It doesn’t matter about systems you’ve still got to perform he said and highlighted a moment

“It doesn’t matter about systems, you’ve still got to perform,” he said, and highlighted a moment in the first half when England’s goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, did perform, pulling off a fine one-handed save to keep out a header from Wales’s troublesome centre-forward Hartson. All very strange, all very ineffective.David Beckham, ousted from the right wing and given a deep-lying central- midfield role, did some of his best work after half-time with passes that bore his trademark, one of them releasing Wright-Phillips to cross for Joe Cole to score a goal that offers a misleading impression of another peripheral performance from the Chelsea midfielder.Beckham put his finger on the real point in a match in which England, on paper, had vastly superior qualities. but three points are absolutely vital for us,” Eriksson said.Much was made of the new formation giving Shaun Wright-Phillips a chance to show what he can do wide on the right of midfield, with Joe Cole operating on the left. But in the first half the supposed wide players spent much time moving inside, as Rooney, after one stinging early shot, dropped deep and turned provider.

It’s one more win and, if we go on like this, we will win the group.”As for the 4-5-1 system, Eriksson said: “Sometimes I think we can use it.” Owen is available to face Northern Ireland in Belfast on Wednesday in the next qualifier, so there will be no need to use it then. “I hope we can play better on Wednesday for all 90 minutes… “The second half was OK until the last 20 minutes, when we lost the ball too easily and gave Wales the opportunity to knock long, high balls in for [John] Hartson That’s not good,” the Swede said “But we defended extremely well – and that’s very positive. For Wales, there will be no trip to Germany for those finals next summer. This was a defeat that they probably expected, but there was no shame in losing only to Joe Cole’s deflected goal.

As Eriksson put it after the tense victory: “In qualification games you want to play good football, but the most important thing is to win.”

The build-up to the match was dominated by debate over England’s change to 4-5-1 from the regular 4-4-2, with Wayne Rooney cast as the lone striker in the absence through suspension of his usual partner, Michael Owen. Did the new system work? It must have done; England won.But, after another unexceptional England performance that at least was considerably better than their shambolic 4-1 defeat by Denmark in the friendly match last month, even Eriksson did not sound convinced. “We worked our socks off and it has taken a lot out of us,” he said “You can see how much we want to win under Walter. A year ago, you would never have thought this would happen.”. Another victory, three more points and moving on towards the World Cup finals was the way Sven Goran Eriksson saw his England side’s victory at the Millennium Stadium.

They have to get the game into schools and invest more at grassroots level, especially with coaching.”This series has seen record viewing figures, but next year the broadcast rights move to satellite TV. Viewing figures on satellite cannot be as high, so the ECB will be hoist on its own petard. That said, the difference in money from that deal will be £40m a year, and the game could not be sustained without that. The great unknown is whether the ECB can square that circle.”The breweries are big winners, whatever the outcome.

Next weekend, cricket fans are expected to drink an extra two million pints of beer (on top of the 28 million we drink a day). The 300,000 Australians in this country will be gripped too – with the Walkabout pub chain preparing for big crowds – but in a decidedly more anxious mood.’We’ve never seen anything like this’Stephen Khan cornered legends of the game for their views at last Friday’s Cricket Writers’ Dinner David Lloyd, former England coach”I have been astonished at how interest has spread right through the country. I was at the golf club the other day and three lady members came up to me and said, ‘We’ve never watched cricket before but now we know exactly what’s going on.’ We’re knocking football off the back pages.David Shepherd, Test umpire”Cricket is more popular than ever I have never seen a summer like this. Hopefully a lot of the people who have been brought over to the sport will stick with it after this wonderful series.”David Frith, former editor of Wisden magazine”People talk about football being the beautiful game but that’s rubbish; this is the beautiful game. We are watching it being played at a supreme level; it’s more beautiful than ever After 16 years of drought, people are flocking back. The nonsense that goes on in other sports will not blight cricket.”Angus Fraser, ex-England player and Independent correspondent”We don’t want cricket to lose the characteristics that make it great It would be awful if it became tacky We don’t want to go there. Money should be set aside to ensure cricket remains on the list of school games.”England bowling legend, ‘Deadly’ Derek Underwood”I don’t think there has been such a buzz about cricket in my life.