Gareth Southgate was pleased to see England Under-21s pick up a comprehensive victory over Finland on Thursday – but knows his side can still do better.
An opening goal from Michael Keane and a brace from Saido Berahino proved enough to seal the three points for England at stadiummk to cement their place at the top of their Euro qualifying group.
But head coach Southgate knows there are still areas of his team’s play which can be improved upon as they approach their final match of 2013 on Tuesday, when San Marino are the visitors to Shrewsbury.
“It’s an important win for us, and a good win,” he told TheFA.com.
“But we’re collectively, as staff and players, a little bit disappointed with the performance because we have set our standards so high.
Video highlights of the U21s' win in Milton Keynes.
“With young players, you won’t always get that high level though and we were up against a team that made it very difficult for us and defended in numbers.
“We had to defend well at times ourselves and we did that very well, but we didn’t quite hit the heights in an attacking sense.
“But at least we have won the game.”
Despite taking a two goal lead in the first half and dominating possession, England didn’t manage to really kill the game off until Berahino’s second goal in stoppage time.
But Southgate saw signs of improvement as the match wore on and is hoping for more of the same next week.
“We never felt we would lose the game, but you can concede a goal at any time and it becomes a scramble,” he added.
“That said, we had more chances as the game wore on and started to work the keeper more.
“We now have to recover properly on Friday, so the players who didn’t play today will train and then we will give them Saturday free before we start to prepare again on Sunday.”
