What Jude Bellingham MUST learn if he is help to solve this chaotic England puzzle, writes IAN LADYMAN

Before this match, the English players and also their manager emphasized how they had shut out the negative noise after their opening win over Serbia.

None of them are blind, though, and when the whistle blew on this mess in Frankfurt, they looked up and saw an end to England rapidly deflating.

On the giant cube screen hanging above the pitch here, the Group B table showed England top with a match to go. But you can’t fool football fans.

Those who waded through the German transport chaos to get here will know exactly what they saw, which was England’s most clumsy, disjointed and chaotic tournament performance since Roy Hodgson’s team fell to Iceland in Nice in 2016.

England did not lose this match and as strange as it may sound, they remain favorites to progress as group winners. Slovenia, their opponents in Cologne next Tuesday, are ranked 57th in the world, just below Iraq and Saudi Arabia. That’s the good news. The bad news is everything else.

Gareth Southgate’s team have been dismal here and it is difficult to fathom how a team full of winners and European stars has now played against fairly modest opponents twice in this tournament and failed to extend either match beyond the first 30 minutes of the match against Serbia.

Not even a lucky goal could help them or establish them here. The truth is that England were already struggling before Harry Kane scored.

Kane once again spent most of the night playing football somewhere between the edge of his own penalty area and the near end of the center circle. It was pitiful to see him toil. However, he remains a symptom of this chaos in England rather than a cause. He must not fall.

England’s back four, meanwhile, resorted to throwing the ball long upfield. The late Graham Taylor would have liked that, but this is not the way this English team should play football.

In the 49th minute John Stones played a field pass straight out of play. About a minute before the end, Kyle Walker did the same. These two are among the most decorated players in the modern English game.

Serial winners with Manchester City and triple winners from about a year ago. Yet here they were, struck by an English brand of recklessness that seems to have spread through this camp like a virus almost as soon as they lost the friendly against Iceland at Wembley a fortnight ago.

We told ourselves that the result didn’t matter. We said it would be fine that evening. But looking back on that defeat now, we see all the problems that threaten to embarrass England once they encounter serious opposition here.

Bellingham was reduced to pauper status by the busy Danish midfield in Frankfurt

The twenty-year-old was not the worst of the English pack against Denmark. Not by a long shot

No control. No self-confidence. No structure. A midfield with more holes than a German timetable. And all this has been aided and even undermined by a selection policy from Southgate that has not so much worked as contributed to his team tumbling towards the abyss as soon as the knockout stages began.

Be sure of one thing. The serious nations at this tournament – ​​teams like France, Germany and Spain – will watch England on TV in their tournament base camps and realize how easy they are to play against, how easily they can be upset when in possession, how desperate their football has suddenly become skittish and excessive.

And what about England’s new savior? What about Jude Bellingham? Imperious for half an hour against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen, Real Madrid’s darling was reduced to pauper status by the hasty Danish midfield.

He wasn’t the worst of the English bunch. Not by a long shot. The pass he delivered to send in Ollie Watkins with twenty minutes to go could have won England the game. The 20-year-old has star quality and he will certainly perform on these stages for England in the years to come.

The statistics show how Bellingham’s influence has waned after a good performance against Serbia

Likewise, Bellingham must understand that his country is of no use to him if he tries to win these games on his own. He wears number 10 on his back and that gives him a license to roam.

But even he has to exist and play within a structure. By solving each puzzle himself, Bellingham only succeeds in creating new ones. Southgate nodded kindly to the issue in his pre-match comments, but it seems Bellingham may need to underline the message.

It also seems that here we witnessed the end of the Trent Alexander-Arnold experiment. It is certainly to be hoped. It has failed twice now and if it continues it will be left in pieces by the first good team England plays, even if that hasn’t happened yet.

Somehow England didn’t lose. But they didn’t have to do that because all their weaknesses were exposed to a watching continent that continues to look skeptically at a football nation they believe is shot through with arrogance.

That is not an accusation that can truthfully be leveled against these players. Southgate has assembled an honest and largely humble group who are currently being undermined by their football and not their attitude.

By solving each puzzle himself, Bellingham only succeeds in creating new ones

Nevertheless, Southgate now has four days to find a cure for the delirium that characterized this effort under the closed roof of Waldstadion.

Calmness should be the first missing element to be found. Once he restores a semblance of calm to his team’s football, Southgate may have a slim chance.

But in reality, dignity and respect seem to be the ceiling of English ambition at the moment. It really is so far away from here. Southgate will oversee his 100th match against England in the quarter-final. At this point the smart money would be on 99 and gone.