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European Under-21s Championship | Group Stage

Jun 21, 2015 at 5pm UK

Sweden U21s Sweden Under-21s
0-1
England U21s England Under-21s

FT(HT: 0-0)

Lingard (85')

England Under-21s boss Gareth Southgate: 'We deserved our victory'

By Simon Sinclair, Reporter | 21 June 2015

England Under-21s boss Gareth Southgate believes that his side deserved to secure their first points of the European Championships after their 1-0 victory over Sweden.

England Under-21s boss Gareth Southgate has revealed his delight with his side for grinding out a 1-0 win against Sweden to pick up their first points of the European Championships.

The Young Lions were frustrated for the majority of the match as they could not find a breakthrough, although Harry Kane and Will Hughes went close in the first half.

However, Southgate's men were forced to wait until the 85th minute for Jesse Lingard to strike with a volleyed effort to hand them the victory to keep them in the competition.

Southgate told BT Sport: "We needed that to get points on the board, but we played better against Portugal.

"We showed tremendous resilience and we held our nerve because we said to the players it might take 60 or 70 minutes and it was longer than that in the end.

"We still tried to create and we kept pressing and probing. In the end one outstanding bit of skill gets us the win which I think we deserved for our overall general play and control of the game."

England are next in action on Wednesday in their final Group B game against Italy.