Sven-Goran Eriksson offered some vacuous comments about the imperfect fitness of the England players but it was his relationship with the squad that looked exhausted at Windsor Park. The Swede has the problems of a manager who is approaching the fifth anniversary of his appointment and his temperament makes him recoil from the kind of radical measures that might sweep away the torpor.
There is no crisis yet to embolden him, even if he did claim that "we all have knives to our necks". England are confirmed as, at the least, runners-up in Group Six and they would win it with full points from next month's matches against Austria and Poland, at Old Trafford. The side should go to the World Cup finals and Eriksson will hardly break up a relationship with his £4 million salary voluntarily.
Nonetheless it felt sure at Windsor Park on Wednesday the lifelessness of this squad will remain as long as he stays. His involvement has run its course and is in a degenerative condition. Simple steps are beyond Eriksson and, with Northern Ireland leading, he made the inscrutable decision to bring on the defensively minded Owen Hargreaves. The Bayern Munich player's perch in the pecking order apparently entitled him to be introduced. There is hardly any creativity in him and he did not even guard possession.
Eriksson has made few pertinent interventions of late, let alone shrewd ones. It is his right to explore tactical alternatives but it is incumbent on him to make them work.
Eriksson has not "lost the dressingroom," but he no longer gets the reaction he once did. His presence is not registering as it did originally, least of all with Wayne Rooney. The teenager's talent exists on the verge of anarchy but he has never gone so far astray with Alex Ferguson's Manchester United as he did at Windsor Park, where he could have been sent off. Just as in last season's friendly with Spain, he looked ungovernable under Eriksson.
The poor attitude of the side reflected dreadfully on the manager. Frank Lampard took no interest in pursuing Paul Robinson's clearance and let Steven Davis make the pass to David Healy, who was onside because Rio Ferdinand had failed to push out with the rest of the defence. England's decline was encompassed in those few seconds.
Eriksson declared, incomprehensibly, his side had been "excellent" for 35 minutes and put its ultimate failure down to frustration: "It's important to have the patience to keep moving the ball, because they defend with a lot of people and a big heart."
England did fragment into the individualism epitomised by the substitute Joe Cole. A coaching lesson will not suffice. Habits must be examined and he cannot go on picking both Lampard and Steven Gerrard when neither is contributing. Nor should he let David Beckham stay in deep midfield when crosses from the right could be so important.
There was a threadbare quality to the analysis when he mused on how a suspended Rooney could be replaced against Austria. "We will see whether Peter Crouch starts to play or not," the manager said of the injured Liverpool striker. Can it be Eriksson, once deemed a sophisticate, has been reduced to a faith in that hoary British stereotype, the big target man? He has been of service in his time but ought to go once England's concern with the 2006 World Cup is over.
