Gareth Southgate wants to see an improvement from England as he reflects on a difficult year for the national side.

While the Three Lions have qualified for Euro 2020 and managed to get to the semi finals of the 2018 World Cup, 2019 was an up and down year for Southgate's men.

They finished third in the UEFA Nations League finals, after losing to the Netherlands in the semi final.

"The quality of the game [against the Netherlands] was an important challenge for us, but also to go to Portugal and play with 20,000 England fans in the stadium and some pressure on the game, because we had the chance to win something," Southgate told thefa.com.

"For our young players in particular – for quite a few of them – that's the biggest game they've ever played in.

"Those experiences are crucial for the development of the team.

"It wasn't what we wanted, there were elements of the performance that were good and we were a VAR decision of half a foot, which has now become quite commonplace, but that was one of the first we'd experienced.

"These are the fine margins in those big games, but as an experience the whole competition was a really good one for us."