It was the night when Thomas Tuchel located the ignition point for his England tenure, when all of the grumbling that had followed him to Belgrade seemed to float away. The head coach needed a result to allow his team to take control of this World Cup qualifying group – and a performance, too, after the flatness of much of what had gone before.
Tuchel got both. From the first whistle his players were a class apart, Serbia left to look dishevelled, their problems everywhere. It is a troubling moment for the country, anti‑government protests gaining in intensity and there were chants here against the ruling party. The head coach, Dragan Stojkovic, is under heavy fire and there was more heat for him. What for him after this?
Serbia offered next to nothing, they finished with 10 men after Nikola Milenkovic’s last-man hack on Harry Kane in the 72nd minute and the truth was that the scoreline could have been heavier. England’s game management cut through the sideshows; what a pleasure it was for the travelling fans to see only smoothness, zero worry lines.
The stars were Morgan Rogers and Noni Madueke, the former providing the moment of the match with his assist for the latter to make it 2-0. Rogers, whom Tuchel had preferred to Eberechi Eze in the No 10 role, brought the X factor.
