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If the smell of blood on the carpet at Soho Square this morning is familiar, so too last night was the stale odour of an England performance that carried more than a whiff of the dregs of the Steve McClaren era. Fabio Capello argued forcibly with those, including Harry Redknapp, who claimed that his team had stunk out Wembley Stadium, but this was, at best, a flat note on which to herald the end of the phoney war and the imminent start of the World Cup qualifying campaign.

Praising the character that enabled Joe Cole, the substitute, to scramble in the scruffiest of equalising goals in the third minute of stoppage time, Capello announced confidently that England had taken another step forward, but, if that was the case, it was what Cole had described on Monday as a “pigeon step”. Capello stated in the postmatch press conference that his team would be ready for their next game, against Andorra in Barcelona on September 6, but, as was pointed out to him immediately, it is the match after that, against Croatia in Zagreb four days later, that is the concern.

Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, said in his role as a television summariser that it was “one of the worst performances I’ve seen from an England team” and that Capello’s decision to deploy Steven Gerrard on the left-hand side of midfield was “killing” the Liverpool captain. Capello took issue with both of these comments, saying that, in his eyes, Gerrard had played as one of the two in a 4-3-2-1 formation behind Jermain Defoe.

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They can argue about that one all they like, but Redknapp had a point when, casting his mind over a coaching career in which the Italian has steered AC Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid and others to great success, he ventured that “I haven’t seen Fabio Capello teams play worse than that”. Whatever his protestations, the England manager is finding it difficult to impose his beliefs and his philosophy on a group of players who lost their way under Sven-Göran Eriksson and lost the plot under McClaren.

Capello will, one suspects, bring about an improvement - and even last night he talked of having seen England play “without fear” at Wembley for the first time - but so far the process is proving slow. Five friendly matches into his reign, the team does not yet bear anything like the hall-marks of a Capello team: strong, unified, disciplined and effective.

If we can briefly touch upon the positives, they came last night in the form of Wes Brown’s first international goal on the stroke of half-time, cancelling out Milan Baros’s opening goal in the 22nd minute for the impressive visiting team; a 15-minute purple patch just before that in which Gerrard briefly seemed invigorated in his role on the left as England began to test Petr Cech; the refusal to accept defeat that yielded Cole’s late, late goal. You want more? Sorry, but that really was it.

The Czech Republic, who can hardly claim to have illuminated the European Championship finals this summer, were by far the more vibrant, incisive team. Moreover, they looked like a team, whereas England, particularly in defence, played like strangers, alarmingly vulnerable whenever their opponents counter-attacked. They were given precious little protection by a midfield pairing of Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry, but Rio Ferdinand and John Terry played less like partners at the back than men who have been rivals for the captaincy.

With Ferdinand seemingly wondering what might have been, Baros raced free in the fifteenth minute, testing David James from a tight angle before Brown hacked the ball to safety. There had been warnings even before that and, when the opening goal came soon afterwards, it was not a surprise, Radek Sirl dribbling inside Brown and crossing for Baros, who turned Terry far too easily before striking a shot that deflected off Ashley Cole and over the stranded James.

That was the cue for England’s best spell and there was just the slightest feeling, when an equaliser came in the final minute of the first half, that it was deserved. Brown scored it, his aggressive run to the near post ending with a prodigious jump above Tomas Ujfalusi and a bullet header past Cech, but you just know it will be archived by many as a David Beckham assist, fuelling that unhealthy reliance on his ability to strike a dead ball. When Beckham took his leave with 11 minutes left, by which time Marek Jankulovski seemed to have won the day for the Czech Republic with a marvellous free kick past a stupefied James, he was given a standing ovation. Seconds earlier, Lampard had been jeered off, just as Stewart Downing had been jeered on. Same old England. Same old England fans, too.

Those fans might have been the reason why the sponsors chose a visiting player, Jan Polak, as their man of the match. Previously, even in England’s darkest hour, as they fell to Croatia in their final European Championship qualifying match in November, they had chosen an England player - usually to an overwhelming reaction from the crowd. The appointment of Capello was meant to fumigate Wembley, but the stale smell of the McClaren era continues to linger.

- England’s World Cup qualifying group got under way last night with Kazakhstan beating Andorra 3-0 in Almaty. It took only 14 minutes for Sergey Ostapenko to give the home side the lead, drilling the ball low beyond Josep Anton Gomez, the Andorra goalkeeper. Ostapenko doubled Kazakhstan’s lead on the half-hour, the striker reacting quickest to lash the ball high into the net. As the frustration told, four Andorra players were booked and they looked more than ready for the break when Roman Uzdenov added a third from a header. England start their qualifying campaign against Andorra in Barcelona on September 6.