Alan Shearer: ‘Defeat may be Gareth Southgate’s last – but he’d leave England with head held high’

Spain were the superior side, but I think we were all expecting more from England in Berlin.

For starters, Spain dominated possession, which they had not done in a lot of their games over the past few weeks. They play in a slightly different way now to the way they did when they had success in the past, but we sort of stood off them and allowed them to play at their own pace.

You can’t do that against a team with as many quality players as they have got, because they can hurt you. England found that out the hard way.

We got away with it for a while in the second half because Jordan Pickford made a great save when they were 1-0 up and they missed a couple of really good chances to put the game out of sight.

Then we got the changes from Gareth and an equaliser from one of the players who came on, and all of a sudden you are thinking hang on, here we go again. Another comeback… maybe, just maybe, another win.

We had come from a goal down to get through each knockout round on our way to the final, and being a team of great moments rather than a great team had got us this far.

It was not enough to derail Spain, however. They had deserved to win all six of their previous games at this tournament, and they deserved to win this one too.

They sliced right through the middle of us to score their winner and they dominated us the way they have dominated the competition.

Yes, we came close to nicking a second goal from a set-piece right at the end but, if we are being honest, we all know that Spain played the game the way that most people wanted England to play it, which is on the front foot.