A walk in the park as England beat Lithuania in World Cup qualifier.

A walk in the park as England beat Lithuania in World Cup qualifier.

In the end England could have beaten Lithuania with their eyes closed, blindfolded, their feet tied together, a seemingly impenetrable fortress in front of them and even the whole population of Lithuania against them. In fact the game was so desperately one sided that if  this had been a heavyweight boxing fight then the referee would probably have flung in the towel within seconds of the start of Round One.

International football has become so farcically easy for England in World Cup qualifiers that by the end of this nonentity of a football match the whole spectacle assumed the air of a five a side practice match. England were so ludicrously superior to Lithuania that some of us were tempted to dip into a book, skim through a magazine, sip twenty five cups of tea and then balance a couple of pound coins on our nose.

Regrettably this was just a no contest and by the end of the game most of us were pleading for the referee to blow the final whistle. You began to think that even if England had stopped playing for an hour or so then maybe Lithuania might just have woken up and quite possibly made a game of it. But England did what they had to do and overcame the kind of opposition  who simply gave the ball to England and never even looked remotely like scoring.

Gareth Southgate's new generation of England players were so far ahead of their opponents in thought, deed and intention that if the match had been played at mid night England would still have seen enough of the ball to score several barrowloads of goals. But there was a sense of leniency, understanding and even compassion about England that just beggared belief. This was rather like watching a technically inspired Hackney Marshes 11 just strolling around with casual nonchalance and then helping themselves to outright possession This had to be the most unequal match in international football and it really was boys against men. .

But here we were at Sunday tea time in  Wembley Stadium and some of the more religious of Britain were still reflecting on another day of church, pub lunches with the family, the ironing of shirts and preparing ourselves for the week ahead. And therein may lie the problem. England were playing their international football on Sunday when they'd just finished praying, singing their hymns and contemplating the week's films on TV.

Sometimes Sunday football in England sounds almost sacrosanct and maybe sacriligeous, maybe forbidden and, possibly, should be banned permanently. Still the great TV dictators call all the shots and whatever they say is final. We all know now that the FA Cup Final will kick off at 5.30 on a Saturday and a vast majority of Sky games are now played at any random time of their choosing. Be prepared for next season's Premier League matches kicking off at 6.00 in the morning on every Tuesday during the season and Wednesdays at mid-day when most of us are still chewing our egg mayonnaise sandwiches. Oh yes and don't forget the midnight epics between Manchester United and Liverpool and the nine o clock morning confrontations between Spurs and Chelsea. Crazy.

But here we are once again with international football and England, World Cup  qualifiers. With every passing minute of their routine victory against clearly inferior opposition I had one of those most unforgettable Tony Hancock moments when the monotonous predictability became too much. I sighed and sighed again. There had to be something else I could do. Perhaps I could complete a jig saw puzzle or sit outside a Costa with latte in hand. But this was too much for anybody to take. This was intolerably ordinary, quite definitely a walk in the park, a walk in the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, the Pennines, the length and breadth of Land's End and John O' Groats and back to London again.

Still we did have the Wembley Stadium arch to look at and admire. Where once there were white towers to behold now we have the arch. It is admittedly a remarkable piece of modernist architecture and at night it does look a treat, simply amazing and mind blowingly impressive. Inside the stadium three huge, yawning tiers of seating stretch far and wide across the sporting landscape. The red and white are appropriately symbolic and the hint of blue reinforces the British air of patriotism.

I'm beginning to get used to the new stadium's dynamics and acoustics, a simple acceptance of new chapters and new beginnings. But the new Wembley stadium is now 10 years old and you find yourself thinking that when in Rome and all that. But quite obviously we're not in Rome so you've got to become accustomed to both the unique size and dimensions of the relatively new Wembley.

For the romantics among us you began to wonder what the legends of yesteryear would have made of the new Wembley. Would I wonder Sir Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, Bobby Charlton and Martin Peters have made the transition from those lush light green acres that were so wonderfully spacious to the newer, more lightly manicured grass of the 21st century? The colour of the grass now is also a much  darker shade of green and the quality of football would have been completely incomprehensible to those from a far distant generation.

Now though a TV audience is subjected to an almost frightening, unnerving, unsettling, psychologically distressing and cruelly disconcerting spectacle. For almost the whole of this Wembley World Cup qualifier we were inflicted with a constant bombardment of flashing and flickering advertising boards around the edge of the pitch. At times it reminded you of one of those old black and white TV sets whenever the picture became blurred, fuzzy and obscured by lines. It was totally unwatchable and at times beyond a joke so we turned off our DER set, banged the top of the set amusingly and then moved that very primitive aerial repeatedly and insufferably.

In the old days it used to be one staple diet of Radio Rentals, Visionhire with an occasional homage to Benson and Hedges cigarettes and baffling commercial blandishments. But we thought the game was great and besides the football, although dreadful at times, was still, strangely, far more palatable. England footballers such as Martin Chivers, Mick Channon, Alan Ball, a wonderful remnant of Sir Alf's 1966 vintage and the stylish Gerry Francis epitomised that bejewelled period for English football. All of the above players were natural entertainers and although some of the football left a lot to be desired, none of us complained because there didn't seem any point in complaining.

