James display bolsters his World Cup credentials

It is three-and-a-half years since James lost his place as first choice after his errors cost England a World Cup qualifying win over Austria — a decision that seemed irreversible when he came off the bench to concede four against Denmark a year later.

Even he thought his time had passed. But after Capello recalled the 37-year-old for his first game in charge last week, James' performance at the Reebok Stadium made a well-timed case for him continuing all the way to the 2010 World Cup and beyond.

"The fact of the matter is I'm not going to come in and waste people's time if I didn't think I could genuinely stake a claim for the World Cup," said James.

"I want to play for England but who wants to get a couple of friendlies and then say I'm not having any more of it?

"If I don't get there I'd like to think it's because there are three better goalkeepers than me."

The pick of James' saves deflected a point-blank effort from Tamir Cohen over the bar in stoppage time, clinching a win Portsmouth barely deserved after Lassana Diarra had scored his first league goal in English football.

"I think that would come into the save of the season category," said Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp. "We'll be watching it plenty of times. It was a worldclass save from an amazing goalkeeper. He is special.

"I can see David going on well into his 40s. He is so fit. You can take him out on a Monday to train with the 18-yearold goalies and they would not be able to live with him."

Bolton boss Gary Megson said the performance was as good as he had ever seen from a keeper. When his team did beat James 20 minutes from time, Hermann Hreidarsson cleared off the line.

It was the second letoff for James after Matt Taylor was guilty of a quite astonishing miss in the first half, spooning the ball over an open goal when Kevin Davies' cross came to him barely five yards out.

Bolton dismay was not helped by the fact Diarra was offside when Kanu touched the ball through for him to fire the winner nine minutes from time.

Credit to Megson, he did not make a meal of it, choosing instead to praise what he felt was Bolton's best performance since he succeeded Sammy Lee.

Redknapp, meanwhile, was singing the praises of Diarra.

"I think he is an amazing talent, I really do," said the Pompey boss. "He has the ambitions one day to play for Real Madrid, Barcelona or Milan and I think he will do. The sky's the limit for him eventually."

Television replays suggested the Pompey man was offside and beaten manager Gary Megson agreed, but the real explanations behind Bolton's failure to win a game they dominated were the performance of visiting keeper David James and a catalogue of missed chances.

Along with James, Diarra was the only visiting player to emerge with unqualified credit.

Sitting in front of his back four in the first half, the 22-year-old performed immaculately, reading the game to perfection and never wasting a pass. In the second half, as Redknapp constantly tweaked his formation, Diarra took up more attacking duties.

In the 76th minute, his 20-yard shot forced Jussi Jaaskelainen into his first save of the match and four minutes later he exchanged passes with Kanu, who cleverly poked the ball away from covering defender Andy O'Brien for Diarra to finish comfortably from 10 yards.

"We battered them, didn't we?" said Redknapp with a grin. "I must have changed the way we played 14 times in the game, we just couldn't get into it. But Diarra is such a special player, he is out of the top drawer.

"Everything about him is special. You don't play for the French national team every game, like he has done for the last 11 internationals, if you're not a good player — and he's only 22.

"He's an amazing player, he will be one of the best midfield players in Europe without a doubt and I was surprised we got him because there were four big clubs in for him.

"But he had made up his mind he needs to be playing regularly to play for the French national team in the European Championship and he knew he couldn't do that at Arsenal because their midfield is playing great."

Wenger's loss, therefore, has clearly been Portsmouth's gain although James was also worthy of unstinting praise.

Should Fabio Capello still be uncertain about the identity of his first-choice goalkeeper, it will not take many more performances of this quality to settle the issue in James' favour.

"You can explain that result in two words — David James," said Megson. "I have not seen us play any better, I've certainly not seen us create as many chances as we did.

"The only reason we did not win the game is purely and simply down to one of the best goalkeeping performances I've seen.

"From our perspective, all that we can do is hope that we don't come across a goalkeeper playing as well as we did here."

The pick of James's saves was an injury-time block which denied lively Bolton substitute Grzegorz Rasiak as he seemed certain to convert Gary Cahill's cross with a ferocious drive.

Earlier, he had saved almost as well when the same forward performed admirably in keeping down a half-volley.

When James was not keeping out shots, Bolton were aiding him with rank bad finishing.

The biggest culprit among home players was former Portsmouth midfielder Matt Taylor, who missed three good openings.

The worst came just after the half-hour when he had an open goal before him but miskicked completely at Kevin Davies' low cross as the ball took an unkind bounce.

"The one he did miss was poor and he'll accept that," said Megson of the open-goal blunder. "But at least he kept getting in there. On a better day he would have got two or three."