Gareth Southgate considered the question: how can England develop a player who can run a game in the way that Thiago Alcantara had just done in Spain’s victory at Wembley? Or as Croatia’s Luka Modric showed in the World Cup semi-final in July?

“The only one in my lifetime is [Paul] Gascoigne,” the England manager said.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The problem laid bare in one name. Gascoigne’s last appearance for England was in 1998. Twenty years ago. Twenty years since there was a midfielder in an England shirt who had what Southgate described as the “supreme confidence” to “receive under pressure” and “dribble past people, pass past people”.

The England manager added: “In the end you know you are capable and willing to have the ball against any opposition.”

This is England’s post-World Cup reality where a run to the semi-final rightly brought back so much enthusiasm and warmth around the national team but also highlighted that, although the gap may not have been as great as feared, it will take something more, maybe something that has been missing for two decades, to bridge it.

The danger for Southgate is a loss of momentum. England have lost their last three competitive fixtures – the World Cup semi-final, the third-place play-off against Belgium and now their opening Nations League tie against Spain – and although that statistic is harsh, and does not reflect the reality of the progress made, it is a run that he will want to arrest.