If you’re acquainted with the hopeless ‘lumping the ball forward and hoping’ technique that the England national team had been infamous for, you would have noticed a welcome change in the proceedings.
Gareth Southgate’s men don’t just pump long balls to a target man. The likes of Kyle Walker and Jordan Henderson are always probing to pick out runners and they were able to play some lovely dinked balls that caused chaos in the Panama defence.
In fact, Jesse Lingard won England’s first penalty after he was played into the box by Walker with a lovely dinked ball. Harry Kane belaboured the ball into the top right corner and made sure Lingard’s efforts counted.
Even otherwise, Sterling, Trippier and Lingard were stirring their stumps and getting on the end of some delightful diagonals served deep into the final third by their rollicking midfielders.