How much of a crisis is this for the English, really? Don't forget that Italy lost to the resurgent Welsh on Wednesday night, and only the width of a post saved Germany from the ignominy of being held at home by the Faroes.

England have a win and a draw from two games, putting them five points behind Turkey with a game in hand. Not a great start, but hardly beyond rescue.

Yet, in Southampton, while England's footballers were dashing around like madmen in the hope that their sheer physical effort plus the effect of their reputations would be enough to persuade the opposition to give in, it really did seem like the return of the bad old days for the English.

As the shots rained in, the supporters might have been back at Wembley in 1973, when Poland and Tomaszewski, their clown of a goalkeeper, held Alf Ramsey's team at bay and denied them qualification for the World Cup finals in West Germany.

Through a similar combination of coolness and well merited luck, Macedonia may have placed a significant barrier across England's path to Portugal in 2004.

Under Sven Goran Eriksson's leadership, England have retained the knack of making ordinary opponents look formidable.

It happened in the first half in Bratislava and it happened again in Southampton. And when it happens, they have no commanding figure capable of spreading calm and refocusing their efforts.

David Beckham has made a great success of captaincy off the field. The players clearly respect him. His attitude on Wednesday, however, was counter-productive. He charged towards every trouble spot with an air of boiling rancour - setting the wrong example.

On this occasion, passivity was certainly not England's problem.A bit less heat and a bit more light might have helped.

Is Sven to blame? Only in the sense that his early successes raised the nation's expectations back to the customary level of unrealistic frenzy.

What should happen now? Eriksson has earned the right to continue to develop the team, but a few obvious steps could be taken.

The first - saying thank you and goodnight to David Seaman - is unavoidable now.

Second, he should honour his original intention of playing people only in their recognised positions.

Third, he must find a way of making Joe Cole the team's creative mainspring.

To accommodate Cole in his most productive role, roaming the width of the pitch behind the strikers, Paul Scholes would have to be dropped to the bench.

Scholes is a players' player, which is why Eriksson is reluctant to drop him. But, as has been proved time and again, he does not have the personality to turn a game such as Wednesday's.

Unlike Scholes, Cole plays in a way that occasionally makes self-expression look like self-indulgence.

Oh, and one last thing.

After Wednesday, is there anybody out there who still does not understand what Emile Heskey brings to the England team?

Guardian Service