*smug face

It’s not often I get to say this, but I was right. Yesterday I opined that England fans should not get carried away with thoughts of 1966 and all that after just two games of the 2018 World Cup, even if they were two wins out of two.

And thus it was proven in last night’s Group G tie between, effectively, the England and Belgium B-teams. It would be unfair to say Gareth Southgate’s players didn’t want to win it, but the eight changes he made removed much of the creativity that had made England's first two games such reasons for optimism. Not that we should now be instantly pessimistic, as some commentators appear to have lapsed back into, but there is no use ignoring that last night's somewhat dead rubber halted the momentum.

But, again, we're talking relatives. Belgium rested their best players, too, and clearly their indifference towards adding to the yellow card tally suggested that Roberto Martinez was also angling for a result that would see them take the path less troubling in the Round of 16. In a sense, Adnan Januzaj's stunning strike for Belgium was a setback, and Martinez's muted response said as much. What a strange game. And what a poor one, too. Arguably its most entertaining moment was Michy Batshuayi's celebration of the Belgium goal, in which he whacked the ball at an England goalpost only for it to comically rebound into his face. Typically, as football's funniest representative on Twitter, Batshuayi was wonderfully self-effacing online amid a torrent of trollery.

As for England, I'm still not fully decided as to whether Southgate's squad rotation was a good thing or a bad thing. On the plus side, his understudies gained valuable pitch time, and he saved any needless injuries or suspensions by resting his stars. On the downside, Southgate exposed the lack of real creative depth in his squad: most toiled without any noticeable impact up front; Rashford was only fitfully effective and Vardy largely redundant; even the impressive Loftus-Cheek faded from influence as the game wore on; 19-year-old Trent Alexander-Arnold showed remarkable maturity, but too much was placed on him to take set-pieces, where his delivery was poor.

At the end of the day, there were no real dramas, and it's hard to imagine that the 1-0 defeat will impact the high spirits in the England camp. And, yes, there is that group runners-up prize of, potentially, a more favourable route to the latter stages of the tournament. But even if coming second in Group G means that England have an extra day to prepare for their knockout game on Tuesday, they'll be playing a lively Colombia. Their form alone will pose a big question as to whether the England and Belgium managers' gamble was worth it. Progress past Japan on Monday will mean Belgium could, potentially, meet Brazil in the quarter-finals. A penny for your thoughts, Roberto?

Inevitably, sections of the press have laid into Southgate, such is the fickle nature of the British media. But then their argument is usually that they have to reflect their readership. The 'momentum' of success with England's first two games meant that pubs were full, the sun was shining and there was a feelgood factor in the air. People even forgot about world issues like Brexit and Trump for a few days. Good times. Again, though, perspective.

England's record at this World Cup has been played three, won two, lost one (in a game that arguably didn't matter). The team's chief scorer is still, currently, Golden Boot candidate. He'll want to maintain that status on Tuesday against Colombia, and those who were benched last night will, rather than being frustrated by England's apparent arrested development, will be champing at the bit to resume where they left off against Panama.

The intelligent, likeable Southgate has talked about long-term progress - not an ambitious tilt at the title - but the transformation of England from a bunch of overpaid egos into a world footballing side to be respected. That will take time, but you can't help feeling that, even if England go out to Colombia on Tuesday, progress will have been made. That might sound a little defeatist - of course I'd love England to go all the way - but their nadir, that awful game in Marseille against Iceland, isn't so distant in the mind that we can't extract a sense of where Southgate is having to come from. Like I said yesterday, no one should get carried away, and that means that what happened last night, and what will happen on Tuesday night and beyond, needs to be put into a broader context. That, in England terms, is a luxury, and one that Southgate should revel in.