According to Gareth Southgate late on Sunday night, he was about to replace Jude Bellingham with Conor Gallagher when Mikel Oyarzabal scored Spain’s winner.

It would have been 10 minutes too late. Bellingham did set up Cole Palmer’s 73rd minute strike but, from that moment on, he was a passenger. Southgate did have the stomach to take off Harry Kane just after the hour mark but, again, that was at least 10 minutes too late.

Ok, England were holding the tournament’s best team at half-time but the bold coach would have replaced Kane at the interval. Apart from the yellow card he collected, the England captain had been a completely incidental figure in the first half.

He was not going to suddenly sprout wings in the second. There is a balance between having trust in your leaders and being in thrall to big names … and whoever is in charge of England at the next tournament – World Cup 2026 – needs to find it if the wait for a trophy is to end.

It is not an unusual affliction for an England manager. Sven Goran Eriksson fielded a palpably unfit David Beckham at World Cup 2002 and it cost England in the quarter-final against Brazil when Beckham was one of those at fault for Ronaldo’s equaliser just before half-time.

And then there was the saga of Wayne Rooney’s fitness at World Cup 2006 in Germany. To be blunt, he was not even close to being fit, having broken three metatarsals six weeks before the competition began.

A frustrated Rooney was sent off in the quarter-final defeat to Portugal and would later say that there is no way he should have ever played in that tournament. That type of admission will probably not come from Kane but don’t be surprised if he admits to being misleading when claiming, as he did throughout Euro 2024, that he was fully fit for this campaign.

To those watching the matches, that must have been obvious – if you were watching him on the training ground every day, as Southgate was, it must have been blindingly obvious. But – and the manager said as much in the aftermath of the defeat to Spain – Southgate was short of experienced leaders in the squad, having not been able to include Harry Maguire and Jordan Henderson.

HAVE YOUR SAY! Should Gareth Southgate keep his job as England manager? Comment below.

Gareth Southgate subbed off Harry Kane in the second-half of England’s defeat to Spain (
Image:
INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images)
His reliance on Kane to be the conduit between him and so many players was considerable. While we heard a lot from Kane, we heard very little from Bellingham, although some Spanish journalists grabbed a couple of minutes with him after the final.

Bellingham is a future England captain, for sure. He is a phenomenal talent, for sure. He has a maturity for a 21-year-old that is hugely impressive. I am a major fan and with the likes of Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Kobbie Mainoo, Bellingham represents a hugely promising England future.

But he should not be a special case, no matter how many dramatic overhead kicks he produces. Looking in on the England camp these past five weeks, it was hard not to sense Bellingham is considered a special case.

No player is a special case – and whether, going forward, it is Southgate or someone else, the England manager must always remember that.