OUR MATCH REPORT

Sven Goran Eriksson has taken some stick for arranging this friendly against Holland before the Premiership has even kicked off but he defended his decision saying it was an important get together for his squad before the crucial World Cup qualifier against Germany on September 1st.

The player making all the headlines in the days before the game Bayern Munich's midfielder Owen Hargreaves made his debut, Robbie Fowler and Andy Cole both the subject of transfer speculation during the week started up front.

The game was delayed for fifteen minutes because huge amounts of fans were late getting into White Hart Lane.

When the game finally did kick-off it was Holland that started the better and a expertly timed challenge by Arsenal's Martin Keown stopped Van Nistelrooy on 6 minutes and Van Nistelrooy should have scored moments later after breaking the offside trap but his effort was well blocked by Martyn.

Holland's passing was top quality and England were struggling to come to terms with the pace of the game in the first quarter of an hour.

A long-range effort from Paul Scholes on 22 minutes was England's only real threat in the early stages.

Holland should have had a penalty on 26 minutes after Ashley Cole's wild challenge on Cocu but luckily the referee turned down the appeals from the Dutch.

England's best football of the game on 33 minutes produced two goalscoring opportunities, Hargreaves found Ashley Cole down the left and the Arsenal man's cross found Andy Cole in the Dutch box, Cole tried to make room for a shot and when he succeeded his effort was clumsily cleared by van de Sar and found it's way into the path of Gary Neville who produced a great save from the Dutch keeper.

The a minute that changed the game - Holland took the lead shortly afterwards with a stunning strike from Van Bommel that swerved viciously into the top corner of the net from 36 yards out, a great strike similar to Figo's goal against England in Euro 2000. England were stunned seconds later when Van Nistelrooy added the second after Martyn parried Zenden's shot.

Holland were now in complete control and surged forward, Van Nistelrooy hit the bar with a cheeky chip that had Martyn well beaten.

As arranged before the game both sides made big changes in the second half.

Holland started the second half as they ended the first and substitute Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was prevented from making it 3-0 by a good stop from David James, who unfortunately injured himself in a collision with Martin Keown making the save and had to go off after only playing for one minute. Arsenal keeper Richard Wright became the third England goalkeeper of the night. Keown also injured himself in the collision and was replaced by Ugo Ehiogu.

With so many changes on both sides the second half fizzled out and it looked a bit like a training match at times.

Holland were the better side in the first half, the second half was even and quickly forgettable.

PRESS MATCH REPORTS

AFTER MATCH COMMENTS

Striker Michael Owen added: "Any defeat is disappointing. Holland were good but we're not interested in them. We can't play much worse so if we played them again I'm sure we'd do much better. But in the same way that we don't get over excited about beating Mexico 4-0, we're not going to get over excited about losing to Holland"