England hero Rashford shares team talk that inspired Wales thrashing

Marcus Rashford has revealed England boss Gareth Southgate told his forwards to improve their shooting before the Three Lions responded in perfect fashion by thumping three goals past Wales in their final World Cup group game. The Group B winners, who still look to be among the strongest teams in Qatar, will now face Senegal on Sunday in the last 16 after securing top spot with an emphatic second-half display.

Wales frustrated England – despite their dominance – in the first half as Marcus Rashford squandered the best chance of the opening 45 minutes when he clipped the ball straight at Danny Ward.

But Southgate was keen to inspire his forwards in the dressing room at half-time, urging them to improve their sharpness in front of goal after the interval.

The message evidently struck a chord as Rashford fired home two excellent goals, while Phil Foden also found the back of the net for England for the first time in two years as he repaid Southgate’s faith.

Two-goal hero Rashford told BBC Sport: “At half-time the manager said ‘we’ve played really well but the one thing that we can work better on is the shots at goal.’

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Rashford is now the joint top-scorer at the World Cup having also found the net against Iran on match-day one.

“Moments like this, this is what I play football for. I’m really happy today, I’m happy we’re going forward to the next round,” Rashford added.

He also said: “We were a little bit disappointed after the USA result. I thought we could’ve played a lot better. and it was important to have a good performance in the next game. We defended brilliantly in the first half and it was just about killing the game off early and taking the chances in the game

“I fancied [a free-kick] in the first half but it was a better position for the second. I just tried to be calm and execute what you’ve done in training.”

The 25-year-old opened the scoring with a brilliantly-struck free-kick from range that flew into the top corner.

He was then on hand to add a third after Foden doubled England’s advantage.

Southgate now has some crunch decisions to make for the last 16 clash with Senegal with Rashford, Foden, Raheem Sterling, Bukayo Saka and Grealish all pushing for starts.