England 0, Algeria 0

Two games, two draws and too many problems to know where the improvement work should begin. England’s World Cup campaign is rapidly becoming a national embarrassment.

If last Saturday’s performance against the United States left a lot to be desired, then tonight’s desultory display against Algeria was arguably England’s worst performance at a World Cup finals since their goalless draw with Morocco in 1986.

Now, as then, they will go into their final group game knowing they almost certainly have to win to have any chance of progressing to the knock-out stages.

All is not lost ahead of Wednesday’s game with Slovenia but an inability to beat a team ranked 30th in the world, and who have not won a match at a World Cup finals since 1982, suggests England might as well admit defeat now.

With Wayne Rooney ineffectual and both Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard rendered impotent by a well-drilled Algerian midfield, England recorded just two shots on target in the whole of the game – and neither of them looked like going in anyway.

It was a ragged, disjointed display from Fabio Capello’s side, totally out of keeping with the free-flowing football that accompanied their qualifying campaign.

It was not out of keeping with England’s displays at recent World Cups under Sven-Goran Eriksson though and conclusively dispelled the notion that Capello has solved the problems that plagued his predecessors.

On this evidence, England are still every bit as poor as they were in the bad old days under Eriksson and Steve McClaren.

Given his £6million-a-year salary, Capello will shoulder much of the blame if England fail to emerge from Group C and the lustre that accompanied the Italian’s arrival two-and-a-half years ago has well and truly disappeared.

The cacophony of boos that cascaded down from the seats housing up to 35,000 England supporters at the final whistle confirmed that.

In the Green Point Stadium, Capello made his own point about Green before kick off. It was probably the only thing he got right all night.

Robert Green was informed this morning he would not be starting following his howler against the United States, so attention instead turned to David James, who became the oldest ever World Cup debutant at the age of 39.

James was one of three changes to Capello’s starting line-up, with Gareth Barry returning after completing his recovery from an ankle injury and Jamie Carragher getting the nod ahead of Matthew Upson at the heart of the England defence.

Barry’s steadying presence was missed last weekend and the Manchester City midfielder’s return enabled Gerrard to return to the roving left-midfield position he filled so effectively during qualifying.

Yet if the ploy was designed to improve England’s cohesion, it did not have the desired result. For large periods of an unappealing encounter, Capello’s side were even more disjointed than they had been in Rustenburg last weekend.

True, Gerrard appeared much more comfortable receiving the ball further up the field, while Barry plugged the gap between defence and midfield that Landon Donovan had exploited so adeptly six days earlier.

But there was a nervous hesitancy about much of England’s play, combined with a lack of fluidity in midfield and attack, that meant chances were at a premium all night.

Ashley Cole threatened to break free in the penalty area as early as the fourth minute, only to be denied by an excellent sliding tackle from Rangers’ Madjid Bougherra, while Emile Heskey – preferred once again to Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe – headed Barry’s corner over the crossbar under severe pressure on the edge of the six-yard box.

Save for those early chances, though, England struggled to break down an Algerian rearguard that was generally protected by two deep-lying midfielders.

And when they did threaten to unlock the opposition defence on the half-hour mark, Gerrard shot tamely at Rais Bolhi after fashioning a deft one-two with an otherwise off-key Rooney.

Rooney’s failure to stamp his authority on proceedings has been a troubling factor in England’s opening two matches and for all of his undoubted quality, it is worrying to note that his last goal in a major tournament came in 2004.

Lampard has been a much more regular scorer recently but even the Chelsea midfielder’s goal touch deserted him as he failed to convert England’s best opportunity before the break.

Nadir Belhadj headed Aaron Lennon’s right-wing cross into his path but Lampard placed his low side-footed strike too close to Bolhi.

Algeria were under pressure at that stage but the north Africans were rarely troubled for long and could justifiably claim to have created as much as England before the break.

They had James flapping nervously as early as the 12th minute courtesy of Foued Kadir’s hanging right-wing cross but the Portsmouth goalkeeper had recovered his composure by the time he claimed clubmate Hassan Yebda’s header from Karim Ziani’s centre midway through the opening half.

Ziani also shot wide himself before the interval as Algeria’s numerical advantage in midfield enabled them to hold on to possession effectively in the central area. Indeed, Algeria were so dominant in the opening five minutes of the second half that England hardly had a touch of the ball.

With Lampard hardly in the game and Heskey’s lack of finesse slowing down the pace of his side’s attacking, a change of approach was needed. Yet Capello stuck rigidly to his game plan until the 63rd minute, when he finally succumbed and introduced Shaun Wright-Phillips for Lennon, whose final act was to whip a cross narrowly over Rooney’s head. Predictably enough, the change achieved little.

An increasingly ragged Carragher had already picked up his second booking of the tournament by the time Wright-Phillips was introduced – an infringement that rules him out of Wednesday’s final group game against Slovenia – and it was the 71st minute before Gerrard forced Bolhi into his first save of the second half with a 14-yard header that thudded straight into the goalkeeper’s chest.

Capello’s final throw of the dice was to introduce both Defoe and Crouch but neither threatened to make an impact in the closing stages of the game.