According to Elo, England lost to the sides now ranked 3rd and 5th, drew with the 10th and beat those 18th, 47th and 61st. Another game against third placed Belgium to come.
I had England down as a team 5-10th best in the world coming into this, so fully expected them to get through their group and be competitive in the knockout rounds depending on who they drew. Only really feel Brazil, France, Germany and possibly Belgium and Spain are categorically better sides, with England in the bunch behind them.
A semi-final is probably a slight overachievement therefore, but actually I think England underperformed as a team. There was the makings of a good side here, but we didn’t really see it consistently. First 30 minutes against Tunisia was incredible, first half against Panama was bonkers, and Sweden was composed, but England consistently failed to work the goal from open play.
Southgate will, rightly so, get a lot of credit for how he managed the camp and brought the country onboard, but objective analysis will be unkind to the performances he got from the team against the better teams. It’s a small sample of games and he should be backed for the Euros, but he may want to bring some gifted coaches into the setup. Thankfully, I think he is a smart guy and will know that England were capable of delivering a lot more and that we couldn’t ordinarily expect to get so close to a final with this level of performance.