Jarrod Bowen was left shocked by Gary Lineker’s fierce criticism of England after a 1-1 draw with Denmark as the West Ham star hits back at BBC pundit after branding the performance ” ***”.

• Jarrod Bowen stunned by Gary Lineker’s scathing rebuke of England
• He insists the England star has “a lot of confidence” ahead of the Slovenia clash.
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Jarrod Bowen has expressed his shock at Gary Lineker’s crude assessment of England, reminding the doom merchants that they are unbeaten at the top of Group C.

The Match of the Day host branded the performance in the 1-1 draw against Denmark “s***” when he spoke on his own podcast this week.

Lineker and his BBC colleague Alan Shearer are among a host of former internationals who are targeting players and manager Gareth Southgate.

But Bowen, reacting to Lineker’s profanity, said: “I didn’t know it was as strong as that.” I thought his podcast could be a little more PG. But they have every right to talk about the games. They played for their country and they played at a high level.

Bowen, however, responded to the criticism by stating: “I think the sign of a really good team is when you don’t play as well as you think you do, but you make sure you don’t lose the game.”

“We are sitting here with four points. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of uproar, like we’re sitting here with two losses and at the bottom of the standings. But the reality is that we are at the top of the table with a lot of confidence going into the final group game, where we know we have to win. We are looking forward to this challenge on Tuesday evening.

The West Ham man also encouraged his teammates to stay away from such comments on social media and in the press.

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“Of course you see it, but there’s only so much you want to read before you end up responding or saying something you don’t mean,” he added.

“So you control what you want to see because it can affect your mood and give it a negative spin, when you’re sitting here after two games, undefeated and in a very good position. We know what we have and what we can do in the future. We know we can be better.

England will top the group if they beat Slovenia in Cologne, and Southgate is expected to stick to the same system he has used so far rather than altering a three-man backline. The team has not worked on any alternative training so far.

However, Bowen revealed that many discussions took place at the team hotel about how to improve performance.

“It’s always important to have these conversations, especially when you don’t win a game,” said the winger, who played on the bench in both matches.

“You always think, ‘What could we have done differently?’ What have we done well? What have we not done so well? What didn’t go well?” always discussions about it, because we always want to improve and be better.