England v Moldova: How the players rated
Last updated on .From the section Football
England eased to a comfortable 4-0 win over Moldova at Wembley, and moved to the top of Group H with three World Cup qualifying fixtures remaining.
Goals from Steven Gerrard, Rickie Lambert and two from Danny Welbeck ensured that Roy Hodgson's men secured all three points with no alarms.
BBC Sport's chief football writer Phil McNulty gives his assessment of all the players used by England:
JOE HART (GOALKEEPER) - 6
A predictably quiet night for England's goalkeeper. Will be busier in Kiev on Tuesday.
KYLE WALKER (RIGHT-BACK) - 6
Busy night up and down the flanks - but the acid test will come when his defensive abilities are put under more pressure.
GARY CAHILL (CENTRE-BACK) - 6
Never troubled by a Moldovan side who did not raise a serious attacking threat all evening.
PHIL JAGIELKA (CENTRE-BACK) - 6
Once again almost like a training routine ahead of the serious business in Kiev on Tuesday. Jagielka and Cahill will be put under a lot more stress by Ukraine. Different occasion. Different game.
ASHLEY COLE (LEFT-BACK) - 6
Steady but in reality had next to nothing to do.
STEVEN GERRARD (MIDFIELD) - 8
Led from the front as usual. Controlled the tempo of the game and opened the scoring with a thunderous finish.
JACK WILSHERE (MIDFIELD) - 6
Took some heavy punishment but showed some trademark surges.
FRANK LAMPARD (MIDFIELD) - 7
Reliable as ever. Helped create Gerrard's first and could have had a couple himself on his 99th appearance for his country.
DANNY WELBECK (FORWARD) - 8
Moldova may not be A-list opposition but he helped create Gerrard's goal and scored with two fine finishes himself. Will be badly missed in Ukraine after a harsh booking.
RICKIE LAMBERT (FORWARD) - 8
Excellent performance. Scored his second England goal in two games and created two for Welbeck. Taken off to protect him for Ukraine.
THEO WALCOTT (FORWARD) - 6
Quiet night for Walcott although he had a hand in Lambert's second goal thanks to a goalkeeping error.
ENGLAND SUBSTITUTES
LEIGHTON BAINES (for Cole 45 mins) - 6
Industrious on the flanks and nearly got a goal with an angled shot. Perfect understudy for Cole.
ROSS BARKLEY (for Wilshere 59 mins) - 6
The first of many England caps for Everton's outstanding teenager. Kept it simple for the most part and almost grabbed a debut goal with a low shot.
JAMES MILNER (for Lambert 70 mins) - 5
Saw out the game but no serious impact other than a glaring miss in injury time.
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The FA and Hodgson are essentially sending out the message to kids "chase the money and sit on the bench and you can play for England" by picking players based on club and not form!
It's embarrassing to see Torres and Mata get dropped for Spain when we can't drop players like Milner and Young.
People don't yet realise how good Wilshire will be. He's not 100% fit and his not 100% a finished article but he will be top class. Barkley is another hugely talented player, a potential England number 10 if we develop him in the right way.
We are developing technically gifted young players slowly and in the future hopefully Milner-type players won't get picked!
welbeck has scored 8 goals in 18 games for england. how is that crap ?
how does milner get to play for england ? he does not even start for man citeh !
It makes you wonder who else is out there that England have overlooked all these years
We'll have to disagree on these two - just think that Walker has the pace to recover mistakes and thought his crossing today was top drawer. I've said on here before, chuck the kids in now even if we don't qualify are do and struggle. Keep maybe Lamps and Gerrard in the squad but bring in youth around them - it's what Germany did after we stuffed them 5-1.
Can't understand your negative rating. Time and time again Gerrard/Lampard combo fails in major tournaments but if gets forgotten.
England managers are too frightened to drop big name players so expect Lampard to be in Brazil if we qualify. He might even score, but do absolutely nothing else as per bloody usual.
Is there any place in this team for a defensive minded winger that can't hit a cows rear end with a stringed musical instrument?
Yes I know you wrote Bilbo, that's why i asked who that was, and i'm still none the wiser. And by the way pointing out typing mistakes is the sort of immature and petty thing that I was talking about
I used a different name for an evening, but that was a special occasion, and I don't remember seeing u then, unless of course you were under a different name
Did u mean mate?
We already know Wenger was the first manager to field a starting 11 and subs without a single England player. The only reason he has bought in English youngsters at all is because of the homegrown rule.
Arsenal still have the one of (if not the) fewest English players in their first team squad in the entire Premier League.
Football supporters generally are vacuous cretins, aren't they, they'd have to engage their singular brain cell before the notion of a balanced opinion befell them, shortly after, they could look into dragging their knuckles off the floor.
Buy?
Surely u mean produce them himself from Arsenal's amazing youth set-up. Get them at pre-birth, build them up into technically gifted footballers that don't win anything then sell them for £500m like he did with Cole to Chelsea