The single crime of which England could not be convicted on Thursday was taking the opposition lightly. Anyone who supposes that Sven-Goran Eriksson kept Peter Crouch on the field because he guessed that the Liverpool striker would eventually get the opening goal against Trinidad & Tobago is mistaken. The managerial logic had followed a darker path when it was decided that Michael Owen be substituted instead.

"If they had a free-kick or corner," said Eriksson, "(Dennis) Lawrence is as tall as Crouch and we needed to have Crouch to mark him. It was the only way they were going to score a goal."

It was, for all that, an admission of how far England have fallen from their pre-tournament status as the golden generation, born to revel in this tournament. They wearied themselves far more than T&T with a gormless reliance on the long ball.

The sharp exchange of passes that England required was hardly seen. "We should have moved the ball quicker," said Eriksson. The diagnosis is perfect but that does not explain how his team contracted the illness in the first place. The players are meant to be inoculated against it through the treatment they undergo on the training ground.

To give Eriksson his due, the introduction of Aaron Lennon transformed the match but the Swede would have preferred a straightfoward destruction of T&T.

"Lennon did very well, beating people and opening the game up," Eriksson said of the background to the goal. "Beckham could drop off because nobody was marking him there and cross the ball." That valuable ploy, though, cannot compensate for the absence of fluency. For all the bold talk, England act as if they have no faith in themselves.

England need to be unshackled from their anxious dependence on high balls and set-pieces. All sorts of matters must be examined and in view of the deterioration in the partnership between Frank Lampard and Gerrard, Eriksson could be running a grave risk if he retains them in tandem.

In practice, the most radical improvement would come through the impact of a completely fit Wayne Rooney. While he did make his first appearance in seven weeks in Nuremberg, the substitute was not at all sharp. Even so, the mere sight of him galvanised England.

"When you see people train," the coach argued, "you can say, 'He's match fit'. With Rooney that was what we believed (for) a long time. We didn't want to play him in the first game but we were convinced that he should be on the pitch in the second. I am stubborn."

Rooney could start against Sweden on Tuesday. "It's tempting," conceded Eriksson, who has a desire to see England beat his countrymen for the first time in 38 years.

Alex Ferguson telephoned Rooney this week to urge him to take the necessary caution when making his comeback. The Manchester United manager broke off from a five-week holiday in the south of France to wish his player good luck but also made it clear that he expected him to return to the club in good condition.

Rooney, who is understood to be distinctly unimpressed with Ferguson's desire to keep him out of the World Cup, yesterday authorised the two independent specialists who studied his injury, professors Angus Wallace and Chris Moran, to release a statement on their findings.

"We were able to confirm that this fracture was quite different from the typical metatarsal shaft fracture, but was a fracture involving the spongy bone at the base of the metatarsal," said the team from Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre. "This bone heals approximately three times more quickly than the hard (cortical) bone of the metatarsal shaft. Wayne had discomfort in his foot for only five days and has now been pain-free for six weeks."

Meanwhile, Michael Owen has hit back at some of Eriksson's thinly veiled criticisms. "What about the service?" was the message as he complained about being made a scapegoat and pointed out that he was still waiting for his first decent through-ball of the tournament. "Frustrating" was one of the words he used. ... Guardian Service