Gareth Southgate has insisted his entire squad understood and accepted his decision to make eight changes in the defeat to Belgium, with the England manager confident his first-choice side will have benefited from the rest when it comes to the knockout tie with Colombia.

The team will enjoy a day off on Friday having flown back to St Petersburg overnight, with those who did not feature in Kaliningrad – including the captain and tournament leading scorer, Harry Kane – ready on Saturday to begin their preparations for the last 16 game. Southgate will have a fully fit squad from which to choose, including Dele Alli who has recovered from a thigh strain, and is likely to revert to the lineup that confronted Tunisia in their first game at the finals.

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“We know our squad inside out, where they are, the different strengths they have and problems they pose the opposition,” said Southgate.

“We know the areas we need to improve. We’re very clear about where we are as a team, and we’ll continue to work to get better. I know this meant the game against Belgium was a little bit flat, but every player in that dressing room knows why we’ve done what we’ve done.

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“We are through to the next phase. We had to do what we believed was the right thing. OK, we didn’t win the game, but there was a myriad of other things involved in the decision. In terms of the changes in the team, they had a game four days ago in extreme heat [in Nizhny Novgorod]. We could have played them again on Thursday but, earlier in the day, you already saw Colombia lose a key player [James Rodríguez], Japan lose a key player and, had Senegal gone through, they would have lost a key player too.

“Those were risks we didn’t need to take. I understand why people question those decisions, but we have to prepare the team in the way we feel right. Now, rather than having players not on the training ground because they’re recovering, we’ll have a gym session on Friday and players ready to start training for Colombia the next day.”

England’s players admitted their disappointment at a first loss in over a year – if also a familiar failing against higher ranked opposition in a tournament – and are braced for a tough challenge at Spartak stadium on Tuesday.

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“Colombia will be very tough,” said Trent Alexander-Arnold, who impressed on his competitive debut. “If you look back to the last World Cup they did unbelievably well and they’ve shown in this tournament they can bounce back from a defeat and win games. It’s not going to be easy at all.

“We weren’t focused on who we might play in the next stage before the game. We’re England and we want to win every game possible, and now everyone’s disappointed we didn’t.

“You don’t want to go back into the changing room and see smiles because of a potentially easier route forward; you want to win every game. You are going to come up against the best teams in the world and every team who has got to the round of 16 deserves to. There are no easy games that we can see ahead of us and we’re fully focused on Colombia.”