England show signs of promise, then squander a 1-0 lead at the end to get a tie w Russia in Euro2016

England were unrecognisable from the side knocked out of the 2014 World Cup after just five days and yet a similar story unfolded in Marseille. Roy Hodgson, at 68, holds the most coffee-stained birth certificate of any manager in France this summer and yet he has thrown together the youngest squad.

Tarred with a not entirely unjustified reputation for preferring a conservative, risk-management brand of football, Hodgson’s top-heavy troupe carry a vibrancy about them seldom witnessed in the past decade. Russia, however, were low hanging fruit and yet they still managed to penetrate a leaky back-four. For all of Hodgson’s intrepid intentions, it’s the same old story.

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