England Parker the Bus

We learned two things from last night's victory over Spain. First, we defend fine, better even, without John Terry in the side. Second, we need to stop wrapping our best young players in cotton wool and confining them to the Under 21s; they can compete very well at senior level and need to be given more opportunities to do so.

One thing we didn't learn, but I suspect might have just dawned on Fabio Capello, is that Scott Parker is our most important player. Most of us got the point when he won the 2010 football writer's player of the year. The reason he wasn't part of the World Cup squad, and why Michael Carrick and Shaun Wright-Phillips were, is that he won the award playing for West Ham. Now in a Tottenham side that has been unbeaten since he joined, I wouldn't be surprised to see him captaining his country in next year's European Championships. What remains incredible is that he has been overlooked at club and international level for so long.

Last summer, Parker made it clear that he was going to leave West Ham. Here's a list of the teams that should have been bidding:

• Everyone

In the end, Tottenham and Fenerbache were the only two teams to make their interest public. Spurs got him for £5.5 million. Now, they have a foundation to build their team around. With Parker anchoring the midfield, winning possession and playing it forward, the front five of Bale, Modric, Van der Vaart, Lennon and Adebayor can concentrate on attacking. Which they are quite good at. On current form, they will make the Champions League, worth £60 million. In my book, this spells a return on investment of ten times in the first year. 

Arsenal and Liverpool, meanwhile, spent well over Parker's price tag on players like Mertesacker (slow), Andre Santos (hilarious) and Jordan Henderson (weak) - so how does that sit with fans if this yields fifth or sixth place?

England's problem is, Van der Vaart, Bale and Modric aren't English. We don't currently have players like that, as was made painfully clear last night. Players such as Alex Chamberlain, Tom Cleverley and Jack Wilshere offer something like that level of attacking flair, but playing them all together is probably a decision a braver coach that Capello will need to make. 

For the immediate future, England's focus needs to be on how to take the ball from Parker and do something with it in the final third. The success of this venture will determine whether we make it out of the group in Poland and Ukraine. But it's encouraging to know at least that our historic 'problem position' - which needn't have been a problem for the past five years, has finally been sewn up.