England 2-0 Serbia
by Layth Yousif 
at Wembley Stadium

A GOAL in each half from Arsenal pair Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze sealed victory over Serbia in a low-key, dead rubber on Thursday evening.

In front of 74,289 fans, Thomas Tuchel’s Three Lions notched another victory to make it seven competitive wins out of seven in Group K, without a goal conceded.

However, Jude Bellingham had to make do with coming off the bench after the hour mark, as West Midlands childhood pal Morgan Rogers started ahead of Real Madrid’s La Liga and Champions League winner in midfield, while Manchester City’s 19-year-old Nico O’Reilly was handed his first England start, a mere 11 months after making his Manchester City Premier League bow.

Tuchel reflected after the match: “This is not about building a starting XI, it’s about building a team. They’re all big players in their club, they’re used to playing, they’re disappointed but buy into this idea of building a team.

“Only if we’re a strong group who can put the ego behind and give the coach a headache in the next match is the only way.”

New Serbia boss Veljko Paunovic commenced his reign with Juventus striker Dusan Vlahovic up front.

In an underwhelming start, Saka cut inside but fired over, as the wet weather made conditions difficult for both sides.

On 24 minutes, it was Marcus Rashford’s turn to cut inside, to drill an effort at Serbia keeper Predrag Rajkovic, who gathered well on the greasy turf.

Sandwiched in between those two moments was a bigger cheer, for the arrival of the first paper plane that landed on the Wembley turf from listless England fans.

The lively Rashford then nutmegged Serbia right-back Ognjen Mimovic with a satisfying piece of skill to underline his qualities.

The 28-year-old has had an excellent start to the campaign on loan to Catalan giants Barcelona, indeed, no player in the top five leagues around Europe can top his six assists, while the former Manchester United attacker has also notched four goals in four Champions League appearances.

England’s dominance finally paid off, when the deadlock was finally broken before the half hour, when Saka scored for the Three Lions to make it 1-0, as the heavy rain continued to fall at the national stadium.

The 24-year-old Arsenal attacker volleyed, side-footed into the net with a superbly taken finish, in challenging conditions, to put the home side ahead, scoring his 14th England goal in the process. Out of that total, 12 have come in competitive matches.

It was a good night all round for Saka, who moved level with Theo Walcott for England caps while an Arsenal player (47), with only four Gunners making more appearances for the men’s team: Kenny Sansom (77), David Seaman (72), Tony Adams (66) and Ashley Cole (52).

As the clock ticked down towards half time, fans were treated to a flurry of activity. Firstly, Rashford teed up teenage talent O’Reilly, as the City player’s deflected effort forced a save from 30-year-old keeper Rajkovic, who plays in the Saudi Pro League for Al-Ittihad.

There was also still time for captain Kane to inexplicably steer his header wide, when well-placed.

That was prior to Jordan Pickford’s first save of the match, showing excellent anticipation to race off his line and block an attempt by Filip Kostic, to ensure England went into the break 1-0 ahead.

Pickford extended his run of nine consecutive 90-minute appearances for England without conceding a goal, a national record. With the Everton keeper not conceding a goal while playing for his country since October 2024.

Tuchel has now made it abundantly obvious that Saka is his first-choice pick to operate on the right flank, and Rashford — or the injured Anthony Gordon — on the left, with both attackers supplementing striker, captain and England’s record scorer Harry Kane up front.

With the German boss a huge fan of Arsenal’s Declan Rice as an attacking number eight, the intelligent Rogers as a more disciplined number 10, and Elliot Anderson as an obdurate number six, then you have to assume — if all six stay fit and in form, which, admittedly, is a big assumption given the vagaries of the beautiful game — the current midfield and attack will start as Tuchel’s favoured front half-dozen come next summer’s jamboree in North America and Mexico.

All of which means time is running out — if it hasn’t already — for the mercurial Jack Grealish to make the squad, let alone the team, while Bellingham himself has a job to do to break back into the starting XI.

Why?

Well, Tuchel is a firm adherent of mentor Ralf Rangnick, and while the German tactical meister failed to impress during a miserable spell at Old Trafford, the fact is the current Austrian boss is a firm believer in the power of intense counter-pressing from the top. Something Tuchel is a firm disciple of.

And unless the talented, but less disciplined Bellingham can curb his instincts when casting off the shackles of Tuchel’s sacred orders for positioning and pressing — or gegenpressing to call it by its original name — then Tuchel will continue to be unmoved.

For all England’s dominance, Serbia nearly equalised after the break, when Kostic drove into the box, Ezri Konsa was left floundering when calling for an offside flag that never came. The 33-year-old Juventus midfielder squared it to Serie A teammate Vlahovic, whose instinctive attempt to flick it into the far corner saw the ball fly narrowly wide.

Following a raft of changes by Tuchel on 65 minutes, including Bellingham replacing Rogers from the naughty step, England continued to field Saka on the right, while Arsenal colleague Eze came on to occupy the left-hand-side, with Phil Foden — as per Tuchel’s pre-match briefings — playing as a false number nine.

With five minutes remaining Vlahovic turned into the box but lifted the ball onto the roof of the net. While at the other end substitute Eze hit the woodwork.

Yet, Eze was not to be denied, and as the clock reached 90 minutes, the Gunners attacker signed under the noses of bitter rivals Spurs at the end of the summer transfer window, cut inside to curl a delicious effort past the despairing dive of Rejkovic, and into the top corner of the net — to enliven an unexceptional match and make it 2-0.

It was instructive to note it was Bellingham who powered out of defence to play the ball to Foden, who in turn fed the exciting Eze, thereby underlining the strength in depth in Tuchel’s squad.

Speaking after the final whistle, Tuchel said: “We had a good impact from the bench straight away. We brought on quality players, and they wanted to show what they could do.

“They created chances, half chances, and scored in the end. You could see the impact, and it has to stay like this.”

Next stop is Tirana, to play Albania on Sunday, who qualified for the play-offs after beating Andorra.