England can now go on and beat Portugal on Thursday after another performance that heralded their coming together as a team. When Croatia went ahead I was convinced that England could come back and score three or four.

The Portuguese will offer sterner opposition and they will have the impetus that any side hosting a tournament enjoys from their supporters but having seen all three of their games I believe that the English can turn them over.

Portugal have two decent centre halves with pace but they still suffer from this desire to score the perfect goal. They play in front of you and don't have the physique or aerial power of teams that can make England look vulnerable. The hosts don't have the strength in depth and quality that you associate with Portuguese teams going back over the last 10 years or so.

England's victory last night will have raised confidence levels even higher and confirmed that the team is maturing as the tournament progresses. There are a couple of important factors notably the contribution from midfield.

If David Beckham had scored from the penalty spot against France then all four midfielders would have scored in the tournament. They are the leading scorers in the competition and that is a huge fillip when a side takes the pitch; knowing that you can score goals. Then there is the small matter of the boy wonder.

Croatia's early goal had a huge impact but ironically it was the team that conceded that played the better football for most of the half. England pressed and although they missed one or two chances the quality of their approach play suggested that a goal was in the offing.

The Croatians in contrast, having grabbed the early goal, were content to sit back and allow England to come onto them. It was a high-risk venture and one for which they paid dearly. Their back four failed to deal with Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen dropping off and the strong running of Paul Scholes from midfield was a constant menace.

Rooney's performance once again illustrated what an outstanding young talent he is and he must be in the running for player of the tournament at this stage. He showed excellent awareness to head back across for the goal for Scholes and then demanded the ball from the same player, turned and struck powerfully.

The Croatian goalkeeper should have stopped the shot and it's possible to quibble with the fact that the Croatian back four stepped back from him but he made his own good fortune with his general performance. The 18-year-old is revelling in dropping into the hole behind Owen and making it very difficult for defenders to pick him up.

For his second, and England's third, he showed vision to wait for Owen to come back onside, linked up well and then showed both pace and remarkable composure to stroke the ball past Tomislav Butina. He's probably wondering what all the fuss is about, maybe considers that all this European Championship lark is no more difficult than playing in the back garden.

Last night's victory was no more than England deserved as they completely eclipsed a Croatian side that ran out of ideas.

What will concern Sven-Goran Eriksson is the fact that England conceded two goals from set pieces: on both occasions the delivery was outstanding but there were question marks about England's defending. I think that it's partially attributable to a lack of confidence in David James. He's been a bit sloppy, ropey in other games and instead of going forward England defenders are hanging back that yard.

England can look forward to Thursday night with genuine confidence, secure in the knowledge that they have enough players in form to ease past the tournament hosts.