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England performance in narrow win over Portugal pleases Hodgson

Roy Hodgson admitted England's display in their 1-0 victory over Portugal on Thursday was pleasing.

The Three Lions completed their tune-up for Euro2016 with a narrow win over the 10-man Portuguese at Wembley and although it wasn't a commanding performance, Hodgson was satisfied with the contributions of the 16 players he used over the course of the 90 minutes.

"They were three very different games. I was disappointed tonight that it didn't remain 11 v 11, we'd have preferred that," the England boss said.

"I was pleased with the composure. I was pleased with the fact that from the start, we played out consistently from the back which was better than what maybe happened in the previous two games.

"I'm very pleased with the fact the players showed more patience. There was more composure in our play, the pressurising wasn't as frantic as it sometimes has been. Now we need to try and bring those two things together and keep the good part of that frantic pressuring while marrying it to some composed defending and some pressurising.

"There are a lot of positives in terms of some individual performances and it's always positive to go to a tournament when you've won three games on the spin, especially given our opponents' quality."

Chris Smalling came up with n 86th-minute winner for England, heading home Raheem Sterling's cross, after playing the majority of the contest with an extra man after Bruno Alves was sent off for a reckless high challenge on Harry Kane on 35 minutes.

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Andrew Slevison
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Andrew Slevison

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