Just as it looked like Trinidad and Tobago would hold on for their most famous result England came up with two late goals to calm the nerves.

Like in their previous game against Sweden T&T put up a superb defensive performance to frustrate England until the 83rd minute in Nuremberg. England were very poor in the first half creating very little to bother T&T. The game changed after the hour mark with Aaron Lennon and Wayne Rooney coming on to shake things up. While Rooney was understandably quiet Lennon produced much needed pace into the England attack.

The breakthrough finally came on 83 minutes with Liverpool striker Peter Crouch jumping well to head home a David Beckham free-kick. Steven Gerrard finally found his shooting boots in the last minute curling home brilliantly from outside the box. Not vintage stuff again but another three points in the bag. But England must improve.

David Beckham defended another under-par England performance after beating Trinidad and Tobago 2-0 to book their place in the last 16 of the World Cup.

Beckham said: "We never give up - that's the message we always give out. We knew it would be tough and people expect it to be tough. We knew it was going to be a hard game and they would get 11 men behind the ball and so it proved.

"They made it very hard for us but we knew our game plan would break them down. We finished strong which is good thing. It is always tight and tense when you are expected to win the game but we got the win which is the main thing at this point.

"The fans believe in us and they appreciate that we are working hard."

England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson revealed that he told Rooney to keep his cool before the Manchester United player replaced Owen in the second period.

Eriksson said: "I told him to go onto the pitch and enjoy himself and not to make any stupid tackles. He was good when he came on and those 30 minutes will be very important for the future."

Eriksson added: "I am relieved to get the three points and we deserved it. We suffered in a different way. We played okay but we should have scored a goal or two earlier.

"But the players showed a lot of patience and in the end we won the game and deserved to win."