news Gareth Southgate has a dilemma: try dropping Foden or Rashford now | World Cup 2022

Yor have to hand it to England, really. Few other nations can score nine goals and qualify top of their group and still provoke a debate about whether they are fit for purpose. In

a way, there is a kind of genius to the perpetual dissatisfaction of the English: not so much a tyranny of expectations as a police state of expectations, a fascism of

expectations.But just for argument's sake, let's start with the caveats. After all, how much did we actually learn here? For all their vivid noise, Wales have essentially been

gristle at this tournament: the ghosts at the edge of the photograph. There was a certain sadness in seeing the great Gareth Bale shuffled away at half‑time in what will almost

certainly be his last World Cup, having tiptoed through this game the way he has tiptoed through most of this tournament, like a man going to the bathroom at 4am.Likewise, to say

Declan Rice and Jordan Henderson won the battle in the center is to damn them with faint praise. A set of dining chairs could have won the midfield battle against Wales. England

could simply work the ball around them, safe in the knowledge that Joe Allen and Aaron Ramsey would back off at the first sign of trouble. Good luck trying that against Nampalys

Mendy and Pape Gueye in the last 16.Quick GuideQatar: beyond the footballShowThis is a World Cup like no other. For the last 12 years the Guardian has been reporting on the issues

surrounding Qatar 2022, from corruption and human rights abuses to the treatment of migrant workers and discriminatory laws. The best of our journalism is gathered on our dedicated

Qatar: Beyond the Football home page for those who want to go deeper into the issues beyond the pitch.Guardian reporting goes far beyond what happens on the pitch. Support our

investigative journalism today.Thank you for your feedback.And yet in this languid slow burn of a performance there were still certain conclusions that could be drawn with clarity.

Jude Bellingham is the real thing. The defense still looks pretty confident. Indeed it was Harry Maguire who provided perhaps the warmest moment of a tepid first half: storming out

of defense like a guy who's just heard the first few notes of Hips Don't Lie on the dancefloor, and shanking a fierce left-foot shot into the desert.That first half was, let's be

honest, pretty thin. It wasn't simply slow and plowed, although it was obviously also both those things. At times it was almost comically inept: players making the same run,

players running into each other. Everything England tried seemed to congeal in a little fetid no-man's land about 45 yards from goal, from where the only options were to play it