Gareth Southgate: 'England focused on improving'

England manager Gareth Southgate has insisted that his side will continue working towards their ultimate aim of becoming the best team in the world.

The Three Lions were held to a 2-2 draw by Scotland at Hampden Park on Saturday, with Harry Kane rescuing a point from the World Cup qualifier after two late Leigh Griffiths strikes had turned the game on its head.

England's failure to see the match out once again raised questions over their big-game mentality, but Southgate is hoping to have solved the problem before next summer's World Cup in Russia.

"That is the challenge for us. The challenge is how do we become the best team in the world? We have to improve in all areas to do that. We can only take steps at a time and work as a team to improve every area - whether that's technical, tactical, psychological. But we are identifying those areas and we'll keep working on it," he told reporters.

"You have short-term objectives in winning individual games but in the background a lot of the work we're doing is to start to prepare us for the finals. Now you can't take your eye off the immediate goal of being able to get there, but we also can't wait for qualifying and wait until next March before we start working towards things. We intend to focus on a lot of area we feel we can improve on.

"I think [Kane's goal] was an important moment for the team, important moment individually for Harry. I have a feeling we might have been sitting here talking about how long it was since he last scored for England if he hadn't scored it. Brilliant for him that in a pressure moment he executed a skill that I think he made look a lot easier than actually it was. I think it is a significant goal but for many different reasons."

England are now just two points clear of Slovakia at the top of Group F.