England beat Serbia 1-0 in their opening game of Euro 2024 on Sunday, prompting praise for star man Jude Bellingham - although some of his team-mates weren't as lauded
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Southgate delivers verdict on England's win over Serbia
England defender John Stones was bizarrely given a 3/10 rating by French newspaper L'Equipe - despite keeping a clean sheet against Serbia.
Stones, 30, helped the Three Lions survive a second-half Serbian onslaught to ensure that England started their Euro 2024 campaign with a hard-fought 1-0 win. Man of the match Jude Bellingham scored the only goal of the game, powering in a header with just 13 minutes on the clock.
L'Equipe, notorious for their harsh player ratings, gave Bellingham a 7/10 but it was a much different story for Stones. The Manchester City centre-back had by far the worst rating in the England XI, even though he managed to marshal Aleksandar Mitrovic and co in Gelsenkirchen.
Centre-back partner Marc Guehi, making his European Championship debut, was given a 5/10 like left-back Kieran Trippier. Right-back Kyle Walker fared better, being given a 6/10, the same as goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, midfield duo Trent Alexander-Arnold and Declan Rice, and winger Bukayo Saka.
"Serbia are a strong team," Southgate, who's now won all four of his tournament-opening games in charge of England, admitted. "We had to suffer a bit, which I think is really good for us to come through and to defend our box in the way we did under pressure is important for the group. That's the reality of tournaments.
"We had good chances to extend the lead and kill the game, which we didn't manage to take. I was really pleased with a lot of the play, especially the first half. I thought we used the ball really well. Second half we didn't keep it quite as well as we need to but to get the win and the start that we have is really important."
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John Stones was given the lowest rating by French newspaper L'Equipe ( Image:
"You are playing against a back five, it is not easy to create chances but we did. In the end one was enough. I liked the fact we had to suffer a bit, that's an area we have worked on a lot this week and we were so much better than last week in doing that.