I was pleased to see James Milner’s name in the starting XI an hour or so before kick off last night and, since he made up a midfield quartet with Theo Walcott, Michael Carrick and Steven Gerrard, I assumed he’d be playing on the left. Not so. At kick off we found that Capello was playing Gerrard on the left and Milner in the middle. I’m guessing he just wanted to see Milner in a central role for England, because we all know that the left isn’t Stevie G’s best position.

And so it turned it out. England looked overly rigid and drilled to me. They all appeared to know what they should be doing, but weren’t altogether comfortable doing it. It reminded me a little of someone learning to dance and counting the steps out loud as the moved. 1-and-2-and-3-and-4, 1-and-2-and-3-and-and-4.

No? Just me then.

Defensively, they backed off and gave Mexico the space to play in front of them and going forward they were riddled with errors and lacked any real bite or cohesion.

Milner, for his part, didn’t see a whole lot of the ball during the early phases, but when he did have it, he was intelligent and assured with his passing. That alone was enough to stand him some way above Michael Carrick who wasn’t making the most of his opportunity to say the least. Apparently Carrick won 0% of the tackles he attempted last night; an appalling statistic for a player known as a defensive midfielder.

As England struggled to get any kind of traction in the game Capello strided into his technical area and promptly adopted his wonky buffalo stance, which everyone should know means he isn’t overly impressed. He looked frustrated, Gerrard looked frustrated, Rooney looked extremely pissed off.

Capello made a sensible switch and asked Gerrard to push into the middle more and Rooney moved to the left to try to win some possession with a 5 man midfield. Although it was still somewhat against the run of play, the change paid dividends when England opened the scoring thanks to some age defying reactions from Ledley King who nodded in Crouch’s smart header back across goal from Gerrard’s corner.

England doubled their lead within 20 minutes with Peter Crouch extending his fabulous England scoring record while simultaneously proving that they do indeed all count. Offside. Handball. Take your pick, but neither were spotted and it was 2-0 England, a scoreline they certainly didn’t deserve on the run of play and literally didn’t deserve on its technical merits.

Carlos Vela did Rob Green’s confidence no harm with a couple of great breaks that should have led to a goal but for less than brilliant final efforts. Not bad, but the fodder that goalkeepers will eat up all day long and be boasting about in the players’ bar after the game.

Mexico got no less than they deserved with a goal that frankly had something of the ‘bundle’ about it just before half time. Leighton Baines at the heart of it and that summed up a disappointing audition for the Everton left back. If Stephen Warnock can get some time on the pitch against Japan at the end of the month and at least do a half decent impression of a professional footballer then surely he must be worthy of the 2nd string left back spot on the plane to South Africa?

Second Half

Capello rang a few changes at half time which included switching Milner to the left wing where he looked far more comfortable without the constraints of the instructions he was clearly playing under in the middle. Being separated from Carrick’s ineptitude didn’t hurt either.

I’ll be honest, I lost a bit of interest in the second half. Glen Johnson did a fantastic Lionel Messi impression early on by cutting in from the right before unleashing a quite exquisite left foot effort that sailed into the top corner to make it 3-1. He may well have surprised himself, he certainly surprised everyone watching.

After that, it was cruise control for as much as I actually paid attention to and the game finished at 3-1. I had the Canada vs Argentina friendly on another screen and the sight of Maradona wobbling around his technical area celebrating each of their 5 goals was far more entertaining.

The good news is that Mexico are no mugs and we comfortably beat them despite missing several first choice players and rarely showed any sign that there even was a second gear. There’s different dynamics involved, but Mexico frequently more than have the measure of our June 12th opponents; USA.

However, there were quite a few performances last night that if repeated during the World Cup will result in nothing but failure for England. Especially against the US, but even against Algeria and Slovenia.

On the other hand, England are notoriously slow starters and even if we lumber though the group stage, I’d back us to be hitting our stride at the right time in the knock out phase.

For James Milner; he’s a dead cert to be on the plane, no question about it, even though I don’t think he did anything in particular to advance his cause last night. Neither Heskey or Warnock saw any time on the pitch, but that probably only bodes ill for one of them. We shall see.

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[Photo: Daylife]