Saints’ England duo stand on the verge of an early exit from the World Cup after the Three Lions crashed to a 2-1 defeat to Uruguay last night.

Saints skipper Adam Lallana came on as a second half sub in Sao Paulo, while Luke Shaw was again unused as Luis Suarez’s brace sunk Roy Hodgson’s men.

There was a late World Cup cap for Rickie Lambert, but nothing could prevent England from slipping to a costly defeat.

Having also lost to Italy in the group stages, it leaves England’s fate out of their own hands.

If Italy and Costa Rica draw tonight then England are out.

If not then they must beat Costa Rica in their final game on Tuesday and hope it’s enough.

It looks a long shot and Hodgson’s reaction certainly suggested that was his take on it too.

“We are more than disappointed, we are devastated,” he said.

“We believed we could do enough to get a result in this game and having worked so hard to counter that first goal of Suarez in the first half and get back to 1-1 I fully believed then we would go on then to either win the game or at least draw the game. To concede the second goal as we did is an unbelievable blow.

“I don’t quite know what to say at this moment in time.”

Suarez’s first goal was superb, but the second came from a routine punt downfield from the keeper.

“It’s a goal that we don’t expect to concede of course,” admitted Hodgson.

“Long goal kicks with the type of players we have in the team we deal with them.

“I thought we dealt with the Uruguayan attack well for very long periods in the game but we came up against a strong defensive unit ourselves but we still did enough to get the draw we would have needed but we didn’t get it.”

Speaking of Suarez he added: “He scored the two goals.

“The first goal in particular was exceptionally good I thought. Cavanai’s chip and his pulling away to the back post and the cleverness of his header I thought was really top top class play.

“The second one I think he was a bit fortunate to get himself free but of course when he got himself free he made literally no mistake.

“We know what Suarez can do.”