England Mark Beckham Milestone With Easy Victory

Wembley's corner flags remained unmolested as Wayne Rooney capped a quiet game with two second-half goals, the fiery striker returning to London and this time managing to stay on the pitch longer than anyone else for a change.

With Emile Heskey and Frank Lampard also scoring to complete a satisfactory evening against fairly undemanding opposition, the only worry for Fabio Capello ahead of Wednesday's World Cup qualifier against Ukraine appears to be the number of strikers who beat Rooney to the bath.

Heskey, Carlton Cole and Peter Crouch only lasted a matter of minutes before pulling up injured, and by the time Rooney was announced official man of the match it was mainly due to a dearth of alternatives. Only Lampard ran him close, but then of England's attacking players, only Lampard also lasted 90 minutes.

Matthew Upson was a surprise inclusion at center-half after a groin strain accounted for Rio Ferdinand on the morning of the game, though apart from the suspense engendered by England keeping their tracksuits on until the last moment before revealing their new retro kit in time for the national anthem, most interest surrounded the precise arrangement of the front half of the team.

While Slovakia favored the 4-2-3-1 formation now popular just about everywhere, England began with a more conventional 4-4-2, with Steven Gerrard roaming fairly free but taking care to anchor himself to the left touchline and dropping back deeper than he now does for Liverpool.

Gerrard is in such a run of form at the moment he could probably play in central defence and influence games, though pleasingly he turned up on the left to engineer England's first goal after just seven minutes. Not exactly the left wing, he was well found by Rooney making one of those sprints into the box he does so effectively for his club, and after an elegant controlling touch and turn his low cross was touched in off a post by Heskey, who just got a foot in front of Martin Skrtel.

Heskey climbed a couple of feet higher than Skrtel two minutes later, and really should have scored from Rooney's cross, yet headed over the bar with the goal gaping. The Aston Villa striker lasted only five more minutes, succumbing to an Achilles tendon injury rather than embarrassment and giving Fabio Capello the perfect opportunity to promote Gerrard to secondary striker if he so wished. The Italian did not so wish. He kept to the same shape and sent on Carlton Cole as Heskey's replacement.

Gerrard started to wander a bit after that, though returned to the left to neatly backheel an opening for Aaron Lennon on the half-hour only for the Spurs player to demonstrate why he normally plays on the right.

Apart from a Lampard shot saved by Stefan Senecky, England had barely managed to threaten after their early flurry, though all Slovakia had come up with by the same stage was a volley from Stanislav Sestak that flew high.

That changed when Miroslav Karhan brought a good save from David James, though England passed up a good opportunity to extend their lead when Gerrard crashed through Skrtel's attempted tackle and, rather than go for goal himself, tried to set up Carlton Cole. Mistake. Not only could Cole not accept the opportunity, he too could not continue afterwards, collapsing in an undignified heap in the center after apparently over stretching himself. England were dropping like flies. Slovakia must have felt they were playing a team of crocks, unless the England strikers had developed a sudden allergy to goal mouths.

Capello sent on Peter Crouch for Cole, proving beyond all reasonable doubt that Gerrard is going to have to do his split striking for Liverpool for the time being. He probably will not be too disappointed in his present inspired form.

A clever assist from Gerrard gave Rooney a chance to extend the lead on the stroke of half-time, only for the Manchester United player to shoot impatiently over. England could have done with the added security, for Slovakia closed the first half with a goal bound effort from Robert Vittek that James tipped over his bar.

David Beckham was introduced at the interval, presumably as a precaution in case any more collapsing strikers ruined his plans to overtake Bobby Moore's caps record. At least this was not a cameo appearance of the insultingly short variety, and as Beckham did not exactly suffer by comparison with Lennon he could even get a start next time.

One almost hopes so, since 100 starts in 110 appearances would surely silence the naysayers and lay a tiresome argument to rest. Ben Foster and Stewart Downing came on for the second half as well, with James, Aaron Lennon and Gerrard making way.

Erik Jendrisek, one of the Slovakian substitutes, fired into the side netting on 56 minutes after John Terry's missed tackle on Filip Holosko left Foster briefly exposed. Attempting to make amends in attack five minutes later, Terry possibly deprived Crouch of a goal by helping his header over the line from an offside position, following a well-flighted Beckham free-kick. Then the captain shot narrowly wide after Rooney had been unable to turn Beckham's unselfish pass across goal from the left over the line.

No matter, patiently returning to duties on the right, Beckham collected a Gareth Barry cross that had overshot its intended target, and clipped in a much more inviting one of his own to present Rooney with an unmissable header from the six yard line.

Crouch then followed the new striking trend by taking a knock and coming off and Lampard burst onto Michael Carrick's pass to make it 3-0. Then Rooney scored again at the death to complete the scoring. England, or most of them, should be ready for the real thing on Wednesday.