England under-21 coach Lee Carsley on 'strange' booing of Nottingham Forest loanee Djed Spence from some supporters at Huddersfield

The Middlesbrough defender, part of the Nottingham Forest line-up who beat Town recently in the Championship play-off final at Wembley, was jeered before the game when his name was read out and on several occasions when he was in possession in the first-half in particular in the 2-1 reverse.

Spence - set to complete a permanent big-money move to the Premier League this summer with Tottenham Hotspur said to be leading the chase - and Forest team-mate Jimmy Garner were both jeered by small sections of the 5,236 crowd.

Spence scored an own goal inside the first minute when he glanced a free-kick past Joe Bursik to put Slovenia 1-0 up.

One of the hosts' better players on a forgettable night, the 21-year-old exited the fray on the hour mark.

On the pockets of booing of Spence in particular, Carsley said: "It was strange, to be fair. It was disappointing because he's playing for England and he's not playing for anyone else.

"It's important that when we do have crowds, that they are fully behind us. We have enough of booing when we are away from home.

"It is something that the players, if they are going to play at the highest level, are going to have to get used to."

England, who had sauntered to qualification from the Group G to next summer's finals in Romania and Georgia saw their hopes of an eighth successive win flounder on a disappointing night in their final game of the 2021-22 summer before the summer break.

England started with several players with Yorkshire connections including Leeds United's Charlie Cresswell and Morgan Gibbs-White and Flo Balogun, who had spells on loan last season at Sheffield United and Boro.

Former Huddersfield loanee Emile Smith Rowe started for the Young Lions alongside Jacob Ramsey and Bursik, who had temporary stints earlier in their career at Doncaster Rovers.

Hull City's Keane Lewis-Potter, who had scored his first under-21 goal in the 5-0 win at Kosovo last Friday started from the bench and set up a late consolation for fellow replacement Cameron Archer.

Slovenia had grabbed their second goal midway through the second half, courtesy of a thumping header from Mark Zabukovnik, who was left unmarked as England secured a first home qualification defeat on home soil since a 2-1 reverse to Greece at Doncaster Rovers in March 2010.

Carsley added: "It would have been nice to finish on a high and a brilliant camp that we have had with the performances. But it just leaves a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

"We have spoken about responding to setbacks, not only us as a team, but individually. If they are going to have prolonged careers, they are going to have ups and downs and respond from a defeat and a poor performance and we have got to learn from it.

"Maybe, it was one game too far.

"They (Slovenia) have scored a lot of goals from set-plays and it was important that we made the players aware of that and we went through set-pieces. The first contact is so important and we spoke about us not giving them away. We gave away a free-kick in 40 seconds and conceded from it and it puts you on the back foot.

"It is something that if we want to keep improving and play at a high level, it is really important that we start a game well."