Gareth Southgate is England's understated and undervalued hero as Three Lions head to 2022 World Cup quarter-finals

Sunday night saw the 2022 golden boot winner, Harry Kane, get up and running again and Jude Bellingham continue to muscle his way into football’s VIP enclosure.

But England’s best performer is an understated bearded bloke in the dugout.

Gareth Southgate will need plenty of on-field help for England to beat France in the quarter-finals but with him at the wheel, there is a chance.

When you wait four-and-a-half years for a World Cup, you hope the stars turn up. A few were absent on the edge of the Qatari desert.

Senegal were without the injured Saido Mane and suspended Idrissa Gana Gueye; England's most-capped current player, Raheem Sterling, was absent for family reasons. ITV had no such excuse, the baffling absence of their best commentators entirely by choice. Sam Matterface was behind the mic.

Almost uniquely, in the traditional pre-match race between the England fans and the band you could not hear how much sooner the former finished the national anthem.

But the beauty of this England squad is it is so incredibly deep. Sterling was not missed, James Maddison, Kieran Trippier and Trent Alexander-Arnold had a night off too.

The problem with so many options is they can clutter the mind. The Lionesses won their European Championship using the same 11 starters throughout.

England, then, are extremely lucky to have Southgate, a man with the ability to see past the fluff and block out the noise, a man so good at his job you wonder how so many fans do not seem to have noticed yet.

He is too boring, some say, which is why England have only scored 12 goals in their first four matches.

Southgate does what Southgate wants. More often than not, it works.

It worked against African champions Senegal to the tune of 3-0.

Neither poor club form (Harry Maguire) nor pre-tournament surgery (Kyle Walker) were going to stop him playing his thee South Yorkshire musketeers. Barnsley's John Stones was between the two Sheffielders as usual.

With Bellingham emerging, when the tournament kicked off you wondered if Jordan Henderson would be reduced to "the Conor Coady Role" of wise touchline cheerleader. Cometh the hour, though, Southgate found space for him and was rewarded with an outstanding performance.

After the frankly ridiculous drama of the final round of group matches, things seemed to have calmed down in the opening days of knockout football, each game going to plan for the favourites.

Half an hour in, England looked like being the exception to the rule.

ITV's top pundit, Roy Keane, was in his usual joyously irascible pre-match form, describing Senegal's band as "annoying". They were as noisy as they were colourful, even the fan in a lion costume holding a tambourine in each paw.

The never-ending noise – the band, not Matterface – seemed to inspire and energise Senegal who pressed like lions (minus the tambourines) from the off. Iliman Ndiaye was in the thick of it, the Sheffield United centre-forward moved from the right wing into the hole.

It made Stones and Maguire’s lives more difficult, although a lack of passing options was an even bigger problem. Both tried to feed the midfield only to hit green roadblocks.

Bamba Dieng, who snubbed Leeds United at the 11th hour of August's transfer window, beat Stones rather too easily in the first five minutes and was lucky Maguire got back to put a toe in.

Out at right-back, Walker had his problems too, lucky referee Ivan Arcides Barton Cisneros ignored Alio Cisse's pleas for a yellow card when he hauled down Watford's Ismaila Sarr after being beaten for pace.

But Senegal were unable to take their chances, Sarr hitting Dieng's deflected shot wide, Jordan Pickford putting out a big left arm when Dieng shot into the turf and over Stones' despairing leg.

Then the new kid on the block grabbed the match.

When Kane dropped deep and sent Bellingham hurtling towards the byline, he pulled the ball back for Henderson to score only his third international goal.

At last, England's fans could be heard above the dancing throng, belting out "God Save the King". You see, Charlie, it was nothing personal.

In first-half added-time Bellingham sprang a two-on-one, Phil Foden passing for Harry Kane to finish it, and Senegal, off.

Ndiaye's World Cup ended in a desperate half-time triple substitution but the die was cast.

Before the hour there was a third.

Foden, who the bandwagon-jumpers want in central midfield, crossed from the left for Bukayo Saka, who would never have been selected above Marcus Rashford had it been by public vote, to score.

If you did not read Twitter or listen to pub bores you might even think England's World Cup semi-finalist, European Championship finalist manager knew what he was talking about.

The final 30 minutes were as reassuringly flat as the first-half ball, helped by Matterface's partner-in-crime Lee Dixon talking about cat emojis.

In Gareth too few of us seem to trust. He delivers regardless.