Alan Shearer “I think the US will beat Slovenia and Algeria too”

I feel desperately sorry for goalkeeper Robert Green after his horrendous mistake led to the United States’ equaliser against England.

But I’m not surprised to see the criticism he has got in the newspapers back home because that is part and parcel of being an England player – in fact, I expected him to get more stick than he has done.

I was impressed he came out to face the media afterwards because he could have hidden away.

Instead he has faced up to what’s happened, and said how he was trying to forget about it. Strangely, he appeared more relaxed and composed when he was talking after the game than he did beforehand.

He looked very tense in the tunnel before kick-off, which is why he might have made the error and let Clint Dempsey’s shot creep past him in the first place.

When you are at your first World Cup, like Green is, and you don’t have many caps – he had nine before Saturday – then it can be a very nervy situation.

Could not knowing whether he was playing until two hours before kick-off have affected him?

Well, it would have made a difference to his preparations but there was still no excuse for that kind of mistake. It will haunt him for the rest of his life but he cannot do anything about it now and he has to try to move on.

However I still think Fabio Capello will leave him out for England’s next game against Algeria on Friday. And for me, that would be the right decision.

You can imagine what our opponents would be thinking if he does play, and Green’s own confidence is likely to be rock bottom too.

Who should play instead? I’d assume Capello will go for David James, if fit, because he has the experience.

You might think it would be a gamble for him to play Joe Hart, who only has three caps, but I think it’s been proved that it would be a gamble to play any of our goalkeepers.

Capello is unlikely to give whoever he does select any advance warning either. His way seems to be to make his players wait and he has done that throughout his managerial career so I cannot imagine he will change now.

The England coach has some other big decisions to make this week too. We now know Ledley King will miss that game with a groin injury so he has to decide who should come in to partner John Terry.

Jamie Carragher, Michael Dawson and Matthew Upson are all decent defenders but my only concern is that all of them lack half a yard of pace. Carragher was caught out that way a couple of times when he came on against the US.

England might get away with it in our next couple of games, but the further they go, it is likely to become more and more of a problem and, without Rio Ferdinand and while King is unavailable, there is not a lot that Capello can do about it.

At least in midfield he has options to try to improve things, especially if Gareth Barry is fit for the rest of the tournament.

If so, Capello could push Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard out to the left, as he has done before, or do what a lot of people – including me – want to see, and play Gerrard off Rooney.

That seems less likely but there has to be a way of getting more out of Rooney than we saw in Rustenburg.

At World Cups, you just don’t get many chances like the one he wasted in the second half when he fired straight at Tim Howard and, ultimately, it was the difference between us winning the game and having to settle for a point.

The further England go in the competition, the more difficult it will be for them to play with two up front.

In these major tournaments, the key to winning games is keeping possession and it is very difficult to keep the ball using a 4-4-2 system because you don’t have that extra man in midfield the way that the likes of Spain and Argentina do.

It means you have problems keeping the ball and passing it and that was the way it was for England on Saturday night.

I’m not sure about Shaun Wright-Phillips on the left either because, when he came on for James Milner, he kept cutting in all the time which is not really what you want.

Still, one of the upsides of the night was the number of chances that we created, as well as the performances of Gerrard and Glen Johnson at right-back against Landon Donovan. Both of them were excellent.

Unfortunately there were more negatives than positives overall, and let’s not forget the US had a couple of other good opportunities too.

But I wouldn’t be too downhearted or concerned if I was an England fan.

We want them to win 4-0 every time but, as far as opening games go, it was not a disaster. I’d only give the team performance a score of 5.5 or 6 out of 10 but I am very confident England will get better from here.

Yes, England have to improve but they will still qualify for the last 16, I have no doubts about that. I’m sure they will win the next two games but I just hope they can score enough to top the group because I think the US will beat Slovenia and Algeria too.

Alan Shearer was talking to Chris Bevan in Cape Town.