triumph at Wembley in 1953.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here