Southgate’s smooth start as England beats Malta in qualifier

He said: “Obviously my football is going well at this moment in time”.

“He is an exciting player and the stage was made for him”.

Walcott, capped 44 times since his debut 10 years ago, last started for England against Estonia 12 months ago, scoring a goal in the 2-0 Euro 2016 qualifying victory.

“From everything I’ve seen, he’s got everything, he plays right on the shoulder, sharp movement and he finishes well”.

There could be points during this campaign for Malta if they can perform like this throughout, although the lack of emphasis on attacking may come back to bite them.

“Those guys desperately wanted to play for England again and again and again and put their neck on the block”.

“I think he is very determined [to win his place back]”.

With its third different manager in as many matches, England experienced some frustration in only managing to beat Malta 2-0 at the start of Gareth Southgate’s interim reign.

As the below image shows, Rooney, playing in centre-midfield, committed a unsafe tackle that left a Malta player grounded.

This season, under Jose Mourinho, Lingard has appeared in three Premier League games, including the Manchester derby, and his performances have been enough to persuade Southgate that he deserves a call up to the national team. I don’t see any point in getting drawn into that.

Dele Alli and Daniel Sturridge should have scored before they actually did and Gary Cahill skewed a shot wide, while Hogg kept out Theo Walcott from a one-on-one scenario and debutant Jesse Lingard also wasted a couple of half-decent chances.

Both goals were created by Jordan Henderson, the Liverpool skipper crossing for club-mate Sturridge to head in the opener and then laying the foundations for Alli’s strike with a run to the edge of the box.

Arsenal defender Kieran Gibbs has replaced the injured Ryan Bertrand in the squad which will travel to Slovenia looking to make it three wins from as many matches.

“If we’d have put away our chances it would have been more, so that’s probably most disappointing for us as we didn’t get more goals”, said Henderson, who was named as Vauxhall man of the match.

The winger – recalled to the England squad and hoping to win his first senior cap in the World Cup qualifier against Malta on Saturday – does not feel his skipper at club and worldwide level has deserved to receive negative publicity for his performances.

They should certainly have what it takes to see off a Malta side that kicked off their Russian Federation 2018 qualifying campaign with a 5-1 defeat at home to Scotland. “I have always said that”, Wenger told BeIn Sports when asked whether the job should go to an Englishman.