Riot police moved in when Lithuanian ultras attacked England fans who had bought tickets in the home end and, aside from a few antagonistic goal celebrations, calm was quickly restored, with an uneasy truce enduring for the remainder of the game.
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Lithuania’s Georgas Freidgeimas, right, and England’s Alex Oxlade…
England are looking for their 10th win from 10 Euro 2016 qualifying matches in Vilnius.
The visitors doubled their lead ten minutes before half time, with Kane collecting Adam Lallana’s nice flick before seeing his effort rebound in off the unfortunate Arlauskis after the Spurs striker had rattled the post.
Hodgson will pick his full strength team for the friendlies against Spain and France next month so the England manager views this as an opportunity for the fringe players in the squad to impress.
Although England had nothing to play for having already wrapped up top seeding and qualification as group winners, Hodgson, aware of the generally unflattering perception of his team in the eyes of the sporting public, was delighted to finish an emphatic campaign with a memorable milestone.
England remained patient, though, and deservedly took the lead just before the half-hour mark when in-form Everton playmaker Barkley picked up possession of the ball just outside the Lithuania penalty area.
“It’s a great honour for me personally, but we’ve got a big task ahead of us tomorrow”, he said. I thought I played well.
England will qualify with a flawless record of 10 wins from 10 matches if they defeat the minnows, who are ranked 116th in the world. “We started this campaign a while ago and the job was to try and win every single game”.
That victory saw England reach a major championship with a 100 per cent record for the first time ever, but Switzerland were the only real opposition in a group that also included Slovenia, Estonia and San Marino.
“This is maybe the last game where I could happily give people a chance to show what they can do”, Hodgson said.
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The match took place on an artificial surface in the Zalgiris Stadium, and Oxlade-Chamberlain added: “The pitch was difficult and it skidded through, it made it hard to run in behind, but we did what we needed to do”. Those two games at the World Cup were vital and didn’t go well, but I’m not sure these were the two that gave me concerns that we couldn’t win the next one.
