England embarrassed by Hungary in historic home Nations League defeat

Southgate: “The results are my responsibility”

England suffered a humiliation at the hands of Hungary Tuesday, losing 4-0 at home in UEFA Nations League group play.

Roland Sallai bagged a brace, and Hungary scored three times in the final 20 minutes at Molineux, turning what would have been merely a very bad result into England’s first-ever four-goal loss on home soil. Zsolt Nagy and Dániel Gazdag added late goals sandwiched around a red card for John Stones, adding insult to injury.

“We picked a young team with energy and when the game started to go against them it started to look that way,” England boss Gareth Southgate told BBC’s Channel Four. “That is my responsibility in the end.”

Southgate’s starting eleven included four players with three or fewer caps, and three players (Jude Bellingham, Marc Guéhi, and Bukayo Saka) under the age of 22.

“I am not going to say it does not hurt but it is clear to me what we were trying to do across the four matches,” said Southgate in defense of the choice to go so young. “We needed to see some things. We have had some unbelievable nights with England over the last four or five years but this is the other side and that is the reality of football.”

Southgate said that he made halftime changes that “left us wide open” in an attempt to overturn a 1-0 deficit in a game that England very likely had to win to have any hope of winning Group A3. The loss has dashed any chance of that happening, and England will likely need to win both of their remaining games (a home match against Italy and a visit to Germany, both in September) to avoid being relegated to League B.

England captain Harry Kane said the loss was “a night to forget,” adding that the Three Lions had previously been reliably strong at the back. “It is our first big defeat in a long time, the defense has been structure of our success.”

Strangely, Hungary is the last country to visit England and score four or more goals, as they famously won 6-3 at Wembley in 1953.

“We have seen you have to be at full strength,” said Southgate. “The results are my responsibility.”

See Hungary’s goals against England

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