Consistency is not always a good thing

England v Ukraine: When a manager stands by a group of players you can never be sure whether he is acting out of loyalty or resignation. The England line-up for tonight's friendly with Ukraine at St James' Park will feature 10 of the men from the party that left Euro 2004 after defeat to Portugal in the quarter-finals. Failure is scarcely being recognised, let alone punished, since Sven-Goran Eriksson has no better candidates to introduce.

The disappointment at the end of June lives on in England, framing every decision that he takes. Out of boredom or annoyance, people seek galvanic changes after their hopes have been dashed. The England manager, though, is not an impresario and no sooner had he accepted the theoretical possibility of sacrificing someone like David Beckham than he was scorning any such deed.

"I don't pick a player because I like him as a person," the Swede protested. "It's my job to drop players if they aren't playing well. But can you find someone better than Beckham for the right-hand side? We are forgetting what Beckham has done for England in the past three-and-a-half years if we think he should be dropped.

"If better players emerge I will pick them. But it's very dangerous to make 10 changes because you lost at a tournament. Football is about continuity. Those players we have will hopefully become better and better."

The public might like to be surprised, but Eriksson knows it would, for the moment, be preposterous to ditch his captain so that Shaun Wright-Phillips could fill the berth on the wing.

There is less depth to the squad than the manager would like and he has already decided that the possibility of improvement at the 2006 World Cup lies with the maturing of a side that is, in international terms, relatively young.

Nonetheless, a manager with nothing new to offer will have trouble retaining the interest of the English soccer fans.Tonight's game could well leave half of the St James' Park seats unoccupied.

"I should be very surprised if English people have lost faith in England," Eriksson said stoutly. "It's early. It's August. It's a friendly. I'm sure than when we play competitive games we will have full houses wherever we go."

Any lure for local people in this evening's fixture is of a variety that could never have been dreamed up by a marketing man. The possibility of people buying tickets in order to boo has always been neglected, yet a Newcastle United player could be barracked when Eriksson introduces him, on the left, at some stage after the interval. Kieron Dyer's absence from his team's line-up on Saturday and the subsequent claims that he is prepared to accept only a central midfield role for his club have infuriated supporters.

"I have never had to protect a player from the home crowd," said Eriksson. "When I bought Ruud Gullit for Sampdoria, though, the Milan crowd was not very happy when he went back there. That's football."

There might have been fewer opportunities for Dyer to step into the firing line if Wayne Bridge had not withdrawn from the squad through injury. Believing that he and Ashley Cole have both improved since they were paired there in the 2-2 draw with Macedonia at St Mary's, Eriksson would have liked to see those naturally left-footed players back together.

Instead, Steven Gerrard will again be shunted out to that zone, with Nicky Butt, fit and in form after the transfer to Newcastle, occupying a holding role that ought to let Frank Lampard link with the attack. The only true alteration lies in the inclusion of Alan Smith, after Emile Heskey was ruled out by a hamstring problem.

ENGLAND: James (Manchester City); G Neville (Manchester Utd), A Cole (Arsenal), Terry (Chelsea), King (Tottenham); Beckham (Real Madrid), Butt (Newcastle Utd), Lampard (Chelsea), Gerrard (Liverpool); Owen (Real Madrid), Smith (Manchester Utd).