The 10 best England team performances in the Premier League era

#9 England 5-1 Croatia – World Cup 2010: Qualifying Round

Fabio Capello’s refreshed England team, using basically the same spine as Sven-Goran Eriksson’s ‘Golden Generation’ from 2004 and 2006, had already laid the ghosts of failure to qualify for Euro 2008 to rest by defeating Croatia in Zagreb (more on that later) earlier in the qualification round for the 2010 World Cup, but they really hammered the point home with this one-sided beating at Wembley in September 2009.

England came into the match full of confidence as they’d gone unbeaten in the group and, only needed a point to secure a spot in South Africa.

They got a dream start when Aaron Lennon was fouled in the penalty box with just 7 minutes gone in the match. Frank Lampard tucked the penalty away, and from then on it was a whitewash, as another goal from Lampard and two from Steven Gerrard gave the 'Three Lions' a 4-0 lead with 20 minutes to go.

Croatian striker Eduardo scored a consolation after 73 minutes, but a poor clearance from keeper Vedran Runje, who actually had a solid game despite conceding 4, allowed Wayne Rooney to slot home the 5th goal to really cement England’s superiority.

In reality, they could’ve had more, had the likes of Emile Heskey been able to take a number of gilt-edged chances.

While the previous win over Croatia was slightly more impressive, this was still a great showing, as Capello proved that he could get the best out of the Golden Generation.

In particular, pairing Lampard and Gerrard to more success than Eriksson had seen for the most part, and sent England into the World Cup with some tremendous momentum that ultimately failed to deliver.