Jude Bellingham shone in midfield, Bukayo Saka rewarded the manager's faith in him after his penalty nightmare at Euro 2020 and substitutes Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish got on the scoresheet.

Southgate could even walk away with some ammunition to use in urging his team not to be complacent after they conceded twice against 20th-ranked Iran.

England, World Cup semifinalist in 2018 and European Championship runner-up last year, came to Qatar on the back of a six-game winless run but quickly found its feet at the Khalifa International Stadium, totally dominating the match.

"A real positive start," said midfielder Rice. "I think there were probably a lot of doubts over us before the start of the tournament and a lot of talk about us not winning in our last six games.

"By our standards and the players we've got, we know it hasn't been good enough. But it's a World Cup stage, you can see there was a fire in our stomachs tonight to go out there and prove a lot of people wrong.

"We can say it's 'only Iran' but they've had some good results [...] in September they beat Uruguay, drew with Senegal, so they're a tough side."

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