Anyway back to the present day. England almost played the whole of the game in the Lithuania half and at times seemed to set up camp in the opponents half. It hardly seems possible but there were at times when England's football was almost delightfully pleasing on the eye. Their passing had a South American or German simplicity about it that bodes well for the foreseeable future. Admittedly Lithuania looked so out of their depth that it seemed  a horrible shame to  allow the game to just peter out. Lithuania were pitifully ineffectual, sub standard, maddeningly mediocre and would have been better advised to stay at home and just spent the afternoon fishing in a local river bank. Their afternoon would have been infinitely more beneficial. At times the whole afternoon almost seemed to just pass them by. Maybe they had imagined it after all.

But at long last England look a recognisable force on the international stage. The defeat in Germany was perversely much better looking than it might have seemed. And now in this World Cup qualifier they toyed with their opponents mercilessly and callously. The ball was shifted around into tiny pockets of space, intricate, geometric passing patterns that wouldn't have seemed out of place in either a German, Spanish or Italian shirt.

It seems to the impartial outsider that England have now learnt the phraseology and grammar of the world game. The verbs are pronounced with clear diction, sentences beautifully constructed and the narrative is altogether more articulate. England are now playing the kind of sweet, short passing game that Scotland thought they'd invented at the end of the 19th century. But it's England's turn to give their own personal interpretation of what is now known as the high pressing game where attacking players cluster around the opposition like birds around a piece of bread.

For much of this game new England manager Gareth Southgate looked so calm and at peace with the world that if he'd dropped off for a quite nap nobody would have noticed. The body language is of  a man about to partake of a glass of brandy and cigar. This was a piece of cake, an effortless exercise. Here was a man who knew he was going to pass his driving test and then put up his feet up on a seaside deckchair. Easy business this international football malarkey.

The players were perhaps incidental to the plot but their displays were ample proof of a blooming, burgeoning growth period. Adam Lallana looks a very polished gem at the heart of England's midfield, Eric Dier is all assurance and finesse in a white England shirt and Raheem Sterling, although too flashy and flamboyant at times, is beginning to find his uncertain bearings on the international stage. His running with the ball and close ball control is so mesmeric and compelling that you find yourself wishing he would do it over and over again.

Frustratingly though Sterling does become too over elaborate, too clever and perhaps too pedantic. But the truth is that he does look an international winger in much the way that Peter Barnes and Steve Coppell hugged the flanks during the 1970s. But then again Gareth Southgate is no Don Revie and has yet to express any desire to manage in Saudi Arabia. There is indeed hope for the England team. Sterling is a bustling, hustling player who just seems to float through retreating defences as if they were just figments of the imagination.

Then there is the Spurs midfield star Dele Alli. It is hard to believe that Ali learnt his trade at MK Dons since his astonishing elevation to Premier League football is nothing short of miraculous. MK Dons are a decent, modest up and coming team but  Alli is now a White Hart Lane favourite. Alli has also progressed rapidly and wonderfully to the England senior team and at Wembley did much to suggest that the meteoric rise to fame is nothing less than fully deserved.

And yet on the debit side Alli does stray into the nastier and more lurid areas of the game. His temper is disturbingly short, the tears and tantrums increasingly noticeable while the rest of his game is an annoying set of contradictions. One minute he's a choir boy with an angelic temperament the next he looks as though he's poised to step into a boxing ring.

But there are positives to the Alli character which make you feel more and more convinced that one day he could yet confirm his presence on the much bigger world stage. Alli is strong, powerful, emotionally involved in every England attack and to those who predict that he could be the next Steven Gerrard, here was the most prominent hallmark of quality.

Then there is Kyle Walker, his Spurs colleague, a player whose burning pace from full back has been likened to Gareth Bale. Walker once again impressed hugely with his barnstorming surges, lightning quick overlaps and exemplary link up play. This was an England performance that overall that gave broad hints that a cultural revolution could well become a glorious reality. England are actually passing the ball and passing the ball with delicious accuracy and cleverness. They look like a football team with a collective ethos and are wholly dedicated to a radical change of direction.

And then there were the goals which on the day itself seemed almost an irrelevance. After a delectable piece of neat passing outside the penalty area, the ball was fed through to Sterling who powered his way to the by line and crossed to Jermain Defoe who defied his 34 years to score England's opening goal with all of the composure you'd expect of a natural goal scorer. Then half way into the second half Jamie Vardy finished off another cameo of complete passing football with England's second and what seemed insignificant goal.

So it was that the Wembley crowd drifted away after another almost businesslike victory against very poor and mundane opponents. Nobody seemed to go home any the wiser but England had done what was supposed to come naturally to them. The groundsman locked the gate, the players went home in their luxurious coach and any sense of anti climax was redeemed by the knowledge that England had won again. And that's got to be a good thing.