By the time they had finished, it was just a pity that Gareth Southgate had more to address than the latest evidence showing why England’s followers can trust this team in a way that scarcely felt possible not too long ago.

They had played, again, with freedom and confidence and the occasion deserved better than to be scarred by the primitive “ooh-ooh” chants that told us Montenegro’s supporters had decided there was one last way to get at the victorious players. The black players, with a grim inevitability.

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Ideally, Southgate would rather have spoken about the manner of his team’s comeback and the impression left by Callum Hudson-Odoi, at the age of 18, that the new kid on the block does not suffer from the kind of nerves that might ordinarily have been expected of a teenager making his first England start.

It is not, after all, as if the game was devoid of other talking points.

Perhaps Southgate would have liked to dwell on Declan Rice’s successful introduction to England’s starting line-up. It was the night when Harry Kane scored the 22nd goal of his England career, putting him level with Tommy Lawton and Peter Crouch. Raheem Sterling, the team’s outstanding performer again, continued his own scoring run and maybe this was also the night when Ross Barkley, with two of the goals, started to feel like he could dominate, rather than decorate, international matches.

Ultimately, though, this occasion will be added to the list of England’s foreign assignments where the memories of what happened on the pitch are offset by the noises that came off it. One of the more depressing parts is that the Montenegro coach, Ljubisa Tumbakovic, said he was completely unaware of the monkey chanting and his media officer tried to shout down questions on the subject by saying nobody else had heard it either. Yet Southgate did. Sterling felt compelled to hold out his ears, having scored England’s fifth goal, and the backdrop noise was even more blatant in stoppage time when Danny Rose was booked for a free-kick. The FA will make a complaint to Uefa but to witness these moments, to hear the photographers’ accounts from directly in front of the stand, was to be reminded that European football’s governing body has never taken this problem seriously enough. Uefa is part of the problem, not the solution.

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What a shame, though, for Southgate and his players that they could score five goals for the second time in four days and the occasion be overshadowed in this way. When they found themselves behind, after 17 minutes, it was a test of nerve. They passed that test with distinction and kept control when the night took its sinister edge. Sterling might not have silenced the people who had been targeting him but, if nothing else, he did show he would not be deterred from playing brilliantly quick and incisive football. The image of the night was Sterling’s goal celebration. “Best way to silence the haters (and yeah I mean racists),” came his explanation, relayed via his social media accounts.

As for Southgate, he was visibly upset, saying he would apologise if people thought he should have done more, namely by removing his players from the pitch. He decided that was not the best option because, from previous conversations, he did not think that was what his players would have wanted. As always, the manager spoke with great eloquence and feeling, as someone who clearly cares for the image of the game but, more than anything, for his players and their feelings. He wanted his players to enjoy representing England abroad, he said, not be scarred by the experience.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ross Barkley scores his second and England’s third goal in Podgorica. Photograph: Michael Zemanek/BPI/Rex/Shutterstock

Southgate had warned before the game it could be a febrile atmosphere but at that stage he was not referring to voluble outbreaks of racism. It is certainly difficult to think of too many stadiums where the stand behind each goal is covered in 60ft-high netting, presumably to prevent the kind of scenes that happened when these sides met in 2013 and Joe Hart was pelted by cigarette lighters, coins, pens and toilet rolls. The stands were penned in by the kind of metal fences that have not been seen in English football for nearly 30 years and the guy with the megaphone, standing precariously on a ledge behind the goal where Sterling scored, certainly made some racket.

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It would not say much for England’s credentials, however, if their players were intimidated by a 15,000-capacity stadium where one side of the ground was dwarfed by the trees in the adjacent car park. England assumed control early and it certainly came as a surprise when Michael Keane missed a tackle in his penalty area and Marko Vesovic curled in the opening goal.

Keane will feel a lot better for heading in the equaliser from Barkley’s free-kick, on the half-hour mark, but he should also be acutely aware that his first requirement as one of England’s centre-backs is to keep out the opposition – and he did not manage it.

England never looked vulnerable again and nine minutes later Hudson-Odoi, on the left of the Montenegro penalty area, cut inside two defenders and fired his shot towards the goal. Barkley applied the decisive touch, just in front of the goalkeeper, and England had the lead.

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Barkley’s second goal was struck from close to the penalty spot, after some persistent work from Sterling on the right, and it was noticeable that England did not ease up throughout the remainder of the match. On the contrary, this was the period when Sterling, in particular, was at his most dangerous.

Sterling, set free by Barkley’s through ball, set up Kane to slide in the next goal and then scored one of his own after being released by the substitute Jordan Henderson, who had replaced Dele Alli to make his 50th England appearance. Somehow, though, it did not feel like a night to celebrate.