• England v Germany

Hodgson bemoans lack of England quality

England suffered their second straight loss © PA Photos

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England manager Roy Hodgson has admitted his side lacked the quality to beat Germany in their friendly at Wembley on Tuesday night.

However, the 66-year-old believed the 1-0 loss to Joachim Loew's men was 'harsh' on the Three Lions.

England succumbed to their second straight defeat as Per Mertesacker scored the only goal of the game, leaving Hodgson to bemoan his players' inability to rise to the level of their German opponents.

"I think it was a harsh defeat to be fair but, whether we deserved better [or not], I think we needed better quality tonight," Hodgson told ITV.

"The effort, the work-rate and the desire we put in I can't fault at all but I thought, for all the time we had the ball in the German half, we weren't as efficient with the ball as the Germans were when they had it in our half.

"We had an awful lot of the play, we had some good movement and we got in the positions but, unfortunately, the quality of our passing and our shooting wasn't as good as the Germans and we paid the price at a set-play.

"We knew set-plays were going to be difficult for us with so many big players in their team and we were a small team."

However, Hodgson believes the game was a "positive exercise" just seven months out of next year's World Cup.

"During the game we've used a lot of players," he remarked. "It's been a positive exercise.

"We learned a lot, both positively on some occasions and negatively, but I'm more than disappointed that so many people have come to watch us play in these last two games and we haven't been able to send them home happy with a good result."

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