Southgate hoping adversity toughens England for Qatar

Gareth Southgate hopes England will feel the benefit of being put under intense pressure at the football World Cup after fighting back from 2-0 down to salvage a 3-3 draw against Germany.

Having been relegated from the top tier of the Nations League, England will head to Qatar on a six-game winless run.

And the knives were being sharpened for Southgate after his faith in Harry Maguire backfired for two Germany goals early in the second half. But suddenly everything clicked into place with goals from Luke Shaw, substitute Mason Mount and a penalty by Harry Kane set to pluck an unlikely win from the jaws of defeat until Kai Havertz's second goal for Germany in the 87th minute put a dampener on the Wembley party.

But there was relief for Southgate that England's attack finally came to life after accusations that his conservative tactics were to blame for a lack of goals.

"The whole experience has been what we needed," said Southgate, who had been booed by fans after a 1-0 defeat to Italy in Milan on Friday.

"You are going to have pressure in a World Cup. You can try to avoid pressure, but it's coming. It's better that we feel it and know how we deal with it. The players reacted in the right way - we showed character but a lot of quality."

There are still plenty of questions to answer - namely defender Maguire's struggles and England's tendency to play with the handbrake on - but Southgate insists he will not be deviating from the trusted formula that took his side to the World Cup semi-finals in 2018 and the Euro 2020 final.