sport news Gareth Southgate insists England have turned a corner after their fightback ... trends now
Gareth Southgate has England have been in a 'tough period' but that his players have 'grown' owing to the adversity.
England played their final pre-World Cup fixture on Monday evening as they came from 2-0 down to lead Germany 3-2 before being pegged back thanks to an error from Nick Pope.
The manner of England's resilient fightback, despite surrendering the lead late on, raised spirits ahead of Qatar 2022, even though Southgate's men have now gone six matches without victory.
Gareth Southgate has praised his players for the character they displayed in coming from two goals behind
Speaking in the aftermath of the draw, Southgate, who revealed the players held their own crisis meeting in recent days to help overcome their poor form, said the players would 'benefit in the long run' from this difficult period.
'It has been a tough period and they have grown,' said Southgate.
'You will always face pressure and at some point you have to be exposed. We played a friendly against Ivory Coast in March and they went to 10 men and it became a non-event and we learnt nothing, this week we have learned a huge amount.
England produced a stirring late comeback to flip the game on its head in the last 20 minutes
'As a group they have come together and they will benefit in the long run.
‘It is an error for Nick Pope and he will be down but the team have to come together and in the end a couple of errors have cost us but I have focused on playing with tremendous spirit and showing belief we haven't showed in last few games and the crowd rose to it.
'The crowd were with us but wondering how things would play out, sub-consciously players were aware of that. We showed character and quality tonight and the crowd came with us.'
'One of the things was they asked could they have a meeting on their own to talk things through,' the England boss said. 'That was, for me, such a positive sign.
Bukayo Saka and Mason Mount changed the game and appeared to provide more dynamism for her England going forward
'By the way, there's moments at some clubs where that's not a good sign! But they kind of talked through what they wanted to do with me.
'The best football teams, of course, need outstanding leadership from coaching teams and
