Neville insists Southgate should have substituted two England players at half-time in Euro 2024 final

Gary Neville thinks England boss Gareth Southgate should’ve made two substitutions at half-time in their Euro 2024 final defeat to Spain on Sunday.

Southgate’s side were beaten 2-1 in Berlin on Sunday night , suffering back-to-back defeats in European Championship finals as the 58-year wait for a major men’s trophy goes on.

Despite reaching the final, England ’s performances in Germany were widely criticised as they required moments of magic to rescue all of their knockout ties before ultimately coming up short against Spain.

Those ragged displays certainly were not caused by a lack of effort, with England boasting the seven top players to cover the most ground across the competition.

But it was more Southgate’s team selection and tactics that were criticised throughout the tournament and Neville reckons the England boss should have made two changes at the interval against the Spanish.

Neville would have brought on Ollie Watkins for Harry Kane and Anthony Gordon for Kobbie Mainoo, with Jude Bellingham dropping back into midfield.

“Look, I’m just in the stadium on television while Gareth Southgate is in the hot seat and there’s a reason for that,” Neville told Sky Sports .

“But at half-time I felt Ollie Watkins should have come on for Harry Kane and Anthony Gordon should come in on the left, with Jude Bellingham move back into central midfield.

“I just felt we needed Watkins, Saka and Gordon up top. We were playing deep, we were being pushed back deep by a fantastic Spain team.

“When you’re playing deep you need to be able to counter-attack but we didn’t have that. We needed to be able to travel from box to box and get players on to carry the ball with pace.

“Those are the two changes I thought would have happened.”

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Speaking on ITV Sport in the aftermath of the loss to Spain, Neville bemoaned England’s failure to keep hold of the ball and control the match as well as their opponents.

Neville said: “We can focus on a lot of things, but Southgate’s answer on how we did not keep the ball well enough should be the title of the England book.

“Every single England manager has said the same thing, every single England player has felt the same thing because we have lived it out there on the pitch and our legs have gone and we end up dying on our feet in the latter part of games where the other team have got stronger.

“And it is repeat, rinse and repeat. These lads have done incredibly well to get to a final, they have done more than we ever did, but some of the same patterns have occurred.

“Spain had a lot of chances, they could have won the game before we equalised. We got back into it, but we could have been 2-0 down before that and to not control the biggest games has been a problem for England teams in many, many tournaments.

“And to have to play from behind the ball and move your whole team up the pitch from the edge of your box to the other end of the pitch is very difficult.

“You can win the odd game doing that, you can win two or three games, but eventually you play a team with too much quality and that is what we found tonight.”