England are better than they were when slogging their way through the Euros and have a direction under Lee Carsley… but this was competitive football in name only, writes IAN LADYMAN

This month marks two years since Gareth Southgate was booed by his own team’s fans after England lost to Italy in Milan, confirming their relegation from the top flight of the Nations League.

It didn’t seem that important at the time. It was the proximity of the dip in form to the Qatar World Cup that was the bigger concern. But it is Lee Carsley and his attempts to reinvent and revitalise the national team that are now being affected.

It’s a good competition, the Nations League. It’s filled dates traditionally reserved for friendlies with competitive matches, and that’s useful. In its first year back in 2019, England came close to reaching the final, one of the first steps towards improvement and relevance for Southgate and his team.

Unfortunately for the current version of England, their relegation from the business side means that, for the time being, meaningful and challenging games against the likes of Germany, Italy, France and Portugal – for example – have been replaced by nights like this. A game against a team that is ranked 63rd in the world and has been particularly difficult to learn anything from.

Once again we saw that Harry Kane knows how to score goals. These were two crackers for the century man. Finnish goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky dived for both, but it is doubtful whether he saw them as they whizzed past. Perhaps he heard them.

It’s hard for England and Lee Carsley to know where they stand as they aren’t playing against the elite

We also saw another performance of great promise from Anthony Gordon and another reminder of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s passing range. All good.

But what did this really tell us, with Finland deep in their own half and playing – perhaps praying – for survival from the first minute? England had more than 75 per cent possession. After half an hour, England defender John Stones had completed more passes – 45 – than the entire Finnish team, who had completed 41.

On the one hand, a Nations League group that also includes the Republic of Ireland and Greece offers interim coach Lee Carsley a tasty run of games in which he can feel comfortable. But in terms of the growth of this group of players, and perhaps the coach too, the horizons feel limited and that is a shame.

England, coincidentally, are the only major European nation to make it into the second group. Carsley’s team are ranked fourth in the world and the team closest to them in terms of FIFA’s rankings in this section is Ralf Rangnick’s Austria at number 22.

So the point is clear. Carsley can only do what he can do. He can only send teams out to beat what is in front of them. England were impressive when they beat the Republic of Ireland on Saturday. Greece beat the Irish by the same scoreline in Dublin on Tuesday night, mind you.

Here, at a not-quite-full Wembley, England were sporadic, if not consistently, fluent. They deserved to win and probably would have won by more if Kane had not had an early header ruled out for offside.

Jack Grealish indicated he was distancing himself from Pep Guardiola’s tactical limitations

Anthony Gordon once again showed an encouraging performance on the international senior podium

There was further encouragement when Trent Alexander-Arnold showed off his passing range

There was no danger and it is unlikely that much will happen in any of the Nations League matches

This felt from the start like a night where the first goal could have ruined the Finns if it came early. Fortunately for them – and sometimes they were a little lucky – that didn’t happen and they were able to give the result some semblance of respectability.

This was competitive football in name only. There was no danger and that is the key. It is also unlikely that there will be much when Greece come to London next month and England then travel to Helsinki to face Finland again three days later.

Gordon and Alexander-Arnold weren’t the only players to impress here. Lille’s Angel Gomes – the first French-based player to make his England debut since Trevor Stevens in 1992 – was tidy and progressive with his passing, while Jack Grealish continued to relish expressing himself, freed from the tactical constraints of his club manager Pep Guardiola.

And yes, England were better than when they struggled through the Euros against Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and the rest. Southgate’s team played exhausting end-of-an-era football in Germany and this was not that. England have had momentum and direction under Carsley so far and that reflects well on the 50-year-old.

Context is not necessarily the interim manager’s friend this morning. The truth is that we won’t know what he has on the big occasion unless his spell as interim boss is extended beyond these six games or he is given the position permanently between now and the end of this competition in November.

Angel Gomes, making his second appearance for the England national team, once again caught the eye

England will surely win their group of four teams. Promotion back to the land of the big boys of Group A will be theirs soon enough. However, the experience of Germany 2024 tells us that this English team still has a lot of growing and developing to do.

Whether it helps that they shoot six times less than the Nations League dead is the question.