England’s winger Bukayo Saka said he would have loved to have played more in the World Cup. Saka scored a stunning hat-trick against France in the third-place playoff game at the Miami Stadium, on Saturday. 

The Arsenal’s player started only two of seven matches before the third-place playoff and didn’t come off the bench when England suffered a 2-1 semifinal loss against Argentina.

“Of course, I would love to have played more,” Saka told the BBC after stealing the show against France.

“But it’s too late to talk about that. I try to do my talking on the pitch and it’s done now, move on.”

Saka made it clear: “I’m fit, I’m fit.”

Thomas Tuchel said after England beat France: “Bukayo is a key player for me. He was ready to go at the World Cup. I felt the responsibility, as a coach, and with his history of where he came from, to take it slow. But he started some matches. It was a tough decision for me to leave him out of the semifinal. I had a feeling after the Norway match that Morgan Rogers had something special to give to us with his physicality in the match against Argentina.

“We had [Saka] warm up several times against Argentina. We were ready to change. But the game became so crazy that we opted for a different option.

“Nothing has changed in this World Cup for me. Bukayo is a fantastic teammate, a fantastic player, key player, fast. That will not change.”

Saka said about criticism of Tuchel: “I think that’s just part of the game.

“It’s how you react to it, how you use it as fuel and today we finished strong and that’s all we could really do and we did that.”

England ended the tournament in third place, which is their best finish since 1966, when they won their solitary World Cup title.

“As a collective, this is what we discussed; we deserve to finish strong for the tournament that we’ve had,” Saka said.

“We deserve to finish in the highest position that England have had for 60 years.

“This group deserves nothing less, that was the mentality. You saw that in the first half.