Overpriced England Under-21s offer little hope for the future

Sweden 0 England 1. For 85 minutes it was another appalling England performance at an international football tournament. No energy, no inspiration and little intelligence, until that is a corner on 85 minutes was hammered home by Jesse Lingard from the edge of the Sweden area. It was a crisp strike from the Manchester United midfielder, just about the only highlight in a 90 minutes that reduced most observers to numbed indifference.

Still a win is a win, so they say, and England's 1-0 victory over Sweden ends their five match losing streak at the Under-21 European Championships, a sorry tale of failure that stretches back to 2009. Will England go on and win the 2015 tournament? If they do then Europe's young football talent must be in a worse state than the Greek economy.

For coach Gareth Southgate there were precious few plus points – apart from Lingard's shot – to take from this encounter.

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Coming on the back of last week's 1-0 defeat to Portugal, the results does at least mean England are still in the competition although their final pool game, on Wednesday, is a difficult tie against Italy, who held Portugal to a goalless draw on Sunday night. That leaves the Portuguese topping the pool on four points with England and Sweden on three each and Italy with one point.

The quality of England's performance in the Czech Republic was unfortunate, coming as it did on the same day the former captain of the senior team – Rio Ferdinand – ridiculed the going rate for young English talent in the Premier League.

"English players are so overpriced right now it's a joke," said the former Manchester United defender, his comments prompted no doubt by reports that Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane are both being valued at £50m by their respective clubs – despite the fact neither has proved himself on the international stage.

Kane against Sweden on Sunday was virtually anonymous, and he didn't even contribute after the match - it was left to Lingard to trot out the all-too familiar line about a gutsy England performance, while overlooking the glaring technical deficiencies. "The lads worked hard today, we knew we needed a win" he said. "We had the team spirit and heart to win the game and we showed we can grind games out."

It was a similar message from Southgate, who praised his side's "nerve" and "resilience" but had little else to say, other than: "We looked a bit leggy and the pitch was slow so that meant the ball was sticky but we needed to shift the ball more quickly to unsettle them."