Croatian midfield threat poses dilemma for Southgate

England coach Gareth Southgate was keeping his feet firmly on the ground after England's 6-1 World Cup group-stage rout of Panama, declaring "I didn't particularly like the performance".

With a grin Southgate explained to the BBC: "I'm being hyper-critical, but I didn't like the start, I didn't like the goal at the end. The bits in the middle were pretty good though!"

Southgate was speaking after a hat-trick from Harry Kane, a double from John Stones and another from Jesse Lingard saw off Panama and qualified England into the knockout stages.

As it stands England are level on goal difference with also-qualified Belgium but top the group by virtue of yellow cards -- two compared to the Belgians' three.

The countries meet in Kaliningrad on Thursday.

Asked about possible changes to his XI to face Belgium, Southgate commented: "I want to keep the momentum, we have to think about the team we want to put out, it's an opportunity for players who need a match who haven't played for a while but on the other hand we want to keep winning.

"It's a nice decision to have!"

Reflecting on a record World Cup win for England -- their previous best result was 3-0 -- he added: "I was a bit anxious at the start, they (Panama) had six at the back and three in middle, but once we worked that out I thought we played some really good stuff for 35 minutes.

Southgate's main gripe was his defence allowing Felipe Baloy to score Panama's first ever World Cup goal in the 78th minute.

"At half-time we talked about one more goal to be top of the group, that's why the goal at the end was disappointing," he said.

"We'd rather be in control of the group than not, and confidence wise it's important to score goals.

"It was a big moment for Lingard and great for the captain (Kane) to score a hat-trick, that way he didn't have the hump when I took him off!"

President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday to congratulate the winning team, President Vladimir Putin, and Russia after the World Cup final, which he called "one of the best ever!"

"Congratulations to France, who played extraordinary soccer, on winning the 2018 World Cup. Additionally, congratulations to President Putin and Russia for putting on a truly great World Cup Tournament one of the best ever!," he wrote on his Twitter account on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, the national team of France defeated Croatia 4-2 in the 2018 FIFA World Cup final match in Moscow to snatch its second World Cup Trophy.

England's record goalscorer Wayne Rooney announced on Wednesday he is retiring from international football with immediate effect, despite England manager Gareth Southgate telling him he had earned a recall.

The 31-year-old -- scorer of 53 goals in 119 appearances for his country -- told Southgate of his decision during a phone conversation.

"Having already thought long and hard, I told Gareth that I had now decided to retire for good from international football," said Rooney in a statement sent to Press Association Sport.

Gareth Southgate says he is driven to make England the world's top-ranked team, stressing there is no room for "sloppiness" as they seek to end their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign on a high.

England, who face North Macedonia in Skopje on Monday, are all but assured of being among the top seeds in next month's draw for the finals in Germany.

But they were disappointing in Friday's 2-0 victory against Malta at Wembley and will be keen to improve against lowly North Macedonia, whom they hammered 7-0 at Old Trafford in June.

"Qualification's done," the England boss told British media ahead of the Group C finale.

"With the games at the weekend, we might be ranked third in the world at the minute (England are fourth in the latest published FIFA rankings), but we're two places off where we need to be so we can't waste games.

"Some of the players have got three games to get into a squad, some have got maybe three to get into a team."

Southgate said the level of performance had to be "spot on every time".

World Cup winners Argentina are top of the rankings, with France in second place and Brazil third. England have been in the top five for five straight years.

Asked if being number one drives him on, Southgate said: "Yeah, because ultimately you achieve that through consistency and you've got to play well in the tournaments as well because the ranking points are higher in the tournaments.

"Also, it sets behaviours every day on the training pitch, off the training pitch.

"If you are going to be the top-ranked team, there's no room for sloppiness or casualness. That's got to be our drive."

England's final camp of the year has been disrupted by absentees.

Five players withdrew from the original squad through injury and two more departed the squad before they flew to the Balkans.

The Football Association announced Kieran Trippier had gone home due to a personal issue, while injury meant Jarrod Bowen left the camp on Sunday.