England suffer Nations League relegation as Giacomo Raspadori fires Italy to victory in Milan

Gareth Southgate's side subsided to a 1-0 loss in Milan that could have been far worse

It is hard to believe that it is little more than a year since England found themselves within touching distance of a glorious prize. Kings of Europe, they might have been. Now Italy have dispatched them from the royal court, bound for a spell in the wilderness with the likes of Albania, Kazakhstan and Georgia.

Plagued with the threat of a first relegation in 150 years in English international football, Gareth Southgate dug into the playbook of his predecessors. Sam Allardyce and Roy Hodgson earned the England job in the first place because they could do what the Three Lions set out to do on this night: Keep it disciplined at the back, hit it long to the front men and try to win a set piece.

It never really looked like paying off, not unless Jude Bellingham could produce something miraculous. Three matches without scoring, an open play goal drought that now runs to seven and a half hours, the five-game run without defeat the worst for this country since 2014. Even in defeat at Wembley in Euro 2020, it seemed unimaginable that Southgate -- the most successful England manager of a generation -- might have lost the faith of his supporters. This summer's 4-0 defeat against Hungary at the Molineux ended with cries of mutiny, and it is fair to question whether there will be more against Germany on Monday.