Ex-Blyth Spartans youth Dan Burn 'gutted' after World Cup heartbreak

Ex-Blyth Spartans youth Dan Burn has admitted that he is “gutted” following England’s late defeat to Argentina in Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final.

The Three Lions took the lead courtesy of an Anthony Gordon strike but sat increasingly deep as the contest wore on, and ultimately came unstuck as goals from Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez sealed a 2-1 win for the defending champions.

For his part, Burn - who has cultivated something of a cult hero status over the course of the tournament - was introduced as an 82nd minute substitute by head coach Thomas Tuchel, and speaking after the final whistle, he emphasised just how disappointed he was with the result.

He said: “I think when you come within sort of 10-15 minutes of a World Cup final and then don’t get it done, it hurts. Obviously, I’m very gutted right now, but I’m so proud of what the team has done. We don’t even think anyone gave us a chance coming into this. The brotherhood that we spoke about just took us a long way, and if I’m being honest, I thought we’d do it. I just had that feeling that this was our time, but I think Argentina showed why they’re world champions and they’ve been there and they’ve done it.

“I thought that we nailed the game plan up until we scored. I thought we did really well. We knew what Argentina were going to do, and I thought we dealt with it pretty well. And then we got a little bit passive after the goal. Defended probably a little bit too deep and the quality of chances that Argentina were creating, I thought it felt like it was a matter of time. I think we conceded too many crosses and too many chances, and I think it’s hard because in the previous games we’ve defended those so well. So, I don’t think that we can take massive criticism for going into that.”

The Newcastle United defender continued: “I think when we’re in 4-4-2 defending, we were conceding a lot of chances. So something had to change, and as I said, we’ve been pretty solid when we were a back five in the previous few games. I think the manager may want to have done something in hindsight, but also from the players, we’ve taken responsibility to get through. We’ve been 10-15 minutes away from the World Cup final, we really probably should see it out.”