England should learn some lessons

England, of course, was already home and dry when they went last Saturday to Ukraine and lost their first game of the World Cup qualifiers.

Nonetheless, there were a few rather grim lessons to be learned from a game in which they were forced to play largely with 10 men. This after their keeper Robert Green, through no real fault of his own, was expelled. The culprit was Rio Ferdinand and surely the lesson is that Ferdinand has become an alarmingly weak link.

Missing the bouncing ball which let Ukraine through and led to the spot kick as Green desperately dived was an abysmal error but alas only the latest of a catalogue of such disasters. You may remember how in Rome last season in the European Champions Cup he culpably stood off little Messi, who was allowed to head a goal for Barcelona against Manchester United.

This season playing for England in Holland his sloppy back pass gave away a goal. And a bizarre bungled clearance presented a goal to Man City's Bellamy in the recent Old Trafford derby game. Something or other has gone badly wrong and to pick him now is a hazard.

Splendid saves

It was a blessing to see that for once David Beckham, surely a burnt out case, didn't even sit on the bench, but the expulsion of Green meant still taking off Aaron Lennon, who had begun in lively form on the right enabling David James to come on in goal. And to make a couple of splendid saves. A week earlier at Woolverhampton I'd seen him make a glorious flying one-handed save, enabling Pompey to win their first match of the league.

James will doubtless be on parade for England at Wembley against Belarus, another "dead rubber" as they say in tennis terms but not without its significance in terms of what Fabio Capello should now be doing with his team with thoughts of South Africa. With Ben Foster falling to pieces, Green suspended, and in any case hardly convincing with West Ham, there is no doubt that the veteran James remains England's best goalkeeper by a street; even if as we know all too well, he is famously erratic and unpredictable.

Before Russia, who had most of the play but couldn't in Moscow defeat a German team down to 10 men after only 69 minutes, their shrewd Dutch manager Hiddink seemed at ease. They'd reach the play-offs even if they lost, he said, and so they have. How good are the Germans? I wonder if statistics flatter them. They didn't lose a game in their qualifying group yet the team is very largely the same as that which failed in the European Championship finals last year. Incidentally, please note the depressing fact that England had not a single shot on goal in Ukraine.

Gallant display by the Irish against Italy in Dublin, twice in the lead, twice pegged back. So Italy win the group but Ireland are in the play offs. So by the skin of their teeth are Portugal, 5-0 home winners over Hungary and sure now to pip the Swedes, beaten 1-0 in Copenhagen by group leaders Denmark.

The writer is a soccer expert based in England