Pick your England XI for Croatia semi-final

There's no boredom at all. The two teams last faced each other in World Cup qualifying in 2009, and both matches in that group went decisively to England - but that was almost a decade ago.

Southgate may have been tempted to drop either Dele Alli or Jesse Lingard in place of more defensively-minded Dier as England look to cope with Croatia's brilliant midfield pair of Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic.

England haven't been this far at a World Cup for 28 years.

'We never want to be reactive, we want to be proactive and I think that is the most important thing, ' Dier said. So we'll just have to assess people as we go. "Why would we change given how far we have come playing as we have?"

He and fellow Sunderland alumni Jordan Pickford-now at Everton-have both been crucial figures for England in their run to the semi-final meeting with Croatia at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

'Our style is to play on the front foot that is what the manager wants from us and that is what the players believe in as well.

The Tottenham midfielder said: "They like a lot of what I call "karaoke tunes" really, ones you can sing along to, old school 80s, 90s". "I don't know if they're embarrassed about their music or the speakers are bad but it's quite hard to hear it at the back of the bus".

There was more good news for England with midfielder Jordan Henderson being declared fit to face Croatia after coming off with a tight hamstring towards the end of the quarter-final win over Sweden.