Unless England and the United States both exit the group and negotiate their way past all opponents, all the way to the final, this was the one game of the World Cup to bring all 4 Villans in South Africa into the same stadium at the same time. Based on what we saw tonight, I would say the chances of a rematch occurring are slim to none.

Warnock and Guzan watched from their respective benches and while no one would have been surprised to see Emile Heskey on the team sheet, a few eyebrows were raised by James Milner’s inclusion in the starting line up given the illness which has kept him out of training for a few days this past week. Capello started Milner on the left where I thought he’d have a field day with Steve Cherundolo, but, in fact, the opposite was the case and it was clear from the outset that James was not anywhere close to his usual level of fitness.

Half An Hour To Forget

After a couple of late, clumsy, desperate (chose your adjective) tackles, the Brazilian referee made it clear that he’d had enough and added Milner’s name to his notebook. By the half hour mark, Capello had also seen enough and James had to suffer the rare indignity of being substituted before the break, Shaun Wright-Phillips coming on in his place.

It was the right thing to do. He was having a bad day at the office, but it was evidently a mistake to start him in the first place. Hopefully Milner can work on his fitness, keep his confidence and will get another shot, but 3 passes and 2 fouls in 30 minutes is a half hour to forget about quickly.

On the plus side, from our perspective – and this is too superficial to place any real hope – if half an hour is all the action that Milner sees in this World Cup, it may dampen the enthusiasm of some of his suitors. Weak, I know, but I find it difficult to credit Man City with a more sophisticated position in all honesty.

Emile Heskey

If Milner had a bad day at the office, Emile Heskey, by contrast, had a pretty good day. Without wanting to take anything away from Emile though, it was a good day by his standards and in comparative terms, but his touch was generally better than we’re used to seeing, his passing less wasteful and his movement was intelligent.

He was instrumental in England’s opening goal and deserves a lot of credit , not only for spotting Steven Gerrard’s run in to the box, but also the opportunity to shake his marker, get on the ball and feed Gerrard a golden opening he wouldn’t miss. He had the vision, the effort and the technique. Well done, but that was in the third minute.

When it came to a glorious opportunity in the 52nd minute to retake the lead, a chance that you’d back most strikers to seriously trouble the goalkeeper, Heskey simply fired his shot straight at the advancing Tim Howard. Capello’s facial expression suggested he was thinking the same thing I was.

And therein lies the frustration of Emile Heskey. For all the talk of his supposed link up play, it’s rare that we get to see a tangible example akin to his third minute assist in Rustenburg. I’ve seen some dubious statistics attempting to prove that his presence on the pitch somehow makes Wayne Rooney a more deadly striker simply by correlating his scoring record with Heskey in the team in contrast to without him. Sadly, when I checked into the timing and scoring, I found that Heskey had frequently already been subbed off when Rooney scored the goals, so it would be more accurate to say that Rooney is a better player when they start together, not necessarily when then play together.

Of course, we could equally study the numbers and find that Wayne Rooney has a better goal scoring record in white socks than red, but I hope I don’t need to once again point out that correlation does not imply causation. Ooops, I guess I just did.

However, I don’t wish to expend any energy dispelling the Heskey myth, I’m quite happy for him to apparently put in the performances of his life in South Africa. Good for England and, if it puts him in the shop window, so to speak, that’s not a bad thing for us either. A textbook win/win if ever there was one.

England

As for England themselves, well anyone who thought that the US would be a push over were sadly misinformed, but it’s worth remembering that it took a freak goalkeeping blunder for the Americans to get a share of the points. I fear that Rob Green will become the pantomime villain in the British tabloid media and the pack of wolves will be circling the England camp looking for soft targets.

I’m not overly concerned at this stage. I hate to use the cliche of being slow starters, but it’s true, we are. What I saw tonight was an improvement on recent performances in the final warm up games and I think we’ll beat our next two opponents without needing to step it up at all.

Which sets us up for our best performances in the knock out phases where we’ll surely play brilliantly, but fail to win, probably because of a controversial refereeing decision, and ultimately will suffer the heartbreak of defeat by penalties. To Germany.

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