Fabio Capello's Reign of Authority is Paying Dividends

A former Soviet republic with a hardline president was an ideal setting to observe Fabio Capello's authoritarian style of leadership and the lasting impression from England's faltering first 40 minutes in Kazakhstan is of managerial fury.

Capello's gesticulations are imported performance art. The gushes of anger through a generally clenched body yield a rich array of arm-throwing gestures that leave his players in no doubt of his displeasure. By the end England had cruised to a sixth consecutive victory towards qualifying for next year's South Africa World Cup but not before Capello had bullied a team whose weariness was more forgivable than their positional indiscipline.

The England coach had told his team to "expect" a Kazakh assault fueled by patriotic fervor. John Terry's men confessed to having slept badly in Almaty on account of a five-hour time-lag. The Kazakh dervish was their unwanted alarm call. It found Glen Johnson (right-back) dozing and Ashley Cole (left-back) sleepwalking too far forward when the manager expected him to be in defensive lock-down mode. Gareth Barry was evidently dreaming of Manchester City. Capello let them all know it with a succession of convulsions that threatened to detach his hands from his wrists.

So fierce was his rebuke to Cole that "Cashley" fired a few words back at the bench, the first known case of an England player defying the bespectacled martinet. The coach's point was that England should weather Kazakhstan's enthusiasm from sound defensive positions and then assume control of the game. Instead they appeared intent on fighting fire with fire from an advanced position and were surrendering possession far too frequently for an Italian's taste.

"In the first half I was disappointed with the position of some of our players. It was impossible to get my message across," Capello reported. On the surface these fiery exchanges between an aficionado of order and a team who have been specialists in chaos in tournaments will leave no mark in the annals of long-haul travel. It did, though, point to Capello's enduring belief that English players cannot always be trusted to apply strong tactical thinking to high-pressure moments. His brand of supervision is the polar opposite of that practised by Sven-Goran Eriksson and Steve McClaren.

Laissez-faire has been scratched out of his dictionary. It was the gravy smell of Football Association largesse that drew him to London but he is not the sort to scoop up easy money without giving effort in return. England have now struck 20 times in six qualifiers. Wayne Rooney, who was often semi-detached under the old regime, has scored eight in six outings and has become one of Capello's lieutenants on the field. When Shaun Wright-Phillips was midway through a cameo of extraordinary carelessness, in the second-half, it was Rooney who applied the flamethrower of collective disgust.

"The manager is a strong manager and none of us want to let him down," said Rooney before the game. This is one of the more significant statements of Capello's reign and not just because Rooney is finally finding his natural voice (his declaration last week that the middle is his best position was unusually bold, given that it was bound to be painted as a memo to Sir Alex Ferguson). Jonny Wilkinson used to say the same about Martin Johnson when English rugby was in its pomp. Some players, especially English ones, prefer to be told what to do, provided the results suggest the dictator is blessed with wisdom as well as strength.

Described as "surly" and uncommunicative by Chelsea's Carlo Ancelotti last week, Capello certainly conforms to a model of loftiness that most of the Champions League regulars seem to like. They know he has unlocked the potential of this England squad by finding a coherent tactical shape and imposing the more professional tone of a big club striding into a major Champions League tie.

But he is colder, more brutal, in his touchline urgings than even Rafa Benítez. Cole's indignant reaction to one of his barrages reminded us that these one-man corporations are not infinitely receptive to being treated as unruly toddlers. It is natural for Capello to stop a training session to berate his players or grab one by the shoulders to illustrate a point. For FA grandees this has become something of spectator sport.

The enemy now, after England have increased their haul to 21 points, against Andorra on Wednesday, is complacency in the home games with Croatia and Belarus and the visit to Ukraine. Capello's eruptions in Almaty say he is alive to this risk. He is the jockey who knows he is on a horse that has to be flogged all the way to the line.