The big news: Gareth Southgate starts of with win

England registered their first win under interim manager Gareth Southgate against Malta in their 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign at Wembley on Saturday.

Southgate, who will be in charge for four games only, saw his team beat Malta 2-0 in what was considered to be a solid team performance. Liverpool’s Daniel Sturridge headed the ball towards goals from Jordan Henderson's cross in the 29th minute of the game with Dele Alli netting the second for the night against a side ranked 176th in the Fifa rankings.

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Malta's goalkeeper Andrew Hogg made some fine saves as Alli, Wayne Rooney, Theo Walcott and Jesse Lingard looked to increase England’s lead in the one-sided contest.

Other top stories

  1. World champions Germany beat Czech Republic 3-0 in their qualifying campaign for the 2018 World Cup. Thomas Muller scored twice, and Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos was also on the score sheet, as the Germans secured an easy win to top the group.
  2. Northern Ireland beat San Marino 4-0 in their World Cup qualifying campaign at Windsor Park. Kyle Lafferty scored a brace, while Steven Davis and Jamie Ward netting one goal apiece against the 10-man San Marino side.
  3. Robert Lewandowski scored an amazing hat-trick as Poland beat Denmark 3-2 in Warsaw. After going 3-0 down, Denmark pulled one back owing to an own goal by Kamil Glik, before Yussuf Poulsen netted the second to make it a one-goal deficit. However, Poland strengthened their defence and made sure no mistakes were made in the final 20 minutes of the game.
  4. In other World Cup qualifying games, Montenegro thrashed Kazakhstan 5-0. Romania also beat Armenia by the same scoreline, after the hosts were reduced to 10 men with Gor Malakyan being red carded in the third minute of the game. But the shocker of the night was Azerbaijan beating Norway 1-0. Slovenia beat Slovakia 1-0 and will face England next on Tuesday.
  5. FC Goa lost 1-2 to FC Pune City in their Indian Super League encounter at the Fatorda stadium on Saturday. Pune drew first blood with Arata Izumi netting the first goal of the match, but Goa’s Rafael Coelho netted the equaliser soon after. However, in the 90th minute of the game, Momar N’Doye’s scored the winner for Pune.
  6. Former Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini was in attendance at Wembley to watch England beat Malta 2-0 on Saturday. Mancini has been linked with taking over the Three Lions as interim manager Gareth Southgate registered the team's first win under him. The Italian was reportedly invited by the Football Association to watch the game with talks doing the round that he will be England’s next manager.
  7. Former Manchester United player Ryan Giggs has confirmed he was in talks with Swansea City with regard to the manager's role, before Bob Bradley replaced Francesco Guidolin. Giggs had met with the Swansea management, but said the club's ambition did not match his. "I got a call off Swansea and I met them a couple of times. But in the end it was just mixed messages really from the football side and the ownership side of the club and I felt their ambitions didn't really match mine so it didn't quite work out," he told ITV Sport.