Peacock commented: “I think it was an excellent game of football. We said at the beginning that we were going to play three very good teams this week. In my experience, and I’ve been doing it eleven years now, it’s probably one of the best Portuguese sides I’ve seen for a number of years. It was a real big test for us this evening.
“Obviously we didn’t get off to the brightest start. We didn’t quite get to grips with it for those first 15 minutes when we didn’t really have the ball, but after that I thought we grew into it really well.”
England face Turkey on Friday, and Peacock emphasised how important it is that his young squad put the opening game disappointment behind them.
“The important bit is to ultimately try and win the games, get a bit of confidence back; see what the reaction is like from the 18 players tonight, hopefully get a result from the game against Turkey on Friday and then see what happens on Sunday.
“But for me it’s about a learning curve for the players, it’s a learning curve for me about the team. It’s knowing what we’re doing well, what we’re not doing well and how we can improve – and we’ll learn those lessons this week.“
Meanwhile, England scorer Patrick Roberts expressed his delight in ending his recent goal drought.
“I’m very happy with the goal, because I haven’t scored in quite a few games so it was nice to get a goal. I just try to play my best for the team, and if that works well for me then that’s great.
“We worked well together with some good link up play, we should really have got more but that’s the game. Two more games to go though.”
England have the opportunity to put things right on Friday when they take on Turkey with a 7:30pm kick-off at the Pirelli Stadium. They then return to the home of Burton Albion to face Italy this coming Sunday with a 3pm kick-off.
Tickets are priced at just £1.50 adults and £1 concessions for the matches with tickets available in advance from the Club Shop or by calling the Ticket Office on 01283 565938 and can also be purchased on the day of each game.