Phil Foden scored twice as England eased to a routine 4-0 win over Iceland on Wednesday in their final UEFA Nations League Group A2 game.
England took control when West Ham United’s Declan Rice glanced in a header from a free kick on 20 minutes and the lead was doubled four minutes later when Chelsea midfielder Mason Mount pounced on a bouncing ball in the box to finish calmly.
The second half started badly for Iceland when Birkir Mar Saevarsson, who was playing his 95th game for his country, was sent off for a second yellow card.
Manchester City’s 20-year-old midfielder Foden made it 3-0 with 10 minutes to go with his first goal for England and added a long-range effort to make it 4-0.
England had already failed to qualify for the Nations League finals after a 2-0 loss on Sunday to one of the tournament’s favourites Belgium, while Iceland had already been relegated to League B.
Elsewhere, Wales secured promotion to the top tier of the Nations League with a 3-1 win over 10-man Finland in Cardiff.
Harry Wilson, Daniel James and Kieffer Moore were on target as Wales moved up to League A and virtually guaranteed themselves a 2022 World Cup play-off spot.
Teemu Pukki had halved the deficit to set up an anxious half-hour for the Dragons, but Moore’s header six minutes from time eased Welsh nerves.
Scotland missed out on Nations League promotion after going down to a 1-0 defeat in Israel.
Manor Solomon scored on the counter-attack a minute before half-time to allow the Czech Republic to leapfrog Scotland and take top spot in Group B2 following their 2-0 win over Slovakia.
Scotland had enjoyed a dangerous spell before the goal and looked threatening immediately after the break but some attack-minded substitutions failed to transmit into chances as Israel held on to their lead.
REUTERS