England have now officially qualified for the World Cup 2010 with 2 games to spare; winning all 8 of their qualifying matches.

It was less than 2 years ago that England failed to qualify for Euro 2008, losing to Croatia in the rain at Wembley with Steve McClaren famously standing with an umbrella at the sidelines.  That is now a distant memory and all the bitterness is now firmly with the Croatian side.

All week prior to the match Slaven Bilic had been talking up his strategy and how he could see the holes in England that he could exploit and even saying England had “lost their Englishness” under Fabio Capello.  The England camp kept quiet and refused to be drawn in to a war of words with the Croatian manager, and instead did their talking on the pitch.

I have to say I was quick to write off Glen Johnson in the friendly against Slovenia as he defended pretty poorly in that match; but last night he looked like a different player.  He got forward well in the same manner as normal but his defensive work was also very good.  He probably put in the best defensive performance of the team, and his header to deny Eduardo was fantastic.  Down the right side Lennon and Johnson rampaged past the Croatian defenders all night.

England did look a bit narrow on the left side without a left sided winger, but when Gerrard and Lampard bang in 2 goals a piece it’s difficult to see sacrificing one of them to bring in a winger.

My major concern about England is their overall defense at the moment.  After going 4-0 up they were not able to shut up shop and keep a clean sheet.  The goal was very sloppy and surely should have been stopped.  John Terry has not looked like his former self lately, and hopefully it’s just a form issue that he will have worked through by the time South Africa rolls around.

During Fabio Capello’s reign as England manager things have certainly turned around for the team; coming off failure to qualify for Euro 2008 they have managed to win all 7 of their world cup qualifiers.  The way they have won these match has also been convincing with good football and being able to open up teams with ease.

Having said this I feel the last 2 matches, last night against Slovenia and a few weeks ago against Holland, have been big steps backwards.  Normally England’s defense is one of their strongest attributes, but recently the defense has looked awful.

Glen Johnson does give you a good option going forward but last night his defending was terrible, there seemed to be a player getting in behind him every 5 minutes.  John Terry would have to come across to cover for Johnson leaving big holes in the middle.  I would just as soon see Wes Brown take the field against Croatia and do a better defense job and sacrifice some of the wing play.

Terry also looked way off the pace, I lost count of how many times the Slovenian forwards ran off the back of him and he was never going to catch them.  Maybe he is carrying an injury…but if it’s so severe that he can’t even keep up, why is he playing?

Robert Green’s first touch was when he picked up the ball outside of the box, which in competitive play could well have seen him taking any early shower, seeing as there was a Slovenian striker is hot pursuit.  But given it was a friendly the officials seemed to turn a blind eye.  After this incident Green had a solid game.

In the midfield Gerrard has not been on form for Liverpool and he did not look in form on the night either.  Barry and Lampard had solid performances, controlling the midfield well and making tidy passes.  I have never been a big fan of Shaun Wright-Philips, he’s got quick feet but never really seems to have much of an impact on the game, as was the case again.  Milner came on but did not look nearly as dangerous or lively as he did in the previous game against the Netherlands.

Michael Carrick came on for the second half and for his standards had a shocker.  Almost all his passes went astray and he started off calling for the ball and making himself available, but after 15 minutes he seemed to want to hide.

Going forward Heskey was an effective target man winning almost everything in the air and Rooney was busy as ever and probably should have scored on a couple of occasions.  Defoe came on an scored yet again, he has surely secured his spot on the England squad with all these goals.

I have to say that I’m not sure England deserved to win, the first half penalty given for a foul on Rooney was a terrible decision, but Slovenia were unable to capitalize on all of England’s defensive errors.