Perfect 10 for England as more nations make it to Euro 2016

England broke up the field to double their lead a minute later as Kane exchanged passes with Adam Lallana down the left of the area before hitting a left-foot strike which came back off the post before rebounding into the net off Arlauskis.

“I’m optimistic these players will recover fully from injury and will have a period of time between their recovery and France, and I will be able to consider them“, he said. When the media decide to write about England’s qualifying campaign, and they decide to write about performances over results that shows nuance and subtlety.

Although it was a smooth night on the pitch, the English FA will be concerned by a brief outbreak of crowd trouble before kick-off as England supporters at one end of the stadium traded punches with their Lithuania rivals. As many as 14 first team regulars are unavailable for the match and, anyhow, there is pressure on England not to precipitate any more club versus country rows by forcing big stars to play unless it is absolutely necessary. Instead he was able to rebuild in a relatively comfortable group.

It should also be placed in the context of the problems faced by other so-called bigger nations.

“The World Cup is three matches”.

If they can add that, who knows where they’ll go.

Jamie Carragher, notes the Telegraph, has “expressed their concern over how easy it now appeared to be to earn a senior cap because of the shallow pool of talent available”.

Hodgson insists he will learn a lot from those friendlies and is excited to pit his side against more established opponents.

Will his pride extend to putting the wonderfully gifted 21-year-old in England’s starting line-up at Euro 2016?

Hodgson, whose opposite number Igoris Pankratjevas resigned after the match, praised the scoring contribution and continued development of Barkley in a radically altered team to the side who beat Estonia on Friday.

England made it a flawless 10 with a beating in the Baltic, but their record-breaking achievement was marred by fighting between the visiting fans and their Lithuanian counterparts.

Given the lack of strong opposition England encountered in Group E, Hodgson has wisely lined up testing friendlies against Spain, France and Germany as he fine-tunes his squad for the Euros.

He may, however, face a further “obsession” with Barkley if he continues to put in performances that will increase the clamour for him to be a first choice at Euro 2016.

After a few impressive play down the right, Kane rolled the ball to Barkley, who got the ball out from under his feet before cracking a shot into the goal off the upright.

Kane was deputized by debutant Danny Ings after playing for an hour.