No shelter for Capello as this time Czechs rain on Wembley parade

There was an early goal for the opposition, plenty of rain... but no brolly. No one would suggest that Fabio Capello is a wally. Not with his record or serial success. And not to his face anyway. But there were perhaps a few too many parallels with that infamous night last November when England lost to Croatia and Steve McClaren lost his job.

It's Croatia - after Andorra - up next for England in the World Cup qualification campaign and Capello confirmed that he had chosen the Czechs as his team's warm-up because of their similarities with Slaven Bilic's team. Except Croatia are better. And England play them in Zagreb.

Big progress, the manager had called for. He said we would see it last night. Big regress more like. There were, five games into his regime, more questions than answers - the David Beckham conundrum, the mix in midfield, who to play up front, the vain hope that one of those strikers might just spark ... and the perennial underperformance for his country of Wayne Rooney. Even the defence, the foundation of England's hopes, creaked.

England tried to move the ball quickly, certainly, and build possession but it was prosaic, pedestrian, predictable. Lacking in dynamism and open, as so often, to the clever counter-attack. England sucked in the air and were suckered before eventually resorting to the long punt forward to Emile Heskey. The first preserve of the desperate and a tactic Capello had claimed to have outlawed.

The central defensive pairing of the new/old captain John Terry and Rio Ferdinand, who had vied with him for that honour, appeared a little ponderous and both were slow to react as Milan Baros got shots away. The first was saved, the second deflected into the net. It would be easy to say maybe both were distracted by the whole captaincy rigmarole but it would also be wrong.

Previous captains - who have both also worn the armband under Capello - were also prominent. There was Beckham. At fault for the Czechs' goal, as he wandered from his position to retrieve the ball, and then prominent in England's equalising goal. To continue the familiar theme it came from his set-piece delivery while, too often, he was beaten by the pace of his opponents.

And then there was Steven Gerrard. Capello's first captain, in the victory over Switzerland, the Liverpool midfielder was never really a serious contender to be given the job full-time due to his quiet manner and, to be frank, hang-dog demeanour.

And last night he was, again, pushed out to the left. Except he was given licence to roam and was also given the No 10 shirt. Go create. And, for a while, he did provide the threat. Except he, too, was withdrawn after less than 60 minutes of action. Fabio may not be a wally. But it wasn't too clever last night.

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