World Cup qual. - England see off Kazakhstan

Eurosport - Mon, 13 Oct 12:37:00 2008

England beat Kazakhstan 5-1 in a World Cup Group 6 qualifier at Wembley but Fabio Capello's side produced a poor display and were humiliated when the visitors scored.

Wayne Rooney found the net twice as England secured the third straight win of their bid to reach South Africa in 2010, but Italian Capello must reflect on a largely listless, complacent performance.

After a goalless first half, Rio Ferdinand headed England ahead on 52 minutes before Alexandr Kuchma's own-goal made it two.

Zhambyl Kukeyev, astonishingly, pulled one back on 68 minutes after a mind-boggling error by Ashley Cole, before Rooney made the result safe with a glancing header and a close-range tap-in. Subsitute Jermain Defoe added a fifth late on.

If England turned a corner when they beat Croatia 4-1 in Zagreb, they slammed the car into reverse and went back where they came from with this performance.

In Zagreb, England were like dervishes, snapping into tackles and attacking with speed and verve.

This was as flat a performance as England have produced under any of their last three managers - totally devoid of urgency, dynamism or finesse for 70 minutes.

Only Theo Walcott posed an English threat in the first half; not afraid to turn on his pace to get behind Kazakh left-back Alexandr Kirov.

However, other than in the third minute when he found Emile Heskey, whose effort was blocked, the Kazakh penalty area was notable for the almost complete absence of white shirts.

Capello partially rectified the situation at half-time when he brought Shaun Wright-Phillips on for Gareth Barry.

Although it remains a mystery why anyone would bank on a Frank Lampard-Steven Gerrard central midfield partnership after so many years of failure.

Early in the second half, left-back Cole found himself caught woefully out of position early in the second half, allowing Sabyrkhan Ibrayev to cross from the right.

Luckily for England, Sergey Ostapenko failed to get hold of his downward header and the otherwise excellent debutant Tanat Nusserbayev skied the rebound, but it was the best chance of the first 50 minutes for either side.

Three minutes later relief coursed around Wembley when Ferdinand headed England in front thanks to some poor defending from the visitors.

Lampard curled in a routine corner from the left, Alexandr Mokin missed his punch and Ferdinand met the ball with a firm header without even jumping.

Far from inspiring England to greater things, the goal encouraged yet more complacency and uncertainty.

On the hour mark, Lampard played a corner to Gerrard at the edge of the box. Had he been playing for Liverpool, Gerrard would have smashed the ball into the top corner without thinking. But this is England, and he switched feet several times before losing possession in abject fashion.

To their credit, England did create a second goal on 64 minutes - again from a Lampard set piece - as Kuchma glanced Lampard's free-kick into the top-left corner of his own net with unfortunate aplomb.

Then Cole produced his party piece, lobbing a showy, reckless pass across the face of the English defence. Kukeyev could hardly believe his luck as he ran onto the ball, steadied himself and fired into the bottom-left corner.

As England threatened to fall apart, Rooney finally asserted himself. With 15 minutes remaining he found himself alone in the penalty box and headed a Wes Brown corner precisely into the corner.

Then, as time ran down, he pounced after Kazakhstan failed to deal with a free-kick delivery from David Beckham.

There was still time for Jermain Defoe to add further gloss to the scoreline, running through alone and slotting past Mokin from the edge of the box.

Ukraine 0-0 Croatia

England received another boost when Ukraine and Croatia cancelled each other out in a drab qualifier in Kiev.

Oleksiy Mykhaylichenko's men had won their opening two encounters but now sit two points behind Fabio Capello's men.

The result leaves top-seeded Croatia five points off the top of the table, although they can expect maximum points when they play Andorra on Wednesday.

Alex Chick / Eurosport

Comment 206 - 225 of 245

Sort comments by: Most recent

  1. Why dont we take up tiddlywinks as our national sport and turn all the Football stadiums into places we can all gather just to moan about how @#$% we are at everything.
    Vivre le futbollix

    From , on Sun 12 Oct 11:25AM

  2. How about we just get behind our natinal team, 9 points from 9, 11 goals in three games. stop complaining. Its sad but i prefer going to away matches now, theres no booing as its the real dedicated fans that go!!! And theres nothing wrong with the band, they make away games.

    From fergie6505, on Sun 12 Oct 11:22AM

  3. I'm just so saddened....Like a lot of supporters, I lost faith in us ever achieving anything again, but to read the rubbish that is being written by the press, and the comments of some 'supporters'....I'm speechless...England...OUR team...have scored 9 goals in 2 games....are unbeaten in this qualiying campaign so far, and we have a world class manager who's only just begun to build a new team. So what if Cole made one or two mistakes....the team won ! A team that not so long ago would have been beaten by Croatia and struggled against kazahkstan....We're making progress...so please please can we just get behind our team and support and encourage them to go onto greater things!

    From SIV, on Sun 12 Oct 11:13AM

  4. Well, was an overall poor performance but the important thing is they won. Playing well below your ability and scoring 5 cant be a bad thing. One thing I have to mention is what a transformation when Beckham entered the frame, the difference was unreal, everything just seemed to flow and all the players heads lifted. England needs Beckham without a shadow of a doubt. Beckham is still one of the best players in the world.

