Wayne Rooney still can't score and England's winning run ended in a tame 0-0 draw with Macedonia.

Maybe coach Steve McClaren has more problems than he thought.

England's three-game streak under the man who succeeded Sven-Goran Eriksson ended in a match it should have won comfortably. McClaren's team failed to dominate a well-organized but colourless Macedonian lineup before 72,000 Old Trafford fans who expected a high-scoring victory to take control at the top of Group E.

Even with Rooney returning from suspension, England didn't make enough chances and the nearest it came to scoring was when Steven Gerrard hit the crossbar late in the game.

The only good news was that England stayed top on goal difference from Israel and has not conceded a goal for six games.

Now comes its toughest test, however _ a visit on Wednesday to Croatia, which crushed Andorra 7-0 on Saturday. A loss in Zagreb will mean that England loses the lead and a 3-0 defeat would mean slipping to third behind Israel.

``I expect a better performance,'' McClaren said. ``I've always said if you win your home games and get a point away against the better teams, then you will qualify.

``We know what we have to do and we're determined to do it, to get back to work and put it right. This is international football and we've all had many days in the past like this. We've got to make sure we're better against Croatia.''

England's players acknowledged they didn't perform well enough and are now under pressure to bounce back.

``Maybe we should have been a bit more forceful,'' said Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard. ``There are a lot of difficult games in this group. It's never an easy ride in these qualifying groups, ask Italy, ask France. That's the way it goes.''

Gary Neville, who squandered a close-range chance to score his first England goal in 83 appearances, said the team started the game too slowly.

``In the first half we didn't play anywhere near the pace or the tempo we would like,'' the right back said. ``We'd certainly be looking for an improvement on our first half performance in Croatia.''

Gerrard misses the game in Zagreb after collecting another yellow card against Macedonia. But that's not McClaren's only problem.

Having decided to drop David Beckham and rule the former captain out of his plans, McClaren has not discovered the ideal replacement. Gerrard, who plays right side for Liverpool, is suspended, Aaron Lennon is out of the team through injury and Shaun Wright-Phillips has played very little for Chelsea.

The absence of Joe Cole and Calgary-born Owen Hargreaves has also hampered McClaren, who is without striker Michael Owen for most of the season after a serious knee injury.

Injuries aside, McClaren still has to field a team which will set up plenty of chances for Rooney, who has not scored since the opening game of the Premier League season for Manchester United in mid-August. His last goal for England in competitive play was at Euro 2004 in Portugal _ against Croatia _ and Rooney was replaced 16 minutes from the end against Macedonia.

``Nobody is more frustrated than Wayne Rooney,'' McClaren said. ``He is below his usual performances, everybody can see that. But Wayne's got the resilience and the character we have to show as a team.''

The England coach has been experimenting with a 3-5-2 formation in training although he stuck with 4-4-2 on Saturday. That would give him the option of an extra creative player in midfield but Croatia's seven-goal hammering of Andorra may change his mind.

Mladen Petric scored four of Croatia's goals and McClaren may opt to field four defenders to try and make sure his team stretches its run of shutouts to seven.