England manager Fabio Capello believes the errors that lead to Holland's two first-half goals were brought upon by too much confidence. Rio Ferdinand and Gareth Barry both miscued back passes, giving Dutch forwards Dirk Kuyt and Rafael van der Vaart golden opportunities which they duly converted.

The Italian tactician labelled the errors as 'silly' and believes his players took too much confidence into the game in Amsterdam which ended up 2-2 thanks to a Jermain Defoe second-half double.

"I was really calm, really calm at half-time," said Capello.

"These were just two stupid mistakes. Two silly mistakes. Presents, but I prefer to give gifts in non-competitive games rather than in a really important World Cup qualifier.

"It's possible in pre-season to make mistakes like these - I can accept them. I wouldn't accept mistakes if they are on things we practise in training in the week and then don't do out on the pitch. Sometimes that makes you angry, but these were different.

"I think the players just played with too much confidence sometimes when they had the ball. Sometimes, mistakes like these are down to having too much confidence. I just had to make them understand what they had to do to come back [from 2-0 down]."

However, Capello was happy with how his players reacted to the challenge of being two goals down at half-time.

"Psychologically, it is very important to make the players understand that the manager has confidence that they can recover the result. I spoke to them, really quietly, and I was happy to see the spirit in the team. We recovered the result and played very well in the second half.

"The spirit and the quality of the players in the second half, with the style we played, was very good. What we achieved tonight recovering the result will help us, for sure. It's very important. We have to remember this game in the future. But, of course, I think I'd prefer not to have had to come from behind in the first place."