KEY POINTS:
The cruellest month, according to T.S. Eliot in his poem The Waste Land, is April.
For managers of the England football team it tends to be every other June, that waste land of dead dreams.
Even so, they normally survive the first year, so Thursday's D-Day in Estonia
has arrived a little early for Steve McClaren.
Graham Taylor, the most reviled of his predecessors, recalled last week that he was given two whole years before the bullets and vegetables began to fly. But Taylor, it is often forgotten, went through the whole of his first season unbeaten and, after the second, which concluded ingloriously at Euro '92, England had still lost only two matches out of 24; McClaren equalled that in seven games.
One of the few things in his favour is that he has consciously sought to revive the concept of meaningful friendlies, so devalued by Sven Goran Eriksson.
Thus England have this season issued invitations to Greece, Holland, Spain and Brazil, beating only the first of them in what proved to be the most deceptive of false dawns. The trouble with last Saturday's fixture, for a manager who regularly insists "preparation is key", is that a visit from the Brazilians could hardly be more different to a trip to Tallinn.
Had England wanted the best preparation for meeting Estonia, current Fifa rankings suggest a game should have been arranged with Guatemala or Botswana, the countries who straddle their position at No 106 in the charts. More realistically, an away game with neighbouring Latvia, riding low in 90th place, might have done.
McClaren was therefore forced to risk further damage to his personal statistics, which duly materialised with the just result of a 1-1 draw provided by Diego's late headed goal; a 40 per cent win record is worse than any other England manager except Kevin Keegan, whose resignation in the toilet seven years ago brought down a suitable shabby curtain at old Wembley. What England hoped to take out of the game was some improvement to confidence and morale, which they duly achieved and were determined to talk up.
"I think we gave a performance, in front of 88,000 people," said John Terry, the first England scorer at Wembley since Tony Adams in a friendly against Ukraine.
"For me, it's just about results now. We don't want to go there, play well and end up losing the game. It's unthinkable. We need to pick up the three points."
The possibility of losing is, indeed, so unthinkable that it is widely believed McClaren would resign - an outcome rather at odds with his contention two months ago that "they will have to drag me kicking and screaming out of Soho Square because I've got work to do and I'm not leaving until I've done it".
His mantra after the Brazil game reflected the work of a good sports psychologist in emphasising the positive and only conceding that "a lesson we said after the game is that we must learn to see the game out for 93 minutes. But against a team with the four attackers they've got we defended very, very well".
A desire to pass quickly over the negatives led him to praise Alan Smith and Frank Lampard, who were probably the worst England performers, and to insist once more that Lampard could work successfully with Steven Gerrard, who overshadowed him once again.
"Many people question whether they can play together but they've only lost one game together," McLaren said. "They showed great discipline, protected the back four and fed [those] further forward."
Charts of the game confirmed the impression that Lampard did not touch the ball once inside the opposing penalty area, even though Gerrard was the deeper of the two in central midfield. It can be assumed that they will be paired together again on Thursday - there is hardly any point introducing a more naturally defensive player against Estonia - but both will need to be much more aggressive in going forward.
In seven visits by home countries to Tallinn, only Wales have ever conceded a goal, and McClaren was surely being over-optimistic in suggesting Estonia would come out and play.
"Despite not winning games, they try to play football and try and attack so it might hopefully be an open game," he said. Hopeful is right.
"If we do the job as we have done in the B game [against Albania 10 days ago] and this game, we expect to win."
Smith must expect to be replaced, probably by Peter Crouch, who would be more likely to make more of David Beckham's crosses. Beckham, welcomed back as a potential saviour by the Wembley crowd, did what Beckham does, albeit more effectively than at any stage in the World Cup.
Whatever happens, it is a sobering thought that by Thursday night England are likely to be further behind their three main Group E rivals - Croatia, Russia and Israel.
- INDEPENDENT
