England v Spain: international friendly – live!

45 min: There will be two added minutes of this first half.

44 min: Carvajal rolls a fine ball down the right to release Vitolo into a pocket of space. He reaches the byline and pulls a low one back for Silva, who has a chance to shoot but miscontrols, and it’s gone. Spain have been mediocre going forward.

42 min: Rose steals the ball brilliantly off a dawdling Vitolo in the centre circle. He lays off to Lingard, who in turn shuttles the ball down the inside left for Vardy. But the chance to release the striker into the area is gone when the pass is undercooked. Fine pressing by Rose, though. “With no poppies and no Rooney and a disappointing early lead too, can you suggest what I should be outraged about please?” asks Gary Naylor. “I don’t want to wait until the phone-ins as I could be tweeting now.”

39 min: Sterling looks on his game generally, though. Once more he races into space down the left, and his low cross nearly finds Vardy in the middle. Nacho slides in to hack out for a corner on the right. From the set piece, Vardy tries to guide one into the top left from 12 yards, but the ball is never quite under control and he scoops it harmlessly wide left. England look very lively in attack.

37 min: Space for Sterling down the left. He whips a low cross towards the quiet Lingard in the centre. Martinez slides in to deflect the ball left of goal, out for a corner. No challenge, and that would have been a simple tap-in. The resulting corner on the left leads to a free kick on the right. Henderson’s dink into the box is only half cleared, but Sterling over-elaborates on the edge of the Spanish area and is dispossessed. He looks relieved as Silva and Vitolo fail to piece a counter-attack together.

35 min: This has been a bright, entertaining match, so it’s been long overdue a lull. Here it is!

32 min: Make that three bookings! Walcott goes into the ref’s notebook for a cynical slide that stops Azpilicueta bursting down the Spanish left. The free kick’s swung into the box and dealt with easily enough by the home defence.

30 min: A couple of bookings, at last! Sterling sees yellow for crumping his boot on top of Aduriz’s foot; he can have no complaints, it wasn’t a good challenge. Then Martinez cyncially brings down Walcott as the England sub looks to zip into a lot of space down the right. He can’t moan either. But it’s nice to see the referee didn’t forget his entire kit and caboodle tonight.

28 min: Aduriz is afforded a little time and space in a central position, 30 yards from goal. He slips a pass along the slight diagonal towards Vitolo, racing down the inside-right channel and into the box. Too heavy; goal kick. Had that been better weighted, England were in all sorts of trouble.

27 min: Clyne fannies around on the halfway line, allowing Silva to steal the ball off him and tear clear down the left wing. Not much wrong with the challenge, but Silva is penalised for pulling the England full-back to the ground. That’s a generous decision.

25 min: Lallana goes down and rolls his socks around his ankles. Penny for his and Liverpool’s thoughts, with a visit back to his old club Southampton scheduled for the weekend. He walks off, limping lightly but not looking super concerned. Though time will obviously tell. Walcott will come on in his stead.

23 min: Thiago takes a heavy touch while faffing around out on the Spanish left. The busy Lallana nips off with the loose ball, and is brought down by the errant Spaniard for his trouble. That should be a booking, really. Like Vardy and Reina before him, Thiago can count himself rather lucky.

20 min: Sterling makes off down the left and wins the first corner of the game. Henderson takes short, then a pass is shuttled back down the field to Rose, whose cross is no good. Within seconds, the ball’s back at the feet of Hart. Not ideal, but England are a work in progress after all.

17 min: Vardy has been right off the boil so far this season, but he looks back to his title-winning best right now. He skates down the left and very nearly executes a sharp one-two with Sterling. Not quite, but he’d have been in a dangerous area had that little caper come off. It’s a nice, bright, expansive start by England, the players running free, scampering like joyous pups in a Christmas ad. I wonder if Roy Hodgson is watching?

15 min: Spain finally put something together. Mata slides a pass down the right for Aduriz, who breaks into the area and pulls the ball back towards the penalty spot for Vitolo. Vitolo has time to take a touch, but having made space drags a woefully weak effort wide left of the target. But that was super-smooth. England were opened up there with some ease.

13 min: Spain look a little rattled. Times change, huh. Vardy looks to break with purpose down the left, but Carvajal sticks to his task. Just for a second, though, the visitors were light at the back.

11 min: And all of a sudden, Spain’s confident passing becomes slightly ragged. Carvajal loses the ball in the middle of the park. Lallana looks to slide Rose clear down the left, but he was standing half a yard offside when he received the ball in the first place. As Lallana is playing with bags of confidence right now. A very different player from the one who struggled in his first year at Anfield.

6 min: Spain continue to pass it round quite a lot. Vitolo cuts in from the left and looks for Azpilicueta. Vardy slides in to intercept, and it’s a pretty robust challenge with his studs up. He gets the ball and clears, but he also crumps those studs on Azpilicueta’s shin. That’s a nasty one, but the contact was accidental. Looks like the Spanish full-back will be OK. Vardy gets a quiet talking-to from the referee. The resulting free kick is a waste of time and energy.

