KEIR RADNEDGE at WEMBLEY —- England opened their Euro 2020 qualifying campaign with a perfect premiere of a 5-0 thrashing of Czech Republic with strikes from Raheem Sterling (three), Harry Kane and an own goal.

A winning start in front of a crowd of 82,575 had been essential for Gareth Southgate’s men to maintain last year’s momentum of fourth place at the World Cup and then progress to the finals of the inaugural UEFA Nations Cup.

The latter accomplishment means England will have a backdoor opportunity to reach the Euro finals if they mess up Euro qualifying Group A but that appears unlikely on the early evidence.

England expects . . . another tournament to enjoy

Reaching the finals would present England with another trophy chance, given that seven of the matches will be staged at Wembley including three group games, both semi-finals and the final.

In the meantime there was a job to be done.

England opened in totally dominant mood against a Czech team massed around their own penalty box; a defensive midfield double of Jordan Henderson and Eric Dier appeared unnecessarily cautious.

Early switch

In the event a change was forced upon Southgate when the Tottenham man injured a hip in a tangle with Tomas Soucek and had to be substituted by the more forward-thinking Ross Barkley.

Minutes later England were ahead. Captain Kane slipped a perfect pass inside Czech leftback Filip Novak and Jadon Sancho – making his first England start – squared for Sterling to slide in decisively at the far post. If VAR had been operation then Sancho would have been caught narrowly offside but it wasn’t so he wasn’t.

The lead was no more than England deserved and they doubled it with the last kick of the first half. Sterling, accelerating in on goal was bundled over by Pavel Kaderabek and Tomas Kalas. The award was possibly a little generous from Portuguese referee Artur Dias but that did not matter to Kane who thumped home the penalty off the flailing left hand of keeper Jiri Pavkenka.

The Czechs emerged for the second half in more determined, aggressive mood. Soucek saw a diving header to a Darida free kick skim inches wide of the right-hand post of Jordan Pickford who then did well to halt a close-range shot on the turn from Pavelka.

England immediately raced downfield and normal service was resumed.

First an attempted clearance by Kalas ricocheted goalwards off the arm of Novak and keeper Pavelka scrambled across goal to flap the ball to safety. Next Sancho had a shot blocked on the goal-line by Novak and the rebound struck Dele Alli and flew over the bar.

Hat-trick claim

Goal No3 duly arrived in the 61st minute. Alli set up to Sterling who scored at second attempt after Novak’s clearance rebounded off Kalas and back into the path of the Manchester City winger who outwitted Ondrej Celustka and fired home. Sterling struck again almost immediately with a shot whose deflection off luckless Celustka wrongfooted keeper Pavlenka.

Sterling, immediately substituted and hugged by manager Southgate, will doubtless claim the goal as his own for a hat-trick.

Amid all the attacking excitement Southgate took the opportunity to bring West Ham midfielder Declan Rice and Chelsea winger Callum Hudson-Odoi into the action.

To their credit the Czech players – and their fans – never gave up and Derby County’s Matej Vydra, who had joined the game at half-time, sent a low drive just side of Pickford’s left-hand post in the 80th minute.

But nothing was going right for the out-paced visitors as proved in the 83rd minute when a flowing move between Rice, Sancho and Hudson-Odoi was crowned by an indisputable own goal off Kalas.

** Bulgaria and Montenegro drew 1-1 in the other Euro 2020 Group A qualifying tie in Sofia. Montenegro host England in Podgorica on Monday.

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