England's 2-0 win over Andorra in their opening World Cup qualifier on Saturday left coach Fabio Capello with more questions than answers before their next match against Croatia on Wednesday.
Capello said after their opening match in Group Six he had not decided whether Joe Cole, who came on as a second half substitute and scored both goals, would start against Croatia, who beat England home and away in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.
He also said that Cole and Wayne Rooney did not understand his tactics during the second half against Andorra, ranked 186th in the FIFA world rankings but good enough to frustrate England for 49 minutes at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday night.
Cole, who has not started any of England's last four matches, could again be left out of the starting line-up on Wednesday, one of the most important games for both sides in the qualifying campaign.
Capello became agitated with the midfielder during the second half and explained afterwards he was still pondering his options for Wednesday.
"Yes, I have got to think about Joe. He is in a very good moment for himself and scoring goals, but I have to decide what the first 11 will be against Croatia," he told a news conference.
"It will be another game and it will a different sort of game. I would like it if Croatia played like Andorra, but they won't they will come out looking for goals.
"But against Andorra there were problems with the understanding of tactics. When we started the second half, Wayne Rooney and Joe played near Emile Heskey.
"But when we went 2-0 up, they both then started to come back into midfield. I was asking them to go forward again because Heskey was all on his own. That is what I was trying to transmit to them, but it was difficult because they were too far away."
FOLLOWING ORDERS:
Cole told reporters he was only following Capello's instructions: "He said 'just go out there and try and make something happen'. I think the game needed a bit of a spark and a bit of liveliness.'
"They did make it difficult for us. I know it's a football cliche, but they put 10 men behind the ball and stopped us playing. But we still didn't move the ball as well as we'd like to have done. The confidence of the team was a bit low, but in the end we got the job done." Capello gave teenager Theo Walcott his first start but after making a big impact in the opening few minutes, his influence faded as the match wore on.
David Beckham began the match on the bench before coming on in the 80th minute to win his 104th cap and Capello is likely to go for Beckham's experience against Croatia from the start on Wednesday.
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