3 min: England haven’t really had a touch yet. A lot of tippy tappy at the back. But breaking news! There’s method in this patient tactic. Who’d have thought? Carvajal strides down the right and floats a ball towards the far post for Silva. Hart comes off his line to claim well, because for a second it looked like the ball would land on Silva’s nut, whereupon it would be wheeched into the net with some purpose.

And we’re off! Spain get the ball rolling. Aduriz has the honour, and he knocks it back towards Mata. There’s 20 seconds of tiki-taka at the back, then Martinez launches it long. Too long. Hart gathers. A slightly muted atmosphere at Wembley, incidentally, a result of Spain only bringing 500 fans with them.

The teams are out! England are playing in their classic white shirts with powder blue epaulettes, while Spain sport their furious red. An aesthetic delight. Anthems are blaring, hands will be given a good old shake. We’ll be off in a minute! Meantime, here’s Hubert O’Hearn: “God love him, but Gareth Southgate reminds me of the nice man at the funeral parlour who helps you pick out the hymns.” Ah, the glorious tingle of pre-match excitement! Can’t you just taste it?

Gareth Southgate speaks! And here’s why he hasn’t made an excessive amount of changes from the Scotland game. “I’m looking for stability. If you’re a player coming into the side, it’s good to have some consistency around you; it gives them the best chance of succeeding. We’re also still building how we want to play, so that continuity is important. Marcus Rashford is a player we think a lot of, and his time will come, but tonight I wanted to give Jamie Vardy a run. Adam Lallana’s technical ability with the ball is outstanding, he’s a leader in how we want to press, and he’ll set the tone in that. We have a young team who are keen to press, and are keen to show what they can do with the ball. We won’t have all the possession, but that’s the challenge.”

Meanwhile here’s the Spanish starting XI: Reina, Carvajal, Martinez, Nacho, Azpilicueta, Mata, Busquets, Thiago, Vitolo, Aduriz, Silva.

David Silva of Manchester City makes it despite struggling with a toe injury. Napoli goalkeeper Jose Reina, once of Liverpool, gets his first start in a couple of years ahead of Manchester United octopus David de Gea. And up front, the veteran Aritz Aduriz replaces Alvaro Morata. The selection of Aduriz is a lovely little story, and it’s one told here by our very own Sid Lowe:

It completes an astonishing 10-day period for the Athletic Bilbao striker. He became the first Spaniard to score five goals in a game for half a century in Athletic’s 5-3 win over Genk on the same night that he became a father for the second time. He then came on as a substitute and scored for Spain against Macedonia – aged 35 years 275 days. That saw him break José María Peña’s Spanish record, which had stood since 1930.
It was only Aduriz’s second goal for his country, having gone almost six years without a call-up between his first cap in October 2010 and his return in February 2016, after his goalscoring record improved following his 30th birthday. Although he went to Euro 2016, Aduriz did not make Lopetegui’s first squad but was called up for these two fixtures. The Spain manager called him an “example”.

Here’s tonight’s England starting XI: Hart, Clyne, Rose, Cahill, Stones, Dier, Sterling, Henderson, Lingard, Lallana, Vardy.

So Gareth Southgate makes three changes to the side that saw off that shower masquerading as Scotland. Jamie Vardy, Nathaniel Clyne and Jesse Lingard are welcomed to the team, replacing Daniel Sturridge, Kyle Walker and The Grove’s Wayne Rooney respectively.

Yes, we’ve got here far too early, haven’t we. Nothing much to do, other than read the match programme. Here, FA chairman Greg Clarke’s written a piece for it! Yes, I know, you should have stayed for another pint, there was plenty of time. But we’re here now. So here’s it.

While the result is always important, tonight might also be an opportunity for one or two players to stake a claim at international level.
Certainly, no one knows the nation’s young talent better than Gareth Southgate after a year to remember at development team level.

Actually, there’s still over an hour until kick-off. Plenty of time to nip back out for another quick swallow. Go on. I’ll finish this off, and I’ll still be here when you get back.

We began our senior action for the year with a game in Germany last March and that thrilling 3-2 victory against the reigning world champions was cause for plenty of justified optimism.
We will continue to seek to measure ourselves against the leading nations, as we also did here a year ago this month when we came out 2-0 winners over France on an emotional night.
Of course, those results fuelled optimism for Euro 2016 and we will always look back on the past 12 months with a sense of what might have been.
I was there in France as a fan and, like everyone, was disappointed with how the tournament went, given our qualification record and the talent we undoubtedly possess.
It is definitely a case of looking forward now and we will sit down after this fixture to consider our options with regard to the England manager position, and with full gratitude to Gareth and his staff for their work.