Substitutes Peter Crouch and Shaun Wright-Phillips spared England further embarrassment as Fabio Capello's scandal-tarnished squad came from behind to register a 3-1 win over Egypt.

The recently-crowned African champions had looked on course for a landmark victory on their first appearance at Wembley when Mohamed Zidan translated their initial superiority into a first-half lead.

But Crouch's entry at the interval proved to be the catalyst for a significant improvement with the Tottenham striker bolstering his claim to a starting role at the World Cup by claiming a couple of goals either side of a strike from Wright-Phillips.

That was enough to transform an evening that had the potential to go badly wrong for Capello, with the hangover from recent off-the-pitch issues evident in the boos received by John Terry on his first outing since being stripped of the captaincy.

England were on the back foot for long spells in the opening period, but might easily have gone ahead inside five minutes, with the cocktail of Wayne Rooney's eye for a pass and Theo Walcott's pace causing tremors on the left side of the visitors' defence.

Walcott's cutback was delivered into the path of Frank Lampard but the Chelsea midfielder pushed his shot tamely at goalkeeper Essam El Hadary.

Egypt were soon in the ascendancy however and England were fortunate that the unmarked Wael Gomaa was unable to connect cleanly with a volley from eight yards out.

Manchester City sent Chelsea crashing to a 4-2 defeat to end their 37-match unbeaten record at Stamford Bridge and dent their Premier League title hopes on Saturday.

The leaders, beaten at home for the first time in all competitions since November 2008, finished with nine men after having Juliano Belletti and Michael Ballack sent off late in the second half.

City climbed from fifth to fourth place after two goals from Carlos Tevez, one from the penalty spot, and two from Craig Bellamy after Frank Lampard opened the scoring for Chelsea.

Lampard scored a second for Chelsea from a penalty as the match moved into stoppage time.

Chelsea are top with 61 points from 28 matches, one point more than Manchester United, who are without a league game this weekend as they play Aston Villa in the League Cup final at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.