World Cup 2010: James Milner finally shows he could be the 'right' man for England

There have been five different candidates and Beckham has been working directly with four of those potential successors over the past month but, in James Milner, Fabio Capello may just have discovered the answer to the problem position of right midfield.

Theo Walcott admitted that Beckham had been advising him on his crossing during the pre-tournament training camp in Austria and, since arriving in South Africa, the former England captain has also been spending time with Milner.

“Since I’ve come into the England squad over the last year or so, I have been in the squad with David Beckham and I have watched him in training,” Milner said.

“Before a game he’ll come over and have a chat to you and say what he thinks about the game and give you the odd word of advice. It’s fantastic to have a player of his quality and experience about the place, to give the wide players and everyone else a lift, and have a word when it’s needed.”

Yet for 22 minutes against Slovenia on Wednesday, it appeared that Milner would join Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, David Bentley, Walcott and Beckham himself on the list of Capello’s aborted experiments. He looked slow, bereft of confidence and his passes seemed to keep hitting white Slovenian shirts.

Then, out of the blue, he delivered a Beckham-esque cross that curled just enough to get behind the defence for Jermain Defoe to score the goal that took England into the last 16.

After that, Milner was a different player and he delivered a flurry of accurate, early crosses. It was quite some transformation from the ignominy of being hauled off during the first-half of the match against the United States.

“If David would have been proud of my cross for Jermain, then great,” Milner said. “I would have been pretty devastated if the USA game had been my last contribution to this World Cup.

“It’s my first World Cup and you don’t imagine coming off after half an hour but when you don’t train for three days and you lose a lot of weight before a World Cup, you obviously do not feel 100 per cent.”

Milner also revealed that, as well as the offer of a pre-match beer, a pre-match quiz had been organised to help settle the players.

“It was more of a relaxed preparation,” Milner said. “The World Cup is massive, but I don’t think there’s been fear — it’s maybe a bit of anxiety. We had a quiz the other night, which was a good laugh and everyone was involved. The last few days have brought us closer together.”