England Improve to Smash Croatia

England stumbled to a 2-0 win against Andorra on Saturday and it was considered that an away trip to Croatia on Wednesday would be difficult. However, in the end it became one of England's easiest away trips of their recent history as they defeated Croatia 4-1. This was a very fine result because Croatia had never lost a competitive home game before. There is little doubt that the star of the show was Theo Walcott, who scored a wonderful hat-trick.

England started the game well by immediately putting Croatia under pressure and in fact Theo Walcott had an early opportunity, but a failure to sort his feet out meant he was unable to feed Emile Heskey. Down the other end there were a few nervy moments as David James's handling looked less than secure, but England survived. The first goal arrived after a mix up in the Croatian defence, when one Croatian hit the ball against another and Walcott was there to finish. Walcott did everything right by hitting the ball across the keeper, and into the net at the far post. Walcott's second goal was similar but was taken from the opposite side.

England scored two further goals, and they owed a lot to Wayne Rooney. Rooney took control of the ball quite brilliantly before feeding it through for Walcott to finish. Rooney also had time to prove he could finish himself, when he scored from a great cross from substitute Jermaine Jenas, who came on for Joe Cole. Croatia was always going to be up against it, after they had a player sent off for a brutal elbow on Joe Cole. Despite this, they did find time to pull a goal back, but many thought it should have been chalked off. Firstly as the Croatian forward deemed to control a ball, John Terry was caught with a very high boot, and went down with a nasty injury. Now it was my interpretation of the rules, that the referee should immediately stop the game for any head injury. Also the high boot prevented Terry from heading the ball away. After the foul on Terry Croatia scored, so it is disappointing, but that is football.

I felt it was a very strong performance from England, and I hope they can keep playing this well. Under Capello the football may not be that exciting, but I am confident England will keep the ball well and score goals. That said the encouraging thing about the game is England scored four goals, and did not merely hold out for a one or two to nil win.