Jesse Lingard strike sinks Netherlands in World Cup warm-up to lift English spirits

Netherlands 0 England 1: The visitors ran out deserved winners against Ronald Koeman's side, showing signs of progress and promise in Amsterdam

Jesse Lingard's strike proved to be the difference on the night (Getty)

That wasn’t so bad at all, really. It wasn’t outstanding, by any stretch of the imagination. But at least it wasn’t entirely detestable. It wasn’t morally repugnant. It didn’t make you want to throw your television or hand-held device out of the nearest window, renounce your shiny new blue passport and hanker for Fabio Capello.

Jesse Lingard’s cool low finish from 20 yards just before the hour mark gave England their first friendly win under Gareth Southgate, their first win over the Netherlands since Euro 96, their first in the Netherlands since 1969. And while their tempo and their level dropped markedly in a drab last 20 minutes, the hard work had already been done by then. For much of the game, in fact, England performed a very passable impression indeed of an elite international football team.

I know - steady on! But honestly, they were. Brave and busy, collected and committed, pressing hard, counter-attacking with verve, ambitious in possession and lacking just a final ball: the sort of slickness and cohesion that really only comes with time and drilling. For obvious reasons, Southgate and Steve Holland have enjoyed very little of either. It always feels vaguely puzzling when people expect England to play with the fluency of a club side when they so evidently aren’t.

Of course, there was one team out there playing like England. But it wasn’t England. And so we might want to caveat our blandishments with the fact that this was a desperately poor Netherlands side, so painfully lacking in confidence or invention that their absence from Russia this summer suddenly made perfect sense. They came to life only in the last half-hour as they chased an equaliser, and if Ronald Koeman didn’t know it already, his first game in charge will have shown him the scale of the remedial work that will be required to restore the three-time World Cup finalists to their perch.

Even so, England will come up against plenty of worse teams than the Netherlands at the World Cup, and while you could single out individual imperfections, you would struggle to censure individual performances. Lingard was a buzzing bee, always recycling, always shifting, always just a few yards away from where you expect him to be. Alongside him, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s midfield barrelling offers an extra option against tight defences. Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford had little to work with up front, but did well enough with what they had.

In defence, Southgate was partially rewarded for his eclectic decision to select three right-backs, albeit with Kyle Walker and Joe Gomez slotting into the centre, either side of John Stones. As it happened, Gomez lasted less than 10 minutes, falling awkwardly on his ankle after being smashed in the air by the mountainous Bas Dost, and replaced by Leicester’s Harry Maguire. But overall, Southgate’s decision to prioritise mobility over bulk in that area of the pitch - a calculated gamble against the heft of Dost - worked well.

Raheem Sterling was one of the few England players to pose a threat (Getty)

For much of the game, though, England’s dominance went unmatched by chances. Jordan Henderson glanced a header just wide. Goalkeeper Jeroen Zoet was forced into a frantic clearance to deny Sterling, in the clear after a Lingard pass. Just before half-time, his opposite number Jordan Pickford raced out of his goal, this time with far less successful consequences. It was a whipped corner from the right, and by the time Pickford realised he was going to get nowhere near it, the ball was on the head of Dost, whence it looped over the bar.

It was a reminder of England’s basic fragility, and yet as Southgate resisted the urge to tinker at the start of the second half, the pressure had to tell in the end. Danny Rose, an impressive performer on the left, squared into the area, only for the cross to be half-cleared. And now Lingard, who had started the move, advanced on the ball with extreme malice, burying it in the bottom corner.

Memphis Depay takes on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Getty)

Now the changes came: Danny Welbeck, Jamie Vardy, Dele Alli, Ashley Young. England never looked quite the same fighting force after that, even though Kieran Trippier had a fierce shot beaten away by Zoet. Indeed, Holland occasionally threatened with crosses, Dost being replaced with the even taller Wout Weghorst late in the game. But the light flutter of whistles at full-time was understandable. This was really poor from them.

And so, for Southgate’s men: three games to go until Russia. They’re not the finished article. They won’t be the finished article. Pickford didn’t quite nail down the No 1 spot, even if he grew in confidence as the game went on. They’re still a little too error-prone, a little too wasteful in the final third, a long way short of Brazil or Spain, Germany or France. But we knew that already. And they just won in the Netherlands for the first time in almost 50 years. It may not be much. But it’s not nothing.