Captain Harry Kane has admitted England “have another level we can reach” as they bid to win the World Cup for the first time since 1966.
The Three Lions needed extra-time before beating Norway 2-1 on Saturday, with a semi-final on Wednesday in Atlanta against Argentina (20:00 BST) to come.
After the quarter-final, boss Thomas Tuchel said he was unhappy with England’s performance, saying the team “got lucky”, were “sloppy”, made “a lot of technical mistakes” and were “not fast enough, not repetitive enough”.
Kane, 32, has scored six goals in this tournament and is England’s joint top goalscorer, along with Jude Bellingham.
The skipper felt Tuchel’s frustrations were because the side did not replicate what they were doing in training.
“When he sees us train and sees the closeness of us and sees what we can do, especially with the players we have, the way we attack, our one-on-ones and the skills, he just wants to see that version of us,” added Kane.
“He knows as much as anyone that it’s not as simple as that, we’re playing against good opposition and good teams.
“He’s trying to drag it out of us and we know ourselves we have another level we can reach.
“We haven’t seen that yet, we’ve shown it in glimpses. Against Norway it was in glimpses. But we haven’t had full control that we would like and I feel we can have.
“We’ll be playing against one of the best teams in the world in the semi-final, so the most pleasing thing is we are in a semi-final and still feel we can improve.
“But I don’t think it is something to get really over the top about. We are showing a lot of good things.”
