Tottenham goalkeeper David Button endured a personal horror story as England opened their European Under-19 Championship campaign in the worst possible manner with defeat to hosts Czech Republic.

Button gifted the Czechs their opener and with striker Tomas Necid adding a second shortly afterwards, England were unable to force their way back into the match even though the hosts finished the contest with only nine men in Strelnice.

It leaves Brian Eastick's side requiring victory against Italy on Thursday to retain any realistic hope of making the knock-out stage of a tournament they began with such high hopes.

Although England allowed themselves to be dominated by a physically stronger Czech side, Eastick's side were starting to impose themselves when catastrophe struck nine minutes after the restart.

Button appeared to have the situation under control as Martin Zeman launched a long ball forward.

Unfortunately, the young goalkeeper misread the bounce, allowing Necid to close in on his attempted clearance, then tap into an empty net after the charge down had fallen at his feet.

Within four minutes, Necid struck again, with Zeman providing the opportunity from a corner England's defence failed to deal with.

Although the Three Lions ended the game facing only nine men following the dismissals of Jakub Heidenreich and Roman Brunclick there was a woeful lack of invention from England.

Manchester City's Daniel Sturridge came close with a couple of free-kicks but it was difficult to gain any comfort from that and with Scott Sinclair among those who failed to make any impression, Eastick has some tough decisions ahead of the Italy clash, where defeat will send England out.

Afterwards Eastick refused to blame Button.

He said: "Mistakes happen.

"David is an excellent young goalkeeper who has kept an awful lot of clean sheets for us and made a fantastic save in the first half to keep us level in the first place.

"I am not putting the blame at his door. It is a collective failure and we just didn't show enough."

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