England boss Roy Hodgson “not prepared to accept” criticism of team’s performance in Portugal friendly

England manager Roy Hodgson has refused to criticise his team’s performance after they beat 10-man Portugal at Wembley this evening.

Despite walking away with the victory, England looked their laboured self of old as they struggled to find a way past Portugal.

Despite holding a one man advantage for most of the game, England failed to capitalise and looked sloppy in possession. Many blamed the formation, as Hodgson tried to find a way for Jamie Vardy, Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane to all play together.

Instead, all three attackers seem to get in each others way and Hodgson will certainly be disappointed with what he probably thought was his best side.

In comments made to the BBC after the game, Hodgson defended his team, pointing to the fact they had won all three of their warm-up friendlies.

He said: “I’m not prepared to accept that we didn’t play well. We looked good, we had composure throughout the game and it would have been better to play against 11.

''I’m very pleased with three wins, we never looked like conceding a goal.”

When probed as to whether his experiment with Rooney behind Vardy and Kane had worked, Hodgson was predictably coy.

He continued: “I’m not prepared to add my voice to the debate. We need all of our players playing well. In every game some people have a really good night, I’m not prepared to stand here and criticise some players.”

''If I start being dissatisfied with three wins against Australia, Turkey and Portugal I’m going to be a hard coach to satisfy.”

England will now fly out to Chantilly on Monday where they will finalise preparations ahead of this summer’s tournament.

Attitudes were generally positive surrounding this youthful, attacking side before tonight’s game and fans will hope the display tonight was just a temporary blip.

In all fairness both teams looked short of motivation and the game was ruined with the sending off of Bruno Alves.