Yet Eriksson, just like his team on these muted occasions, is nothing if not consistent. The reaction of the crowd did not provide much support for his opinion, but the Swede declared himself satisfied with last night’s exertions. This, he observed, was a vast improvement on November’s 1-0 defeat in Madrid. “I think we played much better than we did against Spain,” he said.

England fielded the voguish 4-3-3 formation favoured by Manchester United and Chelsea this season, yet a team featuring a breadth of attacking talent in Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, Shaun Wright-Phillips, David Beckham, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard laboured for their chances. Eriksson, however, insisted that “for a friendly game, it was of good quality”.

Holland were unrecognisable and unadventurous, yet England struggled to break them down. Eriksson defended his tactics and if there could be a validation for his argument, it was only that they had been limited to 30 minutes of practising them on Tuesday afternoon. Wright-Phillips had participated in only one meaningful training session. Certainly, there is much work to be done.

“We have thought for a while about trying it,” Eriksson said. “If you have Shaun Wright-Phillips in the team and want to play him, this is a very good system for him. Rooney is used to playing on the left with Manchester United and, of course, we have three central midfield players and all of them are extremely good football players. They showed it as well.”

The point was a moot one. “At least I know that we can do it if we want,” Eriksson said. “How we’re going to play against Northern Ireland, I haven’t thought about yet, but it works. If it works against Holland, it can work against a lot of opponents.”

Marco van Basten, Eriksson’s counterpart, was less sure. “We expected a lot of problems, but we did our homework very well and they didn’t create many chances,” he said.

Beckham was another supporter of the unfamiliar system. “Really, that was the first time we have played that formation and overall I thought we did quite well,” the captain said. “Our attitude was a lot better than in Spain and I think we took something from this game.”

While forthcoming World Cup qualifying fixtures at home to Northern Ireland and Azerbaijan will not be provoking insomnia in Eriksson, pundits on radio and television were damning in their criticism and quite what lessons could be learnt from introducing Andy Johnson on the right of midfield and giving him and Stewart Downing, the Middlesbrough youngster, less than 30 minutes to impress could be questioned.

“Was it fair?” Eriksson said. “I think Johnson is very happy to have come on. Firstly, he was happy to be picked. I spoke to him before the game and at half-time and I wanted to give Michael Owen 90 minutes. He needed it more than Andy Johnson, so the option, to give him a chance, was to put him on the right. I know he normally plays up front on his own, but he can also play there.”

There was a full debut for Wright-Phillips, who has been in blistering form for Manchester City, and while he was commendably busy, he snatched at two first-half shots. “I suppose it’s normal to be nervous starting for England because his career has gone up, up, up very quickly and I can understand that,” Eriksson said. “The next time he starts he will be less so. He’s a young talent and I’m happy with him.”

Owen has been an irregular starter for Real Madrid and Rooney appeared uncomfortable to his left. “I’m always happy with him [Rooney] wherever he plays,” Eriksson said. “I was saying to myself on the bench that sometimes he was coming too deep, that he was working too hard, that I don’t want to see him at left back, but he wants to help the team. It wasn’t my orders, but he felt what he did was right.”

England’s most accomplished performer was Jamie Carragher, who was a late inclusion at centre half. That told its own story. “We have five central defenders out and after today we can say we have seven very good central defenders,” Eriksson said. “Not only Carragher, but Wes Brown also played very well.” But what was the great lesson to be learnt from that?

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