England manager Fabio Capello condemned the Wembley crowd for booing Ashley Cole yesterday after the Chelsea defender's howler presented Kazakhstan their goal in a 5-1 World Cup qualifying victory for the home side.

Earlier this week Capello had appealed to the crowd to be patient and show support after previously saying that England's players preferred playing away from home because of the pressure they felt at Wembley.

The near-90,000 crowd initially followed instructions despite a goalless first half but Cole became the pantomime villain when his aimless looped pass across goal allowed Zhambyl Kukeyev to give the visitors something to shout about.

"I didn't understand the crowd booing Ashley Cole after he made a mistake," Capello told a news conference. "It's always possible for one player to make a mistake and at that moment it's important for the crowd to help him, not boo him."

Capello admitted that his 4-3-3 system with Rooney forced wide on the left did not work well in the first half and said he brought on Shaun Wright-Phillips to add some width.

"After that things went well," he said after two Rooney strikes, an own goal and one each for Jermain Defoe and Rio Ferdinand secured a third successive win. "Wright-Phillips brought some speed and he did everything very well. With Rooney nearer to
 (Emile) Heskey he played very well."

On the team's first-half struggles, he said: "I've had experience of games like this, playing against teams who are not so big and it's not always easy to find the space and do the good passes but, sure, after 45 minutes at 0-0 I was not happy."

Kazakhstan's temporary coach Bernd Storck said his inexperienced team paid the price for a lack of endurance but was happy overall with their efforts.

"This is a very young team and we are here to learn. We had six players from the under-21s, four of them making their debut and two playing their second game and we were level at halftime," said the German.

"We showed we could play football and I think this is the future of Kazakhstan - mixing the young players with some experienced players. We have to work on our endurance but it's a good start."

He also explained that the Wembley pitch was not to blame for so many of his players slipping.

"It's not so easy to buy studs in Kazakhstan so we bought new studs yesterday in the shops," he said. "Our players have no experience of playing in these boots."