England vs Portugal reaction: 'We looked good,' insists manager Roy Hodgson despite frustrating performance

England 1 Portugal 0: Hodgson insists he remains positive despite limp display at Wembley

Roy Hodgson shakes Wayne Rooney's hand after substituting his captain against Portugal (Getty)

Roy Hodgson insisted England ‘looked good’ in their final Euro 2016 warm-up friendly against Portugal, despite taking 86 minutes to overcome their ten-man opponents in an uninspiring 1-0 victory at Wembley.

Chris Smalling’s first international goal, four minutes from full-time, extended England’s winning run to three games ahead of the Group B opener against Russia in Marseille on June 11.

But a unconvincing performance, epitomised by the failure of Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane to influence the game from unfamiliar roles on the flanks, dampened expectations in the build-up to the tournament.

Despite England’s struggle to overcome their opponents, who played with ten men following the 35th minute dismissal of Bruno Alves, Hodgson insisted he was happy with his team’s display.

"I'm not prepared to accept that we didn't play well,” Hodgson said. “We looked good, we had composure throughout the game, but it would have been better to play against eleven.

“We never looked like conceding a goal and I'm not prepared to add my voice to the debate (about the performance.)

“I'm not prepared to stand here and criticise some players. If I start being dissaitisfied with three wins against Australia, Turkey and Portugal I'm going to be a hard coach to satisfy.”

England’s attacking edge was blunted, however, by Vardy and Kane being starved of service in Hodgson’s diamond formation, which saw Wayne Rooney move into a centre forward role.

But Hodgson claimed Vardy and Kane had to drift wide in order to protect England’s defence.

“We played with split strikers,” Hodgson said. “You need your strikers to split.

“If you play with them with Rooney central as well, you can't defend the wide areas.

Chris Smalling is mobbed his his England team-mates (Getty)

“There were some moments where you might be right and they were too wide, but their job is to split and come together.

“If you play with a man in behind them, you have to make sure he has space in which to run.

“But I don't intend to tell you what I think of what worked and what didn't. The players worked hard to keep their shape and build attacks.

“It is our third win and one against a Portugal team ranked higher than us in the Fifa rankings, so there is no reason to be dissatisfied.”

England travel to France having won four of their last five games, including a 3-2 victory against world champions Germany in Berlin.

And Hodgson believes that the positives from the winning run outweigh any negatives from the lack of style in victory against Portugal.

“You never suffer from winning matches,” Hodgson said. “You suffer from defeats and it's good that we haven't sailed through the matches.

“Each has posed us some problems and shown us some areas we would still like to improve upon and work upon.

“In the two and a half weeks together it's been a very intensive time, and the players have been excellent in the way they've buckled down, working hard to improve the shape of our team,

“So we'll go to France reasonably confident we can keep this going, but also knowing we're not the finished article.

“But I'm not sure how many teams are the finished article.

“Still, had we won the last three games 4-0, there'd have been a lot of pressure on a young team with people saying we're going to win it now.”