World Cup 2018: Gareth Southgate’s next task is to solve England’s midfield puzzle and test it against Spain and Croatia

The Uefa Nations League will be England's next competitive football in October

The new Uefa Nations League has not had much of a reception in England but Gareth Southgate is thrilled by the prospect of playing in it over the autumn.

England fly back from Russia today but Southgate is already turning his attention to the new season and how to take his team to the next level. He knows that as well as his side did, reaching their first semi-finals since 1990, that there is still plenty of work to be done, and some serious issues in his team. Especially - though he has not said this explicitly - how they play in midfield and how they cope with teams who are technically better than them.

That was the story of this World Cup campaign, where England won four games, but also lost twice to Belgium and once to Croatia. Both of whom could boast more quality on the ball than England could.

On Wednesday night at the Luzhniki, England gradually had the control of midfield wrenched from them by Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic, turning an early 1-0 lead into a 2-1 extra-time defeat. England’s response under pressure was to start hitting the ball long and they never had anyone to play patiently or keep the ball in midfield.

Then, on Saturday in St Petersburg, England could not lay a finger on Kevin De Bruyne, who dropped into the space between England’s defence and midfield, playing killer passes that England could never stop. England could have lost by far more than they did, again raising questions about whether they can handle themselves in midfield against the best.

When Southgate was asked after the Belgium game if he needed a better class of player in midfield, he did not go into specifics, but did say that his hands were tied by the type of player that he has available to him. Clearly Jordan Henderson, Dele Alli and Jesse Lingard themselves cannot be blamed for the midfield failings against Croatia.

(PA (PA)

“We’ve tried to maximise the players that we have and their individual profiles,” Southgate said. “It’s not club football and we can’t go and buy players so for me the players that have been here have acquitted themselves brilliantly for their country and I couldn’t have asked more of them.”

But Southgate knows that heading into the next cycle, England need to improve in midfield. But rather than the usual autumn of low-pressure friendlies and qualifiers against modest teams who will simply try to dig in and defend, England have an exciting novelty to look forward to: competitive games against good teams as soon as the season starts.

The new Uefa Nations League has Europe’s 12 top-ranked sides put into League A, divided into four groups of three. The four winners will then play off for the inaugural trophy next summer. England have been drawn with Croatia and Spain, meaning that they will get to face off against arguably the two best midfield teams in Europe sooner than they may have expected.

England’s first competitive game of the season is less than two months away, hosting Luis Enrique’s Spain at Wembley on 8 September, going up against Isco, Thiago, David Silva, Sergio Busquets and the rest. Then England travel to Rijeka on 12 October for a game that should be a glorious homecoming for Croatia, their first competitive home game since the World Cup, but will in fact be played behind closed doors. Then in October England travel to Seville, for Spain away, in November they host Croatia at Wembley. It makes for the most competitive and exciting autumn programme for any England team in memory.

“We now have some big fixtures in the autumn, playing the likes of Spain, Switzerland [in a friendly] and Croatia,” Southgate said. “Those are great opportunities for us to develop, improve, try things, look at players. We have to try to constantly evolve and improve. We’ve done that, particularly over the last eight months. And we’ve ended up having a brilliant adventure here. Every member of our party, players and staff, have enjoyed it immensely. That’s what we keep have to do: review how we play; how might we improve; what we can get better at. That’s what we will do.”