England vs Estonia match report: Theo Walcott and Raheem Sterling help Three Lions maintain unbeaten march to Euros

England 2 Estonia 0

Raheem Sterling celebrates with Jamie Vardy after scoring for England against Estonia (Getty Images)

Between them Sir Bobby Charlton and Wayne Rooney have seen just about everything a life playing for England can offer – World Cup glory, World Cup despair, the goals, the hope, the reverence and the loathing – but then for all those days of drama there is still Estonia at home at the end of a long qualifying campaign.

Before the match last night, Charlton handed Rooney his latest Football Association souvenir to mark the latter’s 50th England goal, a simple exchange between two men who if possible, prefer to say as little as possible. Then they settled down to watch the ninth England Euro 2016 qualifier of ten against Estonia, a team ranked lower in the world than Sudan, Iraq and the Faroe Islands.

It was not a bad performance by England, and goodness knows there have been much worse. Without Rooney this was a relatively young team with Ross Barkley at the heart of it delivering a performance worthy of his genuine, if erratic talent. At times it gave an insight into what the post-Rooney future may look like, but at other times there was so little energy or direction one would have forgiven Charlton in particular for wondering why it is, a few days short of his 78th birthday, he is still required to journey down to the ground by the North Circular to watch more of the same.

England’s winning record stands at nine out of nine in qualification with only Lithuania in Vilnius on Monday left. They have conceded only three goals along the way and one of those was scored by Jordan Henderson. No more can be asked of them results-wise against the very low quality opposition of Group E but truly, roll on France and Spain next month when the reckoning will be that much clearer.

The goals from Theo Walcott and then, with five minutes left, Raheem Sterling, were typical of an England performance that was stoically determined to get the job done. Dele Alli was given a late debut. They can only beat the team placed before them, and they tried to do the right things – they really did – but that does always make for an enchanting evening’s football.

Last November the Estonians went to San Marino and failed to score against a national team that, as of this week, had conceded 550 goals in 131 matches over the course of their inglorious history. Estonia drew 0-0 in the Republic. There are poor away records, and then there is failing to score against San Marino.

In the first half, they came closest when Konstantin Vassiljev drilled the ball across the face of goal and Chris Smalling had to get a delicate touch on it not to deflect it into his own goal. Otherwise, even with two strikers, this was a one-way half and it was all heading in Estonia’s direction.

England created chances but did not take them until the end of the half when Barkley’s nicely-weighted pass found Walcott and he opened his body to slip the ball past Mihkel Aksalu. Until then, England had been busy but never deadly and that failure to put Estonia away had given the away side a glimpse of hope.

Walcott had cracked a volley at Aksalu in the first three minutes which had been saved. Barkley had a shot that went straight at the Estonia goalkeeper. Walcott dragged one wide on 39 minutes. Working from the right, Adam Lallana looked energetic but there was never enough from England to overwhelm Estonia. It has been a tendency in qualifying for their goals to come in the second half of games.

Barkley’s ball into Walcott, and the finish, were the last action of a forgettable first half and arguably the moment of highest quality in the entire game. Hodgson’s young team tried hard but for all the passing they never built up a head of steam to overwhelm a team ranked 87^th in the world by Fifa.

A crowd of 75,427 turned up, a remarkable number given the group is already won, and they watched in the contemplative quiet that has long been the norm at Wembley. As is often the case, they do not recognise the away team, they struggle to identify with the limitations of their own side and the noise level never gets above the background murmur of a quiet pub lunchtime.

The second half began with two Barkley moments that demonstrated the talent, if not the finesse of the young man. The first was a run which carried him half the length of the pitch and into a fog of indecision when, having entered the Estonia area and missed his chance to slip in a team-mate, he ran out of space and lost his feet. Then he dragged a left-footed shot wide. There is undoubtedly a very good player in there but it is difficult to judge quite how Barkley will emerge from these early years.

When it looked like England might just brush their opposition out the way, the Estonians found an energy to resist. In attack it was a frustrating night for Harry Kane, making his first competitive start for England. He was forced to make the best of rebounds and second balls and he never really had that moment of opportunity upon which strikers thrive.

Lallana was replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who adopted a central role. There was certainly pace in abundance across the England XI. On 77 minutes came Barkley’s best moment when he switched the ball from one foot to the other to go between Enar Jaager and the substitute Joel Lindpere. The shot was hit hard enough but not sufficiently far away from Aksalu that he did not get both gloves to it and push it over.

The second England substitute Jamie Vardy made the third goal, breaking down the left after a mistake from Estonia and crossing for Sterling to finish with his right foot. That was more like it, and had chances been taken earlier on then Estonia would have been forced to open up more. One more win and England will have Europe’s only perfect qualifying record which would be admirable, although Hodgson would much sooner they match next month’s opponents stride for stride.

Teams

England (4-2-3-1): Hart; Clyne, Cahill, Smalling, Bertrand; Barkley (Alli, 87), Milner, Lallana (Oxlade-Chamberlain, 73); Walcott (Vardy, 83), Kane, Sterling.

Estonia (4-4-2): Aksalu; Teniste, Jaager, Klavan, Pikk; Kallaste (Luts, 87), Dmitrijev (Lindpere, 70), Mets, Zenjov; Purje (Puri, 70), Vassiljev.