But under the guidance of Fabio Capello, England continue to march forward; and tomorrow’s newspapers are going to be full of ‘England can win the World Cup’ headlines.

A disciplined and hungry England thrashed Croatia 5-1; a score that would have been all the better if Glen Johnson was as good at defending as he is an attacking wing-back.

Two goals each for Frank Lampard (including a 7th minute penalty) and Steven Gerrard and a goalkeeping blunder gift for Wayne Rooney meant that England qualify with a record two games remaining and along with current European Champions Spain, are the only European team to keep a 100% record in qualifying for World Cup 2010 next summer in South Africa.

Aaron Lennon was awarded the Nationwide Man of the Match by former Tottenham Hotspurs and England striker Teddy Sherringham.

blackburn rovers-ewood park

Blackburn Rovers have added striker Franco di Santo to their squad, having agreed a loan deal for the Argentinian with his club Chelsea. The loan deal is initially for five or six months with the Lancashire club having first option on renewing the deal.

Di Santo joined Chelsea from Chilean team Audax Italiano as an eighteen year old in  January 2008. He has made sixteen appearances as a substitute for the Blues.

Hajduk Split claim that Rovers have agreed a deal for Croatian International Nikola Kalinic, saying that the 21 year old has signed a four year deal with the Premier league club for a fee of up to £12million. Kalinic had been a reported target of Portsmouth following the sale of Peter Crouch to Spurs.

Blackburn have neither confirmed or denied the claim from Hajduk.

This week has been an utter farce for international football coverage, with German stations showing both matches live and free-to-air, while English fans at home were being asked to pay an Irish broadcaster or go without. What are the FA playing at? Why is there no “national coverage” clause in their sale?

It was all going according to plan when Croatia started strongly with Tottenham’s Luka Modric dictating things as the Midfield General, and Croatia looking dangerous every time they pushed forward.  In the first ten minutes John Terry made a few important challenges, while Rio Ferdinand hoofed three hopeful long balls in a desperate bid to find Emille Heskey.  Boring boring England.  The writing appeared to be on the wall as England at that stage definitely looked a poor side against the passing play of Croatia.

But after 25 minutes Theo Walcott, starting ahead of David Beckham and David Bentley scored his first goal in his second start for the England senior team, after a great move including Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney.

Croatia were stunned.  But not as shocked as they would be when Robert Kovac was harshly given a red card for a tackle on Joe Cole.  England started to play with more confidence and Theo Walcott, Wayne Rooney and Emille Heskey were all having a good game.  Unfortunately Joe Cole looked less than his usual impressive self.

England went on to win 4-1 against an excellent team who had never lost a competitive game at home.  This was an excellent result for England and Fabio Capello.  But let’s not get too excited!  This has already been likened to England’s 5-1 drubbing of Germany in Munich seven years ago, but that turned out to be a one-off!

If Capello keeps the team from entering cloud cuckooland and can get the team to play as a unit then England may be going places.  However, problems of the last few years are still going to haunt Capello and England when everyone is fit.  Would England have looked so dynamic if Steven Gerrard had played alongside Frank Lampard?

I would still like to see players playing in their correct positions and some more of the young England players being given a chance to express themselves in the way Theo Walcott did last night.  Wes Brown is not a right-back.  Why not show some faith in Glen Johnson?  And just imagine if England had the pace of Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young on the substitutes bench?

Last night’s amazing result has surprised alot of people, it has also given Capello more time to get things right.

South Africa, here we come!