England 4-0 Andorra: World Cup qualifier – as it happened!

Bukayo Saka says the goal was the perfect birthday present, so the interviewer reminds him of the worst moment of his life, missing that penalty at the same end. Saka deadbats, saying he appreciated the response from the crowd so Gabriel goes again, and he says he dreamed of playing in front of the crowd and scoring on his birthday. He is a beautifully composed young man.

Jesse Lingard had a decent game tonight, which makes it even more odd that he’s not going to be playing every week this season. One of the reasons I like him as West Ham is that he’s very good in a counter-attacking team, but his invention around the box and in front of a massed defence was also decent today.

“These young players are a tremendous prospect for the future,” emails Paul Janaway. “They are exciting and they play for each other, exactly what England needed.”

Yup, I agree with that, and there are loads more backed up behind them. The question is whether Southgate is wedded to those he already likes, or will be flexible as the picture changes.

England are good now, good enough to ease past pretty much every side in world football bar the top few. I don’t think we learned much today, and I doubt we see many changes to what we know if Southgate’s first XI in the course of this qualifying campaign; I expect the plan is to just play better while assuming a youngish side improves. I’m not certain that’s the wisest approach, but I do see the rationale.

90+2 min “I know it’s up to the big teams to outplay them,” says David Hopkins, “but teams like Andorra and San Marino really are rotten to watch now they’ve learnt the dark arts. Time wasting, diving, playacting from the first minute to the last. They’ve lost whatever minnows’ charm they might have had.”

I dunno, I feel like the minnows have always done that and so have the big fish.

What were you doing on your 20th birthday? Scoring for England, probably not, but that’s what Bukayo Saka has just done! Alexander-Arnold takes the corner short – we’ve seen that one before – and Lingard, inside the box down the right, hammers across the face for Saka, who pulls away from his man and around a ball that’s behind him, directing his header past Moreira.