Iniesta inflicts rare England home loss

12 April 2012

England were booed off after crashing to a 1-0 defeat - their first home loss since November 2003 - to heap more pressure on Steve McClaren ahead of next month's Euro 2008 qualifier with Israel.

After a disastrous October double-header, McClaren's men appeared to have stopped the rot with a decent performance in Holland in November.

But the winter months seem to have had a negative impact on an admittedly injury-hit side, who started well but slowly subsided and eventually lost - against a side beaten by Northern Ireland in September - to Andres Iniesta's well-taken second-half effort.

It took Kieron Dyer no time to prove how comfortable he is in these surroundings, picking up possession in deep positions and threatening to unhinge Spain's defence with his direct running.

Peter Crouch may have boasted an impressive scoring record of 11 goals in 16 games for his country prior to this encounter, but most of them have come against second-rate nations.

After an early flurry of activity the only player to test Iker Casillas during the opening period was Michael Carrick, who drove an early shot at the Spain goalkeeper.

Not that debutant Ben Foster was that much busier. True, he should have been beaten when Miguel Angel Angulo squared an inspired pass to Fernando Morientes. But, having skipped past Gary Neville, the man who spent 18 unconvincing months at Liverpool, did little to enhance his reputation by blazing over.

After the break Dyer continued to probe and Wright-Phillips and Gary Neville both went close but it was Spain who carried the greater threat and David Villa brought the best save of the match out of Foster with a 20-yard shot just before the hour.

On their next attack, Spain took the lead, Ferdinand unable to do anything more than get the faintest flick to Villa's cross. Iniesta had only been on the field seven minutes but he was warm enough to fire a spectacular 20-yard shot into the top corner.

England huffed and puffed in their search for an equaliser without doing anything particularly convincing. McClaren's decision to replace an ineffective Frank Lampard with Joey Barton for the final 10 minutes breathed new life into the crowd - but it had no impact on the final outcome.

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