Greeny News

Fabio Capello faces selection headaches over goalkeeper, central defence and midfield after 1-1 draw with USA

Goalkeeping howlers have been a motif of England's labours since a Ronaldinho free-kick floated over David Seaman's luxury coif in a World Cup quarter-final against Brazil in Japan eight years ago, and the curse of the bungling keeper struck again 40 minutes into their South Africa campaign when Robert Green spilled a low shot from USA's Clint Dempsey into his net.

With this 1-1 draw a 10-minute drive from their training base England have established a familiar pattern of uphill toil. They need another goalkeeper, more control against lesser opposition and greater sharpness and precision from Wayne Rooney, still their best hope of escaping 44 years in the wilderness. A flimsy consolation is that USA ended the 35-game unbeaten streak of the World Cup favourites Spain in last summer's Confederations Cup. On form this draw may count for more than the bare score suggests.

West Ham's greats â€" Bobby Moore and Sir Geoff Hurst â€" are forever associated with 1966 but Green of Green Street, Upton Park, is unlikely to survive the school football error that allowed their opponents to cancel out Steven Gerrard's fourth-minute opener for England â€" a decisive early strike that seemed to express a determination to take Group C by storm.

Late last night Fabio Capello, the England coach, refused to say whether Green would be dropped for the next game against Algeria. "We have time to decide. We have to speak with him," the Italian said. "After that I will decide. He played very well in the last game at Wembley [against Mexico]. The performance was very good. He made one mistake but in the second half he made a good save. This is the problem of the keeper."

Capello was also forced to defend his selection of James Milner, who was taken off after 31 minutes in bizarre circumstances. Milner, who had suffered with a virus and missed training for most of the week, was cautioned for a wild foul on Steve Cherundolo and Capello said: "I substituted Milner because he had some problems with the right-back and he was booked. I was worried about the second booking."

The words "problems with the right-back" implied Milner was out of his depth. Ledley King, who has chronic knee trouble and is unable to train properly between games, made it only as far as half-time. "The doctor told me he had some problems with the abductor [muscle] and he will not be fit for the next game," Capello said.

Out of the catalogue of England's goalkeeping errors come two foul-ups by Scott Carson, mishaps featuring David James and the ball bouncing over Paul Robinson's swinging foot in Zagreb in Steve McClaren's reign. Green had been steady in possession of the England shirt since injuries to James presented him with his opening but Capello will rue his decision to call him ahead of James and the talented but inexperienced Joe Hart.

On a day when Argentina played the best football seen so far in Africa's first World Cup three of Capello's selections backfired inside 45 minutes. First Milner, who was replaced by Shaun Wright-Phillips on 28 minutes, then King, who gave way to Jamie Carragher. By any standards England were in a mess. Already their latest mission to end four-and-a-half decades of self-crucifixion had sunk into crisis management.

In the first winter World Cup since 1978 the cold air was redolent of a late September night in Manchester and half an English city seemed to be here in support. England fans ignored security paranoia to flood to this 44,000-seat arena, making a travesty of Fifa's prediction that Americans would outnumber England's followers.

The new captain's flourish after four minutes was a scene from a Merseyside derby, with Liverpool's Gerrard slipping the ball past Everton's Tim Howard. The round-the-corner pass to put Gerrard in was supplied by Emile Heskey, also once of Anfield and whose career as a centre-forward is now built around hold-up play and assists. Seven goals in 60 internationals is a lamentable ratio but Capello was right to believe Heskey would bring other attributes to England's attacking play. With Rooney busy but largely ineffective, Lampard was England's best player. Capello sent on Peter Crouch for one final, fruitless assault.

There is no coach alive who could have predicted that Green's increasing maturity would unravel in such an innocuous situation but Capello messed up in selecting Milner ahead of Joe Cole and may regret breaking his own supposedly golden rule on injured players by bringing in King. The good news is that Algeria and Slovenia present weaker opposition than Bob Bradley's athletic and tenacious side, whose speed drew several England players into clumsy tackles.

"I saw the spirit of England, the spirit of the team because we fought every time to win back the ball," Capello said. USA had threatened the John Terry-King centre-half pairing with whipped-in crosses, until Fulham's Clint Dempsey tried another route, straight through Green, who curled up on the floor, raised a glove to apologise and then tried again to repay the faith invested in him by Capello.

"He made a couple of really good saves and, as we said all week long, this ball's doing silly things," Howard said charitably. "At this level these things happen and it's tough that it happened to him. In goalkeeping you have to have broad shoulders."

Wanted urgently against Algeria in Cape Town on Friday: a keeper who can hang on to a ball.