BELGRADE, Serbia — Thomas Tuchel has said England’s 5-0 thrashing of Serbia is the benchmark for future England performances after a display he described as “teamwork in its purest form.”
The Three Lions cemented their place at the top of Group K with an impressive win at Stadion Rajko Matic in Belgrade as Harry Kane, Noni Madueke, Ezri Konsa, Marc Guéhi and Marcus Rashford all found the net.
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England were 2-0 ahead at the break and 4-0 up when Nikola Milenkovic was sent off on 72 minutes for a foul on Kane, before Rashford completed the scoring on 90 minutes with a penalty following Strahinja Erakovic’s tackle on Ollie Watkins.
Tuchel, who has now won all five competitive fixtures in charge, had faced criticism after Saturday’s lacklustre 2-0 win over minnows Andorra but England responded with the most impressive performance of his tenure to date.
“I think it was teamwork in its purest form,” said Tuchel. “We helped each other out, we had the right intensity. We put the work in to not allow one shot on target and they are a strong home team.
“If you want to do this, you need to support each other, play disciplined and keep the intensity up. This is what we did. Full credit to the team. I told you before, we had a brilliant week from start to finish and this was proof of that.
“We’ve only had three weeks of training and that’s normally half a preseason. It takes time and in between there are weeks of pause. The players did excellent. The credit goes to them, they did amazing — that’s the bar.”
England are seven points clear of second-placed Albania and need just five points from their final three matches to book their place at next summer’s World Cup finals in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
