MATCH ANALYSIS
CITY A.M. VERDICT
England almost snatched an improbable and, in truth, wholly unmerited draw from this largely sedate contest, but in the end, as they did throughout, Holland made their superior class count when it mattered.
MAN OF THE MATCH
He may be in patchy form for Bayern Munich, but Arjen Robben was at his devastating best last night, scoring two goals of the highest quality. How England missed a player of his instinctive brilliance.
KEY MOMENT
Incidents don’t come much more decisive than Robben’s 92nd-minute winner, scored with a waft of his left foot that lifted it over Leighton Baines’s casual challenge and over Joe Hart via a slight deflection.
TALKING POINT
Stuart Pearce was going to need a very persuasive performance to convince he can fill the breach for Euro 2012, or even beyond, and this was emphatically not it.
DUGOUT VIEW
I’m always glad after winning a game, but we had two games where we didn’t play so well, so for the team it was important to win here. We expected England to play like this. Their squad has a lot of very fast players, so you have to defend well.
Holland manager Bert van Marwijk