Gareth Southgate believes England are best when they 'have an edge'

Gareth Southgate believes his England side play their best football when they 'have an edge', though insisted they were not out to silence their critics in their 5-0 win over Albania.

The Three Lions scored all five goals in the first half in a scintillating display which was far different to the one they put in during a 1-1 draw with Hungary last month.

Southgate told ITV of his delight at how England responded to that setback, though was disappointed they didn't add to the score in the second half.

"The first half was fantastic, as well as we've played for a long time. It's always difficult to maintain that when you're so far ahead, there was so much adrenaline before half time," he said.

"We were still professional in the second half but unfortunately couldn't give the crowd more goals."

Harry Maguire opened the scoring and put his fingers to his ears in an apparent silencing of recent critics, but Southgate insisted his squad don't think with that mentality and instead are looking to play with 'an edge'.

"No I don't think it's that so much. I think we're at our best when we have an edge. We didn't produce what we should against Hungary and we wanted to put that right," he added.

Reports on Friday suggested Southgate was close to finalising a new two-year contract with England, but he was quick to shut down talk over a new deal.

"It would be wrong for my attention to be anywhere else. My job is to get this team to a World Cup and then we can look at everything else after that," Southgate said.

"It's an irrelevance for me. I'm under contract, not out of contract. I'm very well backed and supported - I've said that all along. My focus is getting qualification done and everything else can wait."