This was billed as Gordon Strachan and his Scotland team’s shot at redemption.
Unfortunately, despite a bold team selection and a display brimful of passion and commitment there was nothing transformative about the end result or the way in which it came about.
Strachan called for a big performance when it was needed most and, to an extent, he got it.
What he didn’t want was his side getting another lesson in the importance of clinical finishing. But he got that as well.
The headers from Liverpool duo Daniel Sturridge and Adam Lallana to put England two up were their only real chances at that point and they couldn’t have been executed more precisely.
The same was true of Gary Cahill’s.
Scotland, on the other hand, had at least three sights at goal of equal opportunity but wasted every one of them.
The World Cup qualifying campaign was flagging after three games. Now it is all but finished after four.
The wait for another match in Group F will be a long one but no Scotland fan will be counting down the days to Slovenia at Hampden in March.
It wasn’t quite a case of rip it up and start again for Strachan with his team line-up but it wasn’t far off it.
Craig Gordon was chosen ahead of David Marshall in goal; Ikechi Anya replaced Callum Paterson at right-back; Russell Martin dropped out and in came Christophe Berra to partner Grant Hanley; Scott Brown, James Morrison and James Forrest were picked in midfield and there was a start at last for Leigh Griffiths.
Just the eight changes then.
Gareth Southgate had revealed Wayne Rooney’s reinstatement on Thursday and the only selection that might not have been foreseen was Sturridge starting rather than Harry Kane.
So a relatively settled side started against a scratch one but it was the Scots who were on the front foot in the first few minutes.
A bit of probing down the left resulted in Darren Fletcher having time and space for a shot from 25 yards out but he mistimed it badly and his effort didn’t come close to troubling Joe Hart.
Forrest was next to have a go on the angle a couple of minutes later. His shot was a slight improvement on Fletcher’s but not by much.
These were encouraging signs, though. On five minutes there was a decent set-piece opportunity out wide and Robert Snodgrass whipped it in on top of Hart, who was clattered by Hanley in the air. Foul or no foul didn’t become an issue as the assistant referee had flagged for offside.
Five minutes of good play became 10 and Scotland’s high tempo and in your face pressing was proving effective at stopping England establishing any kind of rhythm.
The nearest thing to an early scare was on 13 minutes when Wallace and Raheem Sterling challenged for a header in the box and the Manchester City winger went down, claiming for a penalty. It wasn’t, but it definitely fell into the “seen them given” category.
With his own team growing in belief and the opposition disjointed, Strachan couldn’t have asked for much more in terms of the balance of play in the opening period.
Creating a good scoring chance hadn’t happened, however.
That nearly came when Griffiths did what he does best and spun off the shoulder of his marker but his first touch from Berra’s through ball left him with too much to do to get a shot on goal.
There was a switch in momentum midway through the first half and it proved to be a decisive one.
Rooney had a shot deflected wide off the Scotland wall but the ball was kept up that end of the pitch and when Hanley got in the way of a long range hit it broke favourably for England. All of a sudden Kyle Walker was in a great position to cross from the right, Sturridge timed a near post run to perfection and his glancing header gave Gordon no chance.
One chance, one goal.
The Scots responded well and Griffiths had a shot blocked by John Stones, which spun out for a corner.
From the set-piece Snodgrass picked out Hanley unmarked at the back post and the delivery deserved better than the header it got, which was a terrible one and soared over the bar.
Griffiths was playing with tunnel vision and he really should have put Snodgrass through on the half-hour mark rather than taking his chance from well over 20 yards. The reaction from the Hull City man and Griffiths’ raised hand of apology told the story.
Scotland had a vigilant Turkish referee to thank for spotting that Danny Rose had dived in the box rather than been brought down by Snodgrass. He should have booked the Tottenham defender though.
They went into the break with England 1-0 up but it was the visitors who started promisingly after the re-start and twice they cut the home defence open to no avail.
First Wallace crossed from the left, Griffiths dummied and Forrest dragged his left foot 18-yarder wide. Then moments later Snodgrass could only find the leg of Stones after Scotland had got in behind Walker.
The punishment for passing up these two chances was brutal. Up the pitch went England and Danny Rose, on the overlap as Wallace had been minutes earlier, saw his cross headed home by Lallana.
That was the effectively game over. Three minutes that summed up the contest.
It was 3-0 on 61 minutes and a third headed goal. Cahill got away from Hanley and Gordon – who got a finger-tip to this one – again had no chance of keeping it out.
Had it not been for Sterling inexplicably ballooning a shot over from six yards out it would have been four on 70 minutes.
Sterling was about the only Englishman in Wembley not loving life and his freshly shattered confidence was exposed when he chose to pass rather than shoot in the box and didn’t even do that very well, with substitute Jamie Vardy the man he failed to find.
We were very much in damage limitation territory by now, with the Tartan Army undeserving of the potential humiliating scoreline that was still possible.
They were spared a fourth, but watching England ping the ball about to cries of “easy, easy” before the final whistle was blown was torture enough.
England – Hart, Walker, Stones, Cahill, Rose, Dier, Henderson, Sterling, Lallana, Rooney, Sturridge (Vardy 74). Subs not used – Heaton, Pickford, Clyne, Walcott, Jagielka, Bertrand, Townsend, Kane, Rashford, Wilshere, Lingard.
Scotland – Gordon, Anya (Paterson 79), Hanley, Berra, Wallace, D Fletcher, Morrison (McArthur 66), Brown, Snodgrass (Ritchie 82), Forrest, Griffiths. Subs not used – Marshall, C Martin, R Martin, Naismith, Fletcher, Bannan, Burke, Hamilton, Kingsley.
Referee – Cuneyt Cakir (Turkey).
