England need tougher games – here’s how I would fix international football

This was the bar, Thomas Tuchel declared. This camp was the benchmark.

After a series of underwhelming World Cup qualifying wins, and a wake-up call defeat to Senegal in a friendly, this performance, demolishing Serbia away, especially after the long walk down that tunnel everyone kept saying was so petrifying, but appeared just to be a tunnel with graffiti on it, was what Tuchel’s England was all about.

Except, let’s try not to get too carried away, shall we?

While undoubtedly the toughest country in England’s World Cup qualifying group, Serbia are 32nd in the Fifa world rankings, two places below Panama.

It sounds, when you first hear it, like an astonishing feat that England have not only not conceded a goal, but only permitted one shot on target in five games.

But is it a marvel