Gareth Southgate underwhelmed by 'disjointed' England win over Malta | OneFootball

England manager Gareth Southgate has admitted the Three Lions fell short of expectations against Malta on Friday evening but refused to criticise his players.

An own goal from Malta's Enrico Pepe put England ahead early on before Harry Kane doubled England's advantage 15 minutes before the final whistle to steer his side to what was ultimately a comfortable victory.

Fans, however, expected far more from England against the side who sit bottom of Group C without a point to their name, and Southgate acknowledged his team fell short of expectations.

"We were disjointed in our pressing at times," he told a press conference. "We were not the level we would want to be at. We were not the level that we need to be at.

"But, equally, this group of players have been exceptional and I'm not going to start getting into their ribs too much about a performance like tonight.

"We made a few changes, we didn't hit the levels we would have liked to have but they managed to win the game. Not in the style we'd have liked for the supporters but, in the end, we've won comfortably, as we should.

"This group have been exceptional so I'm not going to criticise the players. We made changes, we managed to win the game but not in the style we would have liked for the supporters."

Instead, Southgate attributed England's performance to fatigue and challenged his players to get back to their best ahead of Monday's trip to North Macedonia.

"We've had a really good calendar year and we want to finish it well," he said. "We want to go into the tournament unbeaten. We have some tough games coming up. It's good for us to be away from Wembley again, in a challenging environment because that's where we'll be next summer.

"It's not a worry when a player has so many matches, you almost have to self-regulate. We had to be at a higher level to beat Italy. The reality of football is you can't be at the same level all the time. I know there are times when sub-consciously you know the level you need to be at to win, and I've been there.

"Against the teams we're going to play in March, we wouldn't get away with the level we produced tonight. We're trying to manage our team selection with the changes we made. We knew this week would be difficult given we've already qualified.