Norway 0, England 1

So the Hodgson era got off to a winning start. Such is the low-key nature of our preparations, I'd not even clocked that this warm up match was happening, until the morning of the game itself. It immediately gave me a viewing dilemna - the match or the Eurovision - which is a fixture in my TV calendar. The modern, and brilliant solution of multi-screening (which will doubtless come into its own during the final round of group games), solved my problem; Eurovision on the telly with the England game on the laptop.

Observations from the game:

1. We need Hart to stay fit.
2. We have plenty of options at centre-half; and the Terry thing needn't have been such a big deal (i.e. we could have just left him out of the squad. That said, on recent form he'd have probably put his replica kit on, flown to Poland and pretended in any case.)
3. Hodgson puts out an organised team, though they did have a tendency to sit back rather a lot, which may hurt us against more potent opposition.
4. Young and Downing can both be very effective at international level - and both could be key players.
5. We could really do have done without Rooney being banned
6. Having Gerrard as nominated captain may prevent us playing the best midfield (Lampard looks a better player right now)

All in all a decent result in a pretty meaningless match - but the clean sheet and the win will certainly help the preparations along. Next up, Belgium at Wembley..