After this reasonably assured display by England's Under 21s, the question now is how many of these players can impress Gareth Southgate enough before he selects his 23-man squad for the World Cup.

Southgate will probably have to wait until after Tuesday night's European Under 21 Championship qualifier against Ukraine as this wasn't a perfect showing.

Demarai Gray and Jake Clarke-Salter did enough, however, to inflict defeat on a Romania side that never gave up and were rewarded through late goal by Valentin Costache.

The result will provide Aidy Boothroyd's side with a timely reality check but he was pleased with his side's quality in attack.

He said: 'We take lots of lessons out of that but like I say some of our stuff was breathtaking at times.'

Boothroyd is following the FA's philosophy of creative freedom that runs all the way down the age categories. Boothroyd's side also has the belief that they are favourites to win each time they step on the pitch.

Two of his standout performers here were Gray and Ademola Lookman and they combined to create the opener inside 10 minutes.

Lookman passed to the Leicester winger whose powerful strike from outside the area deflected past goalkeeper Ionut Radu.

But while England maintained a fast tempo throughout, they lacked the composure of a side that have over 200 Premier League and Championship appearances between them this season.

It would have been easy to cast Romania as having no chance but that would be wrong. They are top of Group 8 in qualification - above Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal and Wales - and were unbeaten in six ahead of this one. 'We knew they would cause us problems and they did,' Boothroyd said.

There would be couple of concerning moments for England. The worst led to Romania's goal but it could have come sooner when Clarke-Salter and Fikayo Tomori's miscommunication left Andrei Ivan one-on-one with goalkeeper Dean Henderson. Clarke-Salter scrambled back to help Ivan's shot onto the post and away.

Henderson, who is on loan at Shrewsbury from Manchester United, was making his first start for England's Under 21s. The 21-year-old, for the most part, was calm and assured on the ball and did produce two brilliant saves to deny Ivan.

There wasn't much let up for Henderson's opposite number. Radu did well to stop Tammy Abraham's header following Trent Alexander-Arnold's cross but he could only watch as Clarke-Salter headed in off the post after the Liverpool wing back's corner.

England wouldn't come away with a clean sheet after further miscommunication at the back. Henderson came too early for a corner, which he missed and Costache was able to fire in through a crowd of players. James Maddison could have made it 3-1 but his shot in stoppage time went wide.