England’s 4-0 victory over Hungary in Budapest was marred by missiles being thrown at Raheem Sterling by home supporters and reports of monkey-chants during the World Cup qualifier.

Sterling opened the scoring in the 55th minute at the Ferenc Puskas Arena and celebrated by revealing a T-shirt with the message “Love you forever Steffie Greg” in tribute to his friend who died of Covid-19 earlier this week. But the Manchester City forward was then pelted with plastic drinks thrown by a section of the crowd, with UK broadcasters ITV reporting that Sterling and Borussia Dortmund’s Jude Bellingham had also been subjected to monkey chants during the second half.

Journalists from the BBC also confirmed that they had heard monkey chants, although Sterling’s teammate John Stones admitted he had been told about it afterwards.

“It’s so sad to think about that this happens at our games,” he said. “I hope Uefa or whoever needs to take care of it does. We stand together as a team and did do before the game and we will continue fighting for what we believe in as a team and what we think is right.”

Manager Gareth Southgate also said he had not been made aware of any racist chanting during the game.

“It was definitely an incredible atmosphere and in a football sense the players kept the crowd quiet,” he said. “I have heard reports of racism and we were not aware of that during the game. I am not sure we were particularly sensible celebrating right in front of their fans with the flare but the racism is the key part. We try to take a right stand, we knew taking the knee would get an adverse reaction and anything of that nature is unacceptable.”

With no away fans in attendance, the jeers that had earlier met England’s players taking the knee before kick-off in the now-familiar stance against racism and discrimination was deafening. Hungary’s fans have been given a two-game stadium ban by Uefa for racist and homophobic behaviour at the Euro 2020 finals and will serve it when the Nations League kicks off next summer. However, as a World Cup qualifier this match was played under the aegis of Fifa so the ban did not apply.

Goals from Harry Kane, Harry Maguire and Declan Rice secured a comfortable win for England as they strengthened their chances of qualifying for next year’s World Cup in Qatar.