England's listless display does not bode well

WORLD CUP COUNTDOWN/England 2 Japan 1:IT IS all very well to strip England of their delusions in advance of the World Cup finals but this game exposed the side to an uncomfortable degree. Any encouragement had to be winkled out of the fact that the team, 1-0 down by the interval, was much improved by a host of substitutions. Nobody, at least, can call the friendly meaningless when Joe Cole had so significant an effect.

From looking like a man ready to be cut from the squad, he presented himself as a source of deft imagination. Considering that type of impact, it becomes easier to accept Fabio Capello’s assertions that there are still decisions to be taken. He will weigh up the issues on a brief trip to Italy to see his mother but the England manager need not necessarily confess to woes in the privacy of home.

Much went wrong in Graz and the comeback from 1-0 down rested on a pair of own-goals, one of which came from Marcus Tulio Tanaka, the scorer of Japan’s opener. Nonetheless a great deal can be rectified. Capello’s recent interest in 4-4-2, for example, might have to be reconsidered. Instead of troubling Japan, it erected a barrier to the England full-backs who wanted to overlap. One would have expected the right-footed Aaron Lennon to come in from the left and vacate space for an advancing Ashley Cole but it did not function in practice.

All the same not every surprise was exasperating. Chelsea seem to have little interest in agreeing a new contract with Joe Cole and outsiders had started to think that he would be ditched from the World Cup squad but the midfielder restated his worth here.

He operated as an old-fashioned number 10, aiming in particular to pamper Wayne Rooney with passes. It was Darren Bent, Rooney’s original partner, who had to make way for Cole and it seems most implausible that the Sunderland attacker will be with England in South Africa. He could feel unlucky since hardly any of the first-half build-up allowed him to look good. His best moment came when a long ball from Rio Ferdinand was not intercepted by the centre-back Yuji Nakazawa, but Bent nodded off-target under pressure from the goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima.

The serious evidence-gathering by Capello is now complete, assuming he had not drawn his conclusions long ago. His task is not so much to pick players as to revitalise them. Judging by the dullness of the display, the mental and physical weariness of the club campaign has not been lifted.

A dependence on own-goals appears like an indictment of the display but the side had also squandered a penalty.

This is getting to be a nasty habit for Frank Lampard, who failed from the spot in the FA Cup final, too. Keisuke Honda stuck his arm up in the defensive wall while inside the area and handled Lampard’s free-kick. The Chelsea midfielder took the kick in the 55th minute but Kawashima dived to his right and made the save. Even so, Lampard was effective in tandem with Steven Gerrard, who came on at half-time, despite the fact that they have looked incompatible in the past.

They could yet be selected together at the start of World Cup in view of Gareth Barry’s ankle trouble. They made a joint contribution to establishing command.

England did pull level when Tulio Tanaka diverted a ball from Joe Cole into his net after 72 minutes. Japan will feel unlucky but the own-goals also reflected the fact that they were flagging.

With 83 minutes gone, England had their winner as an Ashley Cole delivery sliced off the boot of Nakazawa. Capello’s line-up had no reason to be exuberant. The manager will have reminded them of a lax goal conceded in the 10th minute. Yasuhito Endo’s low corner from the right reached Tulio Tanaka, who had got in front of Glen Johnson to put a low shot into the corner of the net.

Japan might have extended their lead in the second half but Joe Hart pulled off a save from Takayuki Morimoto. If England were practising scrambled victories, this was a valuable exercise.

ENGLAND: James (Green, half-time); Johnson (Carragher, half-time), Ferdinand, Terry, A Cole; Walcott (Wright-Phillips, half-time), Lampard, Huddlestone (Gerrard, half-time), Lennon (Heskey, 75); Rooney, Bent (J Cole half-time). Subs not used: Dawson, Upson, King, Warnock, Baines, Parker, Carrick, Milner, Johnson, Crouch, Defoe.

JAPAN: Kawashima; Konno, Tanaka, Nakazawa, Nagamoto; Abe; Honda, Hasebe, Endo, Okubo (Matsui 70); Okazaki (Miramoto 65). Subs not used: Narazaki (g), Kawaguchi (g), Komano, Iwamasa, Uchida, Yamamura, Sakai, Nakamura, Inamoto, Kagawa, Tamada, Yano, Nagai.

Referee: Rene Eisner.