Euro 2016: England boss Roy Hodgson admits momentum may be lost against the big teams

The Football Association have arranged a testing set of friendly fixtures

Hodgson wants his side to be tested before next summer's tournament (Getty Images)

Roy Hodgson has admitted he is taking a risk in pitting his developing England team against the defending European champions, next summer’s Euro 2016 hosts, and the current world champions. Spain, France and Germany make up England’s next three opponents and there is a danger that the momentum developed by a perfect 10 wins in qualifying could be dissipated by defeats against such elite opposition.

“We will have to accept that,” said Hodgson. “If you want to guarantee momentum, you don’t play Spain away, you don’t play France, you don’t play Germany away. You play teams you feel you are quite capable of beating and then you get a pat on the back for going a bit further. We don’t want that.”

In a wider context, added Hodgson, this fixture list was not a risk because even defeats would provide valuable lessons. “The worst that can happen is we lose the games,” he said. “The very worst that can happen is we lose them playing very badly. If that was to happen – and I don’t believe it will – it would be an important lesson for us and [provide] important things to know going forward. The qualifying campaign is important because that gets you where you want to be, which is in France in June in 2016. Everything we do between now and then is to try to make sure we are a good team when we kick off.”

While Hodgson focuses on the team the Football Association, and police, will be stepping up their planning to ensure the tournament passes peacefully off the field. The 1998 World Cup in France was marred by appalling hooligan violence when England played in Marseilles, leading to subsequent matches being so heavily policed it felt as if a state of emergency had been declared. Since Euro 2000, England matches have been relatively trouble-free, but an outbreak in Vilnius on Monday provided a reminder that the problem has merely been kept under control, not eradicated. England fans were not the instigators of the incidents in Lithuania, but the presence of a significant number of travelling fans infiltrating the home end was the root cause and many appeared to relish the possibility of confrontation rather than be averse to it.

Uefa will today study the reports of the referee and match delegate and may fine the Lithuanian FA for failing to prevent tickets being acquired by visiting fans. There are unlikely to be sanctions for the English FA, whose party of 850 official fans was well-behaved, but the skirmishes underlined potential problems next summer when thousands of ticketless fan will cross the English Channel for matches.

Earlier this year, The Independent revealed the UK Football Policing Unit was concerned there were insufficient resources to prevent fans subject to banning orders – which enable police to insist fans previously involved in violence report to police stations when England are playing abroad – evading the restrictions. In addition a significant number of previously banned fans are now free to move about the Continent as their sentences have expired.