Roy Hodgson claimed he always believed England would recover from their toils at the World Cup to progress unbeaten to next summer’s European Championship as his side completed a perfect qualifying record on a night marred by crowd trouble in Lithuania.
Fighting broke out before the national anthems when locals took exception to the large number of England fans who had bought tickets in Vilnius for the designated home end. The area allocated for the away fans, totalling around 850 members of the England Travel Club, had been in a section alongside the side of the pitch. The home football association is responsible for determining to whom they sell tickets for the home sections.
Riot police intervened, forming a cordon between supporters and penning the Lithuanian fans into the corner of the end behind Jack Butland’s goal, only for trouble to flare again when Ross Barkley opened the scoring. Police sprayed the home fans with water to force them back.
The tension eased, with England were far from flustered on the pitch as they ran out comfortable winners to claim their 10th victory of Group E. They are the sixth team to achieve 100% success in a European Championship qualifying campaign and, while they have not confronted particularly daunting opponents, Hodgson welcomed the recovery from the ignominy of Brazil.
“I did believe the team could go unbeaten,” he said. “I’m not trying to change perception of the World Cup, because we didn’t get out of the group, lost the first two games and that finished us off. It’s still very hard to put into words the disappointment you feel after working hard and preparing for a finals as we did and then to go out after two games. I still can’t describe my feelings.
“But I felt it could be an experience which serves us in the future because we never want it to happen again. Targeting going unbeaten was a big goal to set – perhaps too big, in some respects – but something in me said we had good players here, and we’re not dependent upon just 11. If we played well, with focus, and continued to try to get better, I was confident we could go through the campaign unbeaten but qualification was the main thing. I would have been happy with six wins and four draws.”
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. The manager hopes to learn more about his side’s development since the World Cup in next month’s friendlies against Spain and France.
“We will use those games to learn where we are,” he said. “If we concentrate and play properly we can do well. It would have been a surprise if we had not qualified. But the friendlies are against better, stronger opposition sides. We’ll see how we deal with that.”
