KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: The talents of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Jamie Vardy are obvious at Premier level. But not all outstanding league footballers manage the leap of class to the national team. For all three to rise to the occasion simultaneously in Germany was almost more than manager Roy Hodgson had a right to expect.

One of the challenges for any England manager is reproducing the pace of the Premier League with players whose ability, often, is overshadowed in their clubs by one or more foreign superstars.

Hence one of the happy surprises of Saturday’s 3-2 win in Berlin’s Olympiastadion was to see an England team playing with pace, not a little technical virtuosity and with an energy level associated more with the start of a season than with its second half.

Eric Dier celebrates his winning goal

The confidence-generating fact of victory over the World Cup-holders on their own turf was one further plus; the spirited manner of the performance yet another.

Plainly, as Hodgson conceded afterwards, while Wayne Rooney will be in the squad in France the injured captain no longer has any right to expect a place in the starting line-up. Opponents may consider Rooney’s presence ‘only’ on the subs’ bench as an intimidation.

Butland fracture

Problems remain. No2 goalkeeper Jack Butland has broken his right ankle while Gary Cahill and Chris Smalling remain a weakness at the centre of defence. Thus Everton’s John Stones, despite having lost his Everton place, will play in a much-changed team against Holland at Wembley.

England will hope not to need the sort of comeback necessitated in Berlin when they hit back from 2-0 down in the last halfhour to beat Germany, deservedly, by 3-2.

Kane and substitute Vardy struck two fine goals and Alli missed an open goal before Tottenham midfielder Eric Dier headed home a late right-wing corner from Jordan Henderson.

Toni Kroos, with a speculative shot which caught out just-injured keeper Ben Foster, gave Germany a half-time lead against the run of play then Mario Gomez headed a second. Gomez’s goal was due reward after he had an early ‘goal’ disallowed by an erroneous offside decision.

Suddenly Hodgson finds himself having to keep his players’ feet on the ground and damping expectations among fans after such a success for an inexperienced side with just 161 senior caps between them.

‘Long way to go’

Hodgson said: “You always hope your best night’s ahead of you. I’m rather hoping there’ll be one of them ahead of me. But best night so far? Yes, why not. I’ll give you that one.

“It’s important for us to remain humble in these moments. We’ve got an awful long way to go before we can claim to be like the Germans with what they’ve achieved in the last few years. But it was a great performance.

“It was good to see the players play their way back into the game. It showed character, but also a lot of quality in terms of our passing, poise and movement.

“I’m so pleased for the players and that we have carried on from where we left off against France in such a wonderful iconic arena against the world champions.”

England lost Butland to his ankle fracture in the build-up to the first goal, with the Stoke goalkeeper unable to get down to Kroos’ long-range effort as a result and was stretchered off immediately afterwards.

Fraser Forster replaced Butland and was soon picking the ball out of his net as Gomez rose to nod home Sami Khedira’s cross.

But England rallied and Hodgson believes the comeback success can help build belief among the players – even if he remains keen to keep any new hopes in check.

“It certainly won’t do it any harm, but it’s a friendly match,” he said when asked about the added belief the players can take. “”We must be careful attaching too much importance on it. Had we lost the game 3-2, and the Germans had scored late on, I wouldn’t have been sitting here bitterly disappointed.

More games

“We had a lot of debutants and inexperienced players out there. It’s a good step forward, a moment of progression in the work we are doing with them, but we can still do things better. We have four more friendly games and two and a half months of work before we play the game that really will count, against Russia in Marseille.

“Those games in the autumn, Spain away and France at home, I thought then that if we could keep this group together and engender the right spirit and belief to have the confidence to go out and play their way out of trouble, we’ve got some players who could be very interesting for England in the future.

“What worries me now is that, while enjoying this night and admitting it’s my best with England so far, I’m worried a lot of the criticisms we’ve had in the past will be forgotten and we’ll be lifted up. This is a team that is definitely a work in progress.

“Let’s keep these players’ feet on the ground, keep them humble. Let’s keep them hungry to learn from their mistakes.”

German disappointment

Germany coach Joachim Low was upset with the performance from his side but admitted England had played well enough to deserve the win.

“All in all I can say it is absolutely annoying for a coach to see you team squander a 2-0 lead,” he said.

“I think, having lost this game it is not entirely undeserved, even when we were 2-0 up we weren’t as in control as I would like us to be, we had problems in our structure and didn’t create too many chances – so England in a way deserved to win.

“if you ask me for conclusions to be drawn from this game there are some. This was a friendly match and they are all about showing us areas that need improvement and to be worked on.”

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