Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer savage ‘rotten’ England’s Slovakia performance

Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer have savaged England’s “rotten” European Championship displays as they hailed Jude Bellingham for rescuing the country from “one of the most miserable, humiliating performances in English football history”.

The BBC’s star football presenter and pundit delivered arguably their most scathing assessment yet of Gareth Southgate’s side on their The Rest is Football podcast, with Shearer saying of their last-16 escape against Slovakia: “They were so bad, it was untrue.”

Both again condemned Southgate’s tactics in Sunday’s 2-1 extra-time victory and said England were “massive underdogs” for their quarter-final against Switzerland, warning they had no chance of winning the tournament playing the same way.

Lineker added: “You can’t keep getting away with it.”

Summing up their sheer frustration after a fourth straight dire display which seemed destined to see England dumped out of the tournament until Bellingham’s sensational last-gasp overhead kick, Lineker said: “God, it was so stressful watching it, wasn’t it. There was one point where Alan was so exasperated that he got up out [of] his chair.

“He said, ‘I need to walk. I need to walk’. And he walked out to the back room there and we suddenly heard from wherever he was, ‘AAAAAAAGH!!!’

“I’m not exaggerating.”

‘I was thinking Iceland 2016 all over again’

Shearer added: “It was desperation. It was desperate. They were so bad, it was untrue. I was thinking Iceland – 2016, was it? – 2016 all over again, with much better players. It was that bad.

“England were offering nothing. Nothing at all. And I just couldn’t see where it was going to come from. And then a piece of brilliance.”

Agreeing, Lineker continued: “It’s difficult in a way to know how to pitch the response to it, isn’t it. Because, ultimately, England are through to the quarter-finals. They found a way, through the sheer kind of determination and brilliance of Jude Bellingham at the end.

“But you can’t gloss over the problems and the performance.”

‘They are like lost souls’

Condemning a display in which England failed to muster a shot on target until Bellingham scored in the fifth minute of stoppage time and Harry Kane in the first minute of extra time, Linker said: “I can’t remember a performance, aside from the very, very end, where England had been so lacking.

“They had two shots on target in the game and one was a header. But that was it.

“They weren’t cohesive. They were disjointed. They were unbalanced yet again, as we’ve seen many times in this tournament. They played deep, they were apart, the distances from the back four to the front were way too big, they weren’t condensed in their play.

“It was as though they’d just met each other for the first time and gone on a field and tried to play football.”

He added: “They’re like lost souls. I don’t think they really know what they’re supposed to be doing, what their jobs are, how the team is supposed to be playing.”

Shearer went on: “Positives? They’re through. The result. And, in knockout football, in reality, that’s all that matters.

“But there is so much more to be had from this England team. I mean, would it be wrong of me to say they’ve been rotten for four games – other than 30 minutes?”

Lineker replied: “There would’ve been millions and millions of people with exactly that opinion. How could you think that was a good display?”

Shearer then said: “You’re not exactly playing against good opposition. I mean, Slovakia today, for goodness sake.”

‘It must be tactical’

Once again blaming Southgate’s tactics, Lineker said: “You just kept thinking: ‘Get up the pitch’.

“It must be tactical. It must be instruction. Because they’re actually playing differently to what they always do.

“It’s baffling – and you don’t want to be too negative because of the result. But if the game had been 30 seconds shorter, or a minute shorter, this would’ve been seen as one of the most miserable, humiliating performances in English football history.”

Bellingham’s stoppage-time equaliser was just the latest in a long line of such goals he has scored since joining Real Madrid last summer.

Lineker said: “What an absolute superstar this kid is. He’s done that so many times for Real Madrid this season. That’s what superstars do. It’s almost an arrogance about him, as well, which I like. Which is very un-British, isn’t it.

“People start going, ‘Oh, he’s getting a bit big for his boots’. Nooooo. His boots are big and he fills them.”

Looking ahead to Saturday’s match against Switzerland, Shearer once again called for Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon to be brought into the side for a game for which Lineker warned England were “distinct second favourites”.

Shearer added: “What a turnaround, though? Going into a game against Switzerland as massive underdogs?

“Us and France were, like, the favourites for the tournament and, all of a sudden, we’re saying, ‘We’re underdogs against Switzerland’. I mean, really?”