Puzzled Fabregas not impressed by England’s blatantly defensive tactics

The world and European champions were beaten 1-0 despite completely dominating against a side who played almost the entire match with 10 men behind the ball.

Former Arsenal captain Fabregas, who spent eight years in the Barclays Premier League before returning to Barcelona this summer, came off the bench at half-time and missed a glorious chance to snatch a draw late on.

That would arguably have been no more than Spain deserved against a side Fabregas claimed had no intention of attacking their opponents.

“At the end of the day, you want teams to have a go at you and test you and see what happens,” the midfielder said. “We knew, especially after we saw the first XI that they put in, that they were going to defend basically the whole game. Even when they were winning, they had (Danny) Welbeck up front alone and everyone just defending.

“But this is the way they want to play and it worked for them.”

England won the game thanks to a Frank Lampard goal scored after Darren Bent headed James Milner’s free-kick against the post.

Fabregas added: “We dominated the game and we made England defend nearly the whole 90 minutes.

“We played two completely different styles of football.

“The more defensive one won but we know that the only way they could score was from a free-kick or a corner and we conceded a not very intelligent free-kick there.

“We paid for it but, basically, we are happy because we played very well.”

Despite their performance, the defeat was Spain’s fourth in eight friendlies since they won the World Cup last year.

Worryingly, those losses have come against Argentina, Portugal, Italy and now England.

That has left them without even a draw against a top 10 nation since the World Cup.