Leading by example: Steven Gerrard continued to lead the team with a typically buccaneering performance

They may not have deserved it in terms of the game but it seemed poetic justice for Mertens. The spiky PSV player had turned a passive occasion into a grudge match by needlessly shoving Cahill in the back and causing him to fall into Hart, receiving a bang on the jaw and departing in clear pain.

Mertens got a yellow card for his trouble and England were provoked into a response, Glen Johnson was booked for a revenge tackle on Mertens and Parker followed him by going in high on Vertonghen, likely to be his team-mate at Tottenham next season.

Belgium displayed the prettier football, challenging England by playing without an orthodox centreforward, often leaving the mobile Hazard as their most advanced man.

With Joleon Lescott on for Cahill, it was left to Terry to organise the defence, and his interception to stop Kevin Mirallas running on to Fellaini’s pass was the Chelsea skipper at his best, until he too succumbed 20 minutes from the end when he felt his hamstring tightening.

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