England 4 Lithuania 0

Match 76/14/1185 - Friday 27th March 2015 - Euro Qualifier

England (2) 4 Rooney 6, Welbeck 45, Sterling 58, Kane 73
Lithuania (0) 0
Att. 83,671

Entrance: £35
Programme: Free
Mileage: 100/5,598

Match Report

In the lifetime of this blog, there have been three instances in which a Wembley Qualifier has actually meant anything. Two were against Croatia which yielded memorable evenings, in 2007 the night of the Wally with the Brolly and in 2009, the 5-1 rout and in 2013 the 2-0 defeat of Poland that assured qualification for the Brazil World Cup. Of course, old Wembley bore witness to many evenings of qualification (or otherwise), Poland, and the supposed clown Jan Tomaszewski, in 1973 and the play-off win against Scotland in 1999. I’m left to speculate whether we will ever witness the tension of those games again.

Following the expansion of European Championship to 24 teams, the path to the tournament finals has been smoothed for the major teams. It is no longer necessary to finish first to qualify automatically, second, or even third for one country, will suffice whilst the rest of the third place teams will contest the play-offs.

England’s path to France next year was virtually cleared in Basel back in September when they confidently dispatched Switzerland, their only realistic challengers. All they can do now is to beat what is put before them and with an unblemished record after five matches they are achieving that, almost without breaking sweat.

Lithuania, who arrived at Wembley in equal second place in the group table, offered nothing in terms of ambition, other than to keep the score down to a respectable number and Joe Hart was nothing more than an addition to the 83,000 crowd.

With so little interest in the group, the sub-plots almost become more interesting than the result itself. Wayne Rooney is closing in on Bobby Charlton’s 49 England goals, when will he break that record and can the debutant Harry Kane reproduce his magnificent Premier League form for Tottenham.

The answer to the first question might have been answered in the first 20 minutes in which Rooney scored and hit the woodwork twice. After three minutes, sent clear by a Fabian Delph pass, Rooney hit a post but was not to be denied three minutes later when a shot from Danny Welbeck looped back from the Lithuanian goalkeeper onto the head of the England captain to open the scoring. After 20 minutes, from a Welbeck cross, he placed another header against the bar.

On the stroke of half-time, a stooping header from Welbeck that came more off his shoulder than his head found its way into the net via a deflection for a 2-0 scoreline that better reflected England’s dominance.

When Raheem Sterling converted Rooney’s cross just before the hour the floodgates were set to be opened and the scene was set for Kane’s introduction. After 79 seconds on the pitch, his third touch was a far post header from Sterling’s cross, cleverly directed downwards that the goalkeeper could only help into the net. It was a surreal, Roy of the Rovers moment, but one in a season when everything Kane touches turns to gold, Wembley almost expected, just not after 79 seconds.

England’s path to France will not be producing a dramatic climax but a cruise that is not really going to give many clues to how they will fare when they get there.