Cole salvages nerve-racking England

Wales 0 England 1

The new tactic, effectively 4-1-2-2-1, was therefore a limited success, neither David Beckham nor Wayne Rooney - good as they were - suggesting this is the best way to use their diverse talents, especially against stronger opposition. Shaun Wright-Phillips did well on the right and in the absence of Gary Neville and John Terry, Jamie Carragher was solid at the back, but Chelsea's Frank Lampard has yet to settle into the new season.

Steven Gerrard was the better of the two, and made some threatening forward runs, which was just as well since the hard-working Rooney's natural tendency is to drop deep, often leaving a vacuum ahead of him.

So it was far less comfortable than the 2-0 victory in Manchester last October against a Welsh side ranked 83rd in the world but much more committed this time. Unfortunately, they do not look well placed to do England a favour by taking points off Poland in Warsaw on Wednesday, when the ever-robust Hartson will be suspended after collecting another yellow card. Beckham, Rooney and Ashley Cole, all on one card, were on their best behaviour and England will, of course, have the man we must now learn to refer to as Newcastle United's Michael Owen available for the visit to Northern Ireland on Wednesday, giving Sven Goran Eriksson plenty to think about.

Naturally he was not offering any clues last night, saying only: "We'll have to see. I don't know what shape he's in." So England's shape could change again, with Rooney in support of Owen, but there is unlikely to be much more than yesterday's cameo for a very miffed Jermain Defoe.

Despite ejecting all media representatives after the first 15 minutes of training sessions - when the players normally do little more than stretch and jog - England have always had trouble keeping changes of tactics and personnel quiet. It was therefore no shock to anyone inside the ground, including John Toshack and his team, to see Wright-Phillips and Joe Cole out wide, Rooney as the point of the arrowhead in attack, and Beckham sitting deepest of a midfield three, with Luke Young at right-back.

Nor was there anything unexpected about the way Toshack deployed his troops, with three centre-backs guarding Rooney, inexperienced wing-backs to the side of them, and a tight midfield trio to match England's. Had Craig Bellamy been fit, he and Ryan Giggs might have been used on the flanks, as they were at Old Trafford, but Giggs played just off Hartson rather than, in the words of the old Manchester United song, "flying down the wing".

That was doubtless a cause of relief to Young, the beneficiary of Eriksson's new ruthlessness in unexpectedly dropping from the squad Glen Johnson, as well as David James.

Young did the simple things, often a little too predictably, lacking the confidence to break forward ahead of Wright-Phillips. A couple of good early touches should have settled him down, notably a chip forward for Rooney to nod back to the unmarked Joe Cole, who could do no better than head wide from 10 yards.

Too often, however, England's crosses were long and high, of no use at all to Rooney or anyone else. Lampard, struggling to find last season's form, drove over the bar, but there were only two other chances for them before the interval. Midway though the half, Gerrard combined well with Rooney, who failed to defeat Danny Coyne, the Burnley goalkeeper saving with his feet. Then, just before the break, Lampard won a corner by arriving late to meet Wright-Phillips' cut-back and before it was properly cleared Beckham crossed to the far post, where Joe Cole dived to head into the side-netting.

The home side received rapturous applause as they left the pitch shortly afterwards, having encouraged the crowd in the final 15 minutes. Simon Davies had earlier sent one 25-yard drive wide after a mistake by Carragher, and on the half-hour there was a much better opportunity for Coventry's wing-back Richard Duffy. Given the chance to make himself a hero in only his second international, as Wales' first corner of the game bounced nicely for him, he sliced wide. Twice in three minutes, Giggs crossed for Hartson; on the first occasion Ashley Cole got to the ball first and received a battering for his pains, but on the second the Celtic striker rose in classic style and would have scored were it not for Paul Robinson's plunge to his left for a superb one-handed save.

A dangerous cross by Giggs early in the second half, dealt with well by Carragher, turned the volume up another couple of notches, before England reduced it by taking control nine minutes after the restart. Wright-Phillips was prominent throughout, which made his substitution soon afterwards all the stranger. He took Gerrard's lay-off and drove it fiercely at goal, Coyne pushing over the bar. Two minutes later Beckham played a wonderful diagonal quarterback's ball to Wright-Phillips, who was fractionally offside as he raced clear, but the next time the little Chelsea man stayed wider and onside, collected another terrific pass from the captain and laid it square for Joe Cole, unmarked again, whose shot took a heavy deflection off Danny Gabbidon and flew in.

Coyne, unfortunate there, prevented a second goal in two minutes by stretching back to touch Rooney's delicate chip on to the roof of the net, and in the next break Gerrard was just off balance and unable to keep his shot down as Wright-Phillips found him.

Run-outs for Defoe, Owen Hargreaves and Kieran Richardson meant the disappearance of the wide men, Wright-Phillips and Joe Cole, plus Gerrard, in a bewildering number of changes of formation. The danger in a single-goal lead was obvious and in the final 10 minutes Wales, with Robert Earnshaw on, threw more men forward, but encountered some sturdy English defending.

And so to Belfast, and quite probably more of the same.