Right back Glenn Johnson scored the best goal of the game in England\’s 3-1 victory over Mexico at Wembley last night.
So he got Man of the Match.
But England\’s best players were two who didn’t play : Joe Cole and Gareth Barry. We’ll find out today if Barry will be fit for the World Cup.
Capello thinks that if he plays Lampard and Gerrard, he has to play Barry in a holding role. Barry is a keep-ball player, one-paced but solid. He had a rubbish season at Manchester City and then injured his ankle against Spurs. He has started 19 of Capello’s 23 games.
England\’s shape was bad in the first half, better in the second. We led 2-1 at half-time after Carlos Vela missed two sitters. A striker would have scored.
As the bionic eye of the electronic TV camera closed in on Fabio Capello, his face registered deep concern. He was thinking : I\’ve gotta win the World Cup with this lot?
It was the usual story : they played the football, we scored the goals.
Both supplied by Gerrard. Crouch headed his left wing corner to the unmarked Ledley King, who nodded home in 17. When Gerrard crossed after short corner, Rooney\’s header was too straight, Perez, their five foot seven inch goalkeeper parried on to the bar, and as the six foot seven Crouch challenged, the dropping ball rolled in off Crouch\’s arm for 2-0.
Left back Leighton Baines headed a ball off the line but only to Franco, who hit the ball in off Baines for 2-1 at half-time.
Second half, England pressed harder and further up, as Capello had told them to.
Aaron Lennon came on and looked better than the clueless Walcott.
During the last three weeks, thinking about England, and considering my decades at Wembley as a football reporter for The Scotsman, from 1982 onwards, I had three thoughts.
1. We only play well when we have a half-striker like Beardsley or Sheringham.
Without a half-striker, we always have too many white shirts running away from the ball, not enough players running towards the ball. Venables solved that problem but his team was unfit and slow and was outplayed by Roy Hodgson\’s Switzerland in the first game of Euro 96. I wasn\’t there for that game but I saw Holland (4-1) and Germany (lost on penalties)
2. Of our 23 players, 20 are one-dimensional.
Only Rooney, Ashley Cole and Joe Cole are not one-dimensional. I hope he takes SWP, who can improvise and score, but that seems unlikely now, according to pressmen close to the team.
3. We will struggle to score in open play.
Those were the things I\’ve been thinking about in recent weeks. That\’s what I\’ve been saying to friends for the last three weeks. I haven\’t been reading or talking about the 30 and the 23, I\’ve just been thinking about those three themes.
England play Japan on ITV at 1pm on Sunday.
With the Chelsea players back in the team, we’ll be better than we were last night.
More on England later at 2pm. I have to go out now.