    From martyn, on Sun 12 Oct 11:13AM

  5. The behaviour of the England 'fans' just reinforces my belief that the national stadium should never have been built in London. Those 'fans' who turn up at Wembley, past and present, have always been a hindrance to the team; the team should return to the provinces, especially the Northern provinces, where they will recieve proper support. There always seems to be this London club rivalry whenever England play at Wembley - childish and pathetic; and as for that band, who lets those clowns in!

    From cameron w, on Sun 12 Oct 11:08AM

  6. Tiffany C glad your not England manager, drop Gerrard to the bench!!! the result and its one result against Croatia, the result wasn't down to Lampard and Barry together it was down to the formation and the performance of Walcott unfortunatly he didn't re-produce it last night, last nights game second half in midfield did work with Lampard and Gerrard because Gerrard having the better footballing brain dropped back into midfield when Lampard went forward some Lampard dosen't be able to do, nearly every England attack last night came from the excellent passing of Gerrard so come on if your going to comment get real!!

    From john g, on Sun 12 Oct 11:06AM

  7. I've read through a lot of the comments on here and I am a little confused! I'm pretty sure it was the same set of fans that said that if England were able to win a world cup playing ugly they would take it! When Cappello was appointed it was pretty obvious to any football fan with knowledge what would happen to the team - They would play Italian style football! For those of you who only see Italian teams play when the 'big four' play them in Europe, this means slow, patient, defensive, building from the back, possesion football. England dominated the play yesterday and only conceeded from an uncharacteristic mistake! Like Italian teams with good forwards they took their chances when they came. Cappello is a very good coach and gets his teams to win. Personally I thought England would win their first three qualifiers but by playing slow boring football and winning each 1 or 2 nill. Which I would have been happy with! So to score nine in two games makes me a very happy man! It means the players are doing exactly what Cappello wants, and probably a bit more! Get behind your team guys, they're winning, and the improvements Cappello's made can only benifit us when we come up against the Brazils and Spains of this world!

    From Jay, on Sun 12 Oct 11:04AM

  8. how can capello keep overlooking one of the best midfielders in prem ashley young!!!
    he has won player of the month again and is just as good if not better crosser of the ball then anyone in team at the minute and can also take on his man and score goals
    yet capello picks average players like downing ahead of the boy

    From stewart, on Sun 12 Oct 10:56AM

  9. Fabio is turning out like Kevin Keegan, he is not the Messiah that everyone thought he would be.He is proving just as tactically inept as George Burley.

    What the English FA need is a coach that isn't afraid of telling Lampard, Gerard, Beckham, James etc that they are no longer up to it and their international days are over.

    Come on, an England team with a pompey player in it is always doomed!!

    From Braveheart, on Sun 12 Oct 10:45AM

  10. what a gud manager u are tiffany...well i hope u will do well in ur championship manager 2008 with ur england team...no hard feelingz

    From gunsamang, on Sun 12 Oct 10:44AM

  11. play barry and lampard in middle again and drop gerrard to bench he is @#$% in an england shirt 9 times out of 10 stick with what worked in zargreb come on england and postman pat cappello

    From TIFFANY C, on Sun 12 Oct 10:35AM

  12. its seems to me that these english fans r just bein ungrateful. a good team is a team that wins no matter what, if it comes with good football, excellent but if it doesn't then....good game, we can do better. whats with the booin. not good for d players in any way. pls pple try nd b grateful.

    From WAHU, on Sun 12 Oct 10:25AM

  13. Who's forgetting all those times that Ashley Cole saved Englands a r s e by clearing certain goals right off the line, huh? Come on, who's forgetting that then?

    From POTTER, on Sun 12 Oct 10:23AM

  14. You lot make me laugh. If England went on the win the World Cup, but won the final by only 1 goal, you would all be spending your time slating them instead of celebrating. Think about it, 3 qualifying games out of 3 won, not a bad start

    From POTTER, on Sun 12 Oct 10:20AM

  15. You are forgetting something, the poor performance was all down to Borat, yes Sasha Baron Cohen. You see he suggested that all Kazak women are prostitutes, so their team had to get back at England in defence of their wives and girlfriends. The best they could do was to keep the England score down to only 5 goals. If it wasn't for Sasha England would have scored about 10. Up Ali G

    From POTTER, on Sun 12 Oct 10:18AM

  16. Great performance

    From Daniel, on Sun 12 Oct 10:15AM

  17. If only Ashley Cole could kick with his right foot as well as his left, he could have cleared the ball instead of kicking it across his own goal. How can the so called best left back in the world only be able to use one foot? Like many other over-paid players, he is too lazy to practice practice practice to improve this essential element of his game. What do coaches do when they train these players?

    From geoffholtham, on Sun 12 Oct 10:10AM

  18. leading 2up and made that mistake was terrible....in malaysia we call that kap-sit....scoring 5 was excellent...even the journalists were predicting 3-0/4-0 and now they're complaining 5-1 that is somehow ridiculous...but i can understand y people were complaining coz they have so high expectation for england coz england is actually a very,very good team...but dont forget no team like to be beaten 10-0 and team like kazahkstan will defend n try all out to make the scoreline a little bit respectable for them...gud luck and all the best to england!

    From gunsamang, on Sun 12 Oct 9:54AM

  19. Ashley Cole - as much use as tits on a man

    From JayR, on Sun 12 Oct 9:48AM

  20. Back the team don't slate it.

    From steven, on Sun 12 Oct 9:42AM
Sort comments by: Most recent

Not already a Yahoo! user ? to get a free Yahoo! Account