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Aidy Boothroyd content with England Under-21s’ point against Poland

Boothroyd’s side drew 1-1 with Poland on Thursday night.

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England Under-21 boss Aidy Boothroyd admitted his team can improve but insisted he was satisfied with their draw with Poland.

Sebastian Szymanski’s brilliant free-kick cancelled out Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s early opener in a 1-1 draw in Bristol.

England face Germany in Bournemouth on Tuesday in their final friendly before their Euro 2019 squad is announced.

But despite failing to win, Boothroyd was happy with the Ashton Gate workout.

He said: “I thought it was really satisfying because the games against Poland and Germany were always going to be more difficult games than what we’ve had.

“You can see why Poland are unbeaten and why they score goals; their set-pieces are very good. They’re a strong, tall, physical team.

“It was up to us to break them down. Although I thought we played some fantastic stuff, just the final ball was not quite right.

“We could quite easily have scored two or three goals in the first half. We were lacking that little bit of composure right at the end.”

Calvert-Lewin tapped in after Reiss Nelson rounded goalkeeper Kamil Grabara after 13 minutes.

But Legia Warsaw’s Szymanski curled into the top corner from 30 yards 11 minutes before the break to level with England failing to put a wall up.

Boothroyd said: “I was really surprised (there was no wall). More than surprised you know because of the size of their team, obviously the players decided they thought it was going to get flipped over to the far post where all the big guys were.

“And we ended up not having a wall and it was almost a free shot on goal. I was very disappointed with that but it’s one of those things we can put right straight away.”

Jonjoe Kenny hit the post for England and Hamza Choudhury curled wide but they were left frustrated.

Boothroyd added: “We weren’t great in terms of our defensive set-plays. I think their goal was an example of that but thankfully they’re the easiest things to put right.”

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