What should we expect from England at the 2022 World Cup?

It’s fair to say that England’s start to their Nations League campaign hasn’t been all that convincing. A disappointing 1-0 defeat to Hungary in Budapest saw England put in one of their worst performances under Gareth Southgate, before they required a controversial late Harry Kane penalty to avoid defeat against Germany and secure a 1-1 draw.

Given how there will be no warm-up matches directly before the World Cup later this year, the Nations League campaign is Southgate’s only opportunity to tinker with his squad ahead of the tournament in Qatar. In a normal World Cup year, we’d be gearing up for the finals to get underway right about now, but the fact that the tournament is taking place in winter makes for an interesting challenge for international coaches.

But what should our expectations be of England when the World Cup does finally roll around? England are in a strange position where they enter a major tournament on the back of significant success in their previous two. Their run to the World Cup semi-finals in 2018 captured the hearts of the nation during that gloriously hot summer, before they came so close to glory at the delayed Euro 2020, reaching the final before agonisingly losing to Italy on penalties.

Now, they’ll enter the World Cup as one of the favourites in the online betting market, simply for the fact that this squad has the experience of going deep in a major tournament. England’s joys and heartbreaks over the last four years have taken their emotional toll, but have also made them a strong, united team, who will now be confident of going to Qatar and challenging for the trophy. That wasn’t the case in previous iterations of this team, but through England’s successes and near misses, a hard-nosed winning mentality has been instilled.

Is it fair to expect England to win the World Cup? Perhaps not, but Southgate and his players must get used to the fact that expectations will be higher in Qatar than ever before at a major finals. Russia 2018 was viewed as something of a bonus — a misfit team riding the crest of a wave with the strength of support back home more fervent than ever. No one expected them to reach the semi-finals before the tournament began.

Euro 2020 was a slightly different case, with England going into the tournament as one of the favourites in the free tips, but it was a young team with limited experience, and that perhaps told in the final against the might of Roberto Mancini’s Italy. Now, they can legitimately enter a World Cup as one of the best teams on the planet, and that brings an expectation that they should go for once more.

But as Qatar draws ever nearer, there is an uncomfortable feeling that England have missed their two best chances to win major international tournaments. In both the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2020, the draw opened up kindly for England. They enjoyed a relatively straight-forward passage in the knockout stages of both events, and yet they still couldn’t get their hands on the trophy on either occasion.

There are also the question marks that remain over Southgate, with the England coach splitting opinion among fans. Yes, he has shored England up defensively during his reign, but there will always be a sense that he is a coach with limitations. The fact that he started all three of Kalvin Phillips, Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham against Germany shows that he will always favour defensive stability over attacking verve. Will that be enough to land England the World Cup? Time alone will tell.