Lingard punishes dreadful Dutch

JESSE LINGARD claimed his first international goal last night as England eventually got their act together.

The Three Lions dominated against an extremely average Dutch team.

But until the Manchester United star struck in the 59th minute, Gareth Southgate’s side struggled to capitalise on all their possession and Holland’s shocking lack of confidence.

Having failed to quality for the World Cup – they also missed out on Euro 2016 – Ronald Koeman’s team looked an appallingly poor imitation of previous sides who had brought such pride to the orange shirt.

Before Lingard struck, England were just doing a passing imitation of a good side.

Possession was plentiful against a country once renowned for a brilliant ability to hold onto the ball.

But frustratingly when it came to the crunch, Southgate’s men were found wanting as they began the build-up to their opening World Cup game, against Nigeria in 86 days.

When the good passes did come, they were in non-dangerous areas.

And when opportunities arose to create a chance, the final ball was missing.

The Dutch game has sunk even lower than England’s, with the orange shirts not going to Russia.

So this, in theory, was an opportunity for England to gain some momentum prior to their trip east. Southgate sprung a surprise in Amsterdam with his selection, playing Kyle Walker as one of his three centrebacks and leaving out Eric Dier and Dele Alli, both certain starters at the World Cup.

It was almost certainly with one eye on the friendly against Italy at Wembley on Tuesday.

There were two excellent crossfield balls from skipper Jordan Henderson to Danny Rose in the first four minutes.

Fuss

Then Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had a firm drive on target after a neat exchange with Raheem Sterling.

There was a blow when Joe Gomez had to come off in the ninth minute because of an injury, with Harry Maguire replacing him.

Jordan Pickford’s first test was to get down low to gather a long-range shot from defender Matthijs de Ligt, which he did with little fuss.

Henderson sent a skimming header, from a Kieran Trippier free-kick, just wide of the far post in the 32nd minute.

Holland’s big target man Bas Dost could not leap high enough when he was left unmarked to get a proper headed contact from a Memphis Depay corner seven minutes later.

Depay ought to have done better just before the break after Maguire gifted possession to Quincy Promes.

Promes picked out the former Manchester United player in a huge amount of space, but he could only manage a tame shot at Pickford.

England’s failure to find that killer ball was illustrated again in the 50th minute.

Sterling picked out Rose perfectly on the overlaps but his clipped ball into the box was behind Rashford, who had found a decent position to have a chance of scoring.

There were groans galore from the travelling supporters.

Next it was boos, when Dutch goalkeeper Jeroen Zoet and defender De Ligt looked to have brought down Rashford as he darted into the box but referee Jesus Gil Manzano refused a penalty.

But at last England did make something count.

Oxlade-Chamberlain drove at the Dutch defence and found Lingard, who again picked out a Rose overlap.

Although the Tottenham player found an orange shirt, it struck Stefan de Vrij’s heel and fell to Lingard, who drove a right-foot shot from the edge of the area, which Zoet, diving to his right, could only push into the corner.