After a tumultuous fortnight, Capello was able to claim the impressive 2-0 win over Wales in Cardiff was "the only thing that matters".

The Italian was referring to the astonishing communication breakdown with Rio Ferdinand after deciding to strip the Manchester United man of the England captaincy and hand it back to John Terry.

Ferdinand's generous assessment of the Three Lions' performance through his Twitter page suggests he is ready to put the matter to bed, even if an unqualified comment that "it could be the start of some good luck" after correctly predicting the scoreline hinted at pain that goes beyond his present calf injury.

However, it took former team-mate Gary Neville to make the most accurate observation about the whole debacle, one that Capello might do well to take heed of.

"The result is the most important thing but we have seen with England managers in the past, if you use up your credits off the pitch and you get a bad result, the tide is difficult to turn," Neville told Sky Sports.

"He probably doesn't care. He has been around for 25 years and his legacy is set.

"He is not interested in the noise and the stuff that goes on around him.

"But this is the England manager's position. It is a monster. It is something completely different to any club job."

There is certainly enough pressure that comes with England to steer well clear of any self-inflicted damage. He is just creating more problems for himself by threatening to make 11 changes to his starting line-up for Tuesday's friendly with Ghana after releasing the five Champions League-bound players from yesterday's starting line-up.

That has thrown the whole captaincy debate into the air again as John Terry is amongst those being released.

Gareth Barry is the strong favourite to take over but how will Capello handle the sight of the armband being passed around in the result of mass substitutions given it was precisely that, in Denmark last month, which saddened him so much he felt compelled to restore Terry as his leader?

Such debate will doubtless bemuse Capello, who remains totally focused on achieving a single objective, reaching the Euro 2012 Finals in Poland and Ukraine.

To that end, England now appear to be in a straight fight with Montenegro, having joined them on 10 points halfway through the qualification programme thanks to a performance that was clinical in its execution.

"For the first half an hour the players did exactly what I asked," said Capello.

"We pressed the ball, we won it back quickly. We created chances to score goals and Wales did not have any."

Capello's master plan revolved around the use of Scott Parker as a holding player in midfield, allowing Jack Wilshere and Frank Lampard to make most use of their attacking talents.

Wayne Rooney was pushed into a wider role so he and Ashley Young flanked Darren Bent, giving a limited Wales outfit problems they simply could not cope with.

"I decided on the formation after I watched other games that Wales played," said Capello.

"They were surprised and it caused them a problem.

"Scott Parker is a really good player in this position. He won a lot of possession for us and Ashley Young did very well.

"I don't know if I will play the same style in the next game. It depends on the style of the opponents. But I am happy with the way it went."

Indeed, the only sour note was the booking picked up by Wayne Rooney, also released along with Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and Michael Dawson, that rules him out of a Wembley date with Switzerland on June 4 through suspension.

"Rooney didn't realise," said Capello.

"I just told him it was not a good booking. He said why?

"He didn't remember that he got booked against Montenegro."