John Stones has challenged England to deliver a “huge” performance against Slovenia tonight, insisting one big win will see the negativity around their Euro 2024 campaign blown away.
The Three Lions are back in action this evening, looking for the victory that would see them clinch top spot in Group C and set up a last-16 meeting with one of the best third-placed sides.
Conor Gallagher is in line to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield, but Gareth Southgate is otherwise expected to resist calls for wholesale change despite his team’s abject performance in last week’s draw against Denmark.
Stones, however, is well aware of the need for a convincing performance to ignite England’s tournament after lacklustre displays in both the opening 1-0 win over Serbia and the dismal 1-1 draw with the Danes.
“It would be huge,” the centre-back said of the momentum a positive result and display could give to England’s campaign. “We’d all love to win three or four-nil every game.
“We’ve conceded maybe three goals in the past two Euros, it’s an incredible thing we’ve done. So, to keep a clean sheet and hopefully get a few more names on the scoresheet would be a big statement.”
The fall-out from the Denmark draw included fierce criticism from England greats such as Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, with Harry Kane and Declan Rice among those to hit back this week, calling for calm and unity behind the national team.
Southgate’s men were booed off by some sections of the travelling support in Frankfurt, but thousands of England fans have made the trip here, where temperatures were today forecast to reach 29 degrees.
“You see the support, everyone that comes over and makes the trip, we absolutely love it seeing everyone in there,” Stones added.
“We’ve got to give them something to thrive off even more. We love the support, we walk out on the pitch and see all the flags and everything out there. If we can have a big performance, that will make everything feel so much better.”
Southgate is set to abandon his experiment with Alexander-Arnold and instead hand Gallagher a first major tournament start, after bringing the Chelsea man off the bench in each of the opening two group games.
There have been calls for the pace of Anthony Gordon and the passing ability of Adam Wharton to be brought into the XI, but speaking here last night, Southgate insisted now is not the time to “rip everything up and go in a completely different direction”.
“The big risk is you have a knee-jerk reaction and you move away from things that are going well,” he said.
“Your best players are still your best players. We might not have functioned as a team as we would have liked, but that doesn’t mean what we’ve been doing for the last two years in particular, and the period before that, should be thrown out of the window.”
Slovenia have never won a game at the European Championship, having been pegged back by a Serbia equaliser deep in stoppage-time in their second group game last week.
Sitting on two points with a level goal-difference, however, Matjaz Kek’s team know even a draw would see them reach the knockout stage for the first time.
“We are still masters of our destiny, with all due respect to England, who are an outstanding team,” Kek said. “This will be the biggest challenge for this generation of players. We have calmed the nerves after Serbia, we have analysed the positives and negatives from that match. We are ready.”
