Jesse Lingard was excellent on his senior debut for England in a 2-0 win over minnows Malta. His performance has been hailed as "outstanding" by interim boss, Gareth Southgate. Both have been familiar with each other since Southgate's days as England's youth coach in a move that might have influenced his call-up of both him and Rashford.
He felt that the United forward was a thorn in the flesh of the away team all game in his first game in charge of the Three Lions.
He said to ITV:
"Jesse Lingard had an outstanding debut and looked a real threat, that's why we wanted to start him.
"He's got a strong mentality and he's an exciting player. The stage is made for him and he's scored twice at Wembley for United."
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| Gareth Southgate-mirror.co.uk |
"One or two players looked after themselves physically. We made positive changes and missed good chances but given where we were 10 days ago I'm pleased with the result but there is room to improve on the performance."
"I think players subconsciously know the game is won and we could have made it more comfortable but some of them were thinking about the next game which comes quickly."
"Each game is a different challenge. The next opposition [Slovenia] play a different style and we're away, we look at all those things. We have a couple of injuries to assess and we'll know more in the next few days, but we have good depth to make changes."
Amid speculations that he might be in line to be the next Three Lions coach, Mancini was spotted at Wembley. Southgate responded saying, "My job is to get the results which keep us at the top of the group and we achieved that," he said. "People wanted more and I understand that, but we have to go and get that win."
"I've enjoyed the whole week but we would have liked four or five goals, but Malta had 1-0 defeats to Croatia and Italy in their last qualifying campaign. The goalkeeper played well and they defended in heavy numbers but we created well and we could have scored more."
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