Before the goals began to fly in and a limited, unambitious Republic of Ireland saw their gameplan blown apart by Liam Scales’s red card, this really was looking like a classic of the genre.
For 45 minutes, it was the most Englandy, Wembley-ey of international fixtures, one of those games where the only things you notice have nothing to do with the game itself.
Jude Bellingham did a slide into the goalmouth and lay there for a bit, like one of those French girls. Everyone got very concerned when it looked like Sammie Szmodics had blown his knee apart, but he turned out to be fine. Someone in the Ireland end kept ringing a handbell. A few people booed the DJ.
But, hey, you told yourself at half-time, it could have been worse. At least they’d picked a left-back.
Not Trent Alexander-Arnold, who will probably be a cap as goalkeeper away from the full positional set by the time his England career is done. Not Levi Colwill, who is enjoying a strong season at centre-half for Chelsea. Not even Rico Lewis, who plays just about everywhere for Manchester City, but is on record only a few weeks ago talking himself up as a midfielder.
In fact, this was only the second time in 13 matches since the start of Euro 2024 that England had begun a game with a conventional, left-footed full-back on that side of defence.
The other came in the final loss to Spain in Berlin. Luke Shaw had spent the summer trying to get himself fit for the occasion and that he has not been seen for club or country since suggested this was a genuine opportunity for Lewis Hall.
All over the pitch here there were placeholders, inexperienced players in the starting XI tonight but probably playing for places in Thomas Tuchel’s first squad in March, for which the hoards of high-profile dropouts will surely return.
Hall, though, now looks a feasible option in an area of actual need, quietly impressive throughout what turned into a 5-0 breeze, as he had been when sent on at half-time in Greece on Thursday night.
The Newcastle defender provided width and balance, two features no Englishman subjected to the Trippier Torture Method Experiment will ever take for granted again. He dovetailed nicely with club team-mate Anthony Gordon, one of four players to notch their first England goals on a night when Harry Kane opened the scoring with his 69th. Hall also brought a remarkable penchant for controlling fiendishly high balls, as if raised on that drill from Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.
Is this something that might stick? It is impossible to know until Tuchel takes charge, but there aren’t exactly alternatives aplenty: at one stage this summer we had all just about reluctantly agreed that Bukayo Saka would have to do the job.
Ben Chilwell has previous with the incoming manager but can’t get a game in Chelsea’s B side. Tyrick Mitchell is playing for a Crystal Palace side that could go down. Shaw remains the standout, but cannot stay fit. The Manchester United man will be 30 in July and in his tunnel vision focus on winning one tournament, Tuchel cannot afford to bank on having him available and in form for the five weeks of the World Cup a year beyond that.
It may yet be that Colwill emerges as the play in a deliberately lopsided team, allowing Alexander-Arnold the licence to run the game from the right.
But Gareth Southgate went to his last tournament without giving himself convention as a fallback. Tuchel, surely, will not risk doing the same.
