Marcus Rashford, playing straight down the middle of this makeshift England side, scored again in his country’s colours.
Rashford left behind his troubles at Manchester United and his looming three-game suspension for nutting Phil Bardsley in his last game.
He looks liberated in an England jersey.
Rashford made a point to Jose Mourinho, watching in the Wembley stands whenever he could be bothered to look up from his mobile phone, with his goal against Spain.
Here at the King Power, he followed it up with the winner after 55 minutes.
Rashford was glowing, with his energy and enthusiasm making the difference in a decidedly average England performance.
This was nowhere near good enough, even for the B team.
At the back they were so, so shaky.
Jack Butland, a Championship keeper these days, is another victim of the obsession of being able to play the ball out from the back.
He was nervous, playing his way into trouble when his former Stoke team-mate Xherdan Shaqiri drilled an effort against the post.
It was a let off.
The swagger has gone, with Southgate’s shadow players struggling to make the grade.
Harry Maguire, saluted by Leicester fans when he walked out on his home turf, inexplicably rolled the ball out of play off his studs out on the left.
It was an elementary error, schoolboy stuff from a player England’s head coach seriously believes is one of the best central defenders in the world.
Put it this way, you don’t see Sergio Ramos doing that.
Sure, it is difficult to stitch it all together in an experimental fixture, but England’s players have been training, living and eating together for more than a week.
James Tarkowski struggled to hold his position, frequently caught out by the pace and the precision of Switzerland’s front line.
To his credit, after another error on the edge of the area, he got back in time to make a recovery take on Mario Gavranovic.
A minute later, after a mix-up between Kyle Walker and Tarkwoski, Gavranovic wriggled free of the pair of them.
This time, Butland rescued them.
Ten minutes before the break they nearly went in front when England’s dopey defenders allowed Ricardo Rodriguez’s angled ball to make its way across the box.
The lot of them were static as his effort went just wide of Butland’s post.
On another day, against quality opposition, England would have been three or four down at the break.
They really should have been punished.
The shaft of light was up front, with Rashford’s constant running on either wing causing problems.
He won the free-kick leading to England’s best chance of the first half, with Eric Dier’s stooping header from Trent Alexander-Arnold’s cross skidding wide.
When they finally strung a move together, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Rashford sliced through this Switzerland defence.
Danny Rose, flying in from the left, got on the end of it, but Swiss keeper Yann Sommer was on hand to save.
Rashford got his goal in the end, finishing decisively after Danny Rose’s corner had found its way out to Walker on the right.
By then Rashford had been left unmarked, waiting at the far post for Walker to sling in a cross to steer into the net.
It was another good finish, giving Southgate something to ponder in the weeks before they travel to Croatia and Spain for Nations League matches.
He has to start up front with Kane now.
Southgate knows that and it is his job to mould a system to get the best out of them playing together.
This was a sketchy England performance, a long way short of the standards they set when they reached the World Cup semi-final in July.
John Stones, sent on in the second half to spare Tarkowski, made an excellent challenge on Shaqiri when that Swiss menace was about to pull the trigger.
Southgate turned to some more experience to see it out, to end this three game losing run by bringing on some more big names.
Jesse Lingard, Jordan Henderson and Kane all came on to make sure England won for the first time since the beat Sweden in Samara in the World Cup quarter-final.
Even so, the venue appealed to Southgate’s sentimental side when he sent on Ben Chilwell ten minutes from the end to make his England debut.
He left the field to the cheers of Leicester locals, probably wondering just how he came to be part of a winning team.
For that, he can thank Rashford.
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