England lack midfield imagination

Ron Greenwood, under whom Kevin Keegan reached his peak for England, believed that imagination was the most precious asset a player could have. A number of those at Greenwood's disposal - Trevor Brooking, Trevor Francis, Steve Coppell and of course Keegan himself - consistently proved the point.

Times change and not always for the better. Today Keegan will take an England team to Bulgaria which, following Saturday's dire draw with Sweden, urgently needs to acquire the barest minimum of imagination in order to qualify for next summer's European Championship via the play-offs.

England's failure to beat the Swedes, following Poland's 2-0 victory over Bulgaria on Friday, has left Keegan's men in third place in their qualifying group with three matches to play. They are five points behind Sweden and one adrift of the Poles, who will be in Luxembourg on Wednesday night while England are seeking a win in Sofia.

"Sweden look home and dry," Keegan admitted after this game, "now the scrap is on for the playoff place. We need to win our last three games and I believe we can do that." England, then, have to win in Bulgaria, beat Luxembourg at Wembley on September 4th and then secure a further victory in Poland four days later. Even then they may not know their fate until the Poles have visited Sweden on October 9th.

On the other hand, a bad result in Sofia will leave Keegan and his players out on a limb, always assuming the Poles do not slip up in Luxembourg. Saturday's result compounded the effects of last September's 2-1 defeat in Stockholm under Glenn Hoddle.

Keegan's task would be difficult enough with a full squad. But now he has to achieve a win on Wednesday with a side weakened in positions where the options had already been reduced by previous injuries. Having lost Tony Adams and Darren Anderton, the England coach is now preparing to face Bulgaria without Martin Keown and David Beckham, both forced off by hamstring injuries at Wembley.

As if this was not bad enough, Keegan also found himself the victim of reincarnation in that Paul Scholes apparently woke up on Saturday morning convinced he was Nobby Stiles. Scholes is a tough but normally composed footballer. Against Sweden, however, he was a sending-off waiting to happen.

A late lunge at Stefan Schwarz having brought Scholes a booking in the first half, he then received a second yellow card, plus a red, for a similar foul on the same opponent early in the second. Had the referee seen an action replay of Scholes planting a set of studs high up in the thigh of Hakan Mild in the opening seconds Scholes might have become the quickest dismissal in football history as well as the first England player to be sent off at Wembley.

Scholes will now miss the Bulgaria game, leaving Keegan to wonder not so much who will score the goals as who will provide the ammunition. He has called up Kieron Dyer of Ipswich and the Charlton defender Danny Mills, but fleshing out the squad with spare bodies from the Under-21s will not solve the fundamental lack of imagination in midfield.

The passing was short and innocuous or long and ludicrous. The lack of anyone prepared to take on opponents with the ball was chronic. Beckham's delivery of crosses and searching passes has made him an outstanding asset but the pre-match build-up, which projected him as an embodiment of Pele and Johan Cruyff, strained credibility.

At present England are desperately short of players with the skill and vision to surprise even merely competent international defenders. "I was looking for someone to get on top of the game," said Keegan, "but nobody did that."

Scholes's hat-trick against Poland seemed a long way away on Saturday when the only shot which remotely tested Hedman was from Alan Shearer in the 19th minute, which took a slight deflection. Otherwise the authority of Patrik Andersson and Joachim Bjorklund was only disturbed once, in stoppage time at the end of the first half, when Scholes laid the ball back for Shearer to drive it over the bar.

Keegan took that as a sign that things would probably improve for England after half-time, but the loss of Scholes and Beckham meant they merely got worse.

Even the possibility of Graeme Le Saux opening up the left flank vanished in for the second half when the Chelsea player's virus infection forced him to give way to Michael Gray, who looked out of his depth.

In essence this was an ill-balanced job-lot of an England team, full of unrelated parts. David Batty was his usual efficient, uncomplicated self on Saturday but whereas Tim Sherwood was an international possibility in his early twenties he is now a latter-day Geoff Thomas, a competent club player raised above his station.

Sweden had chances to win, most notably when David Seaman pushed an astute free-kick from Fredrik Ljungberg, his Arsenal colleague and Sweden's best attacker, against the bar. Yet even against 10 men they showed little inclination to risk losing in strenuous pursuit of victory.

Wembley clamoured for Teddy Sheringham, but Keegan apparently does not believe miracles happen twice and Messiahs do tend to know their own business. "My job is not to do what people expect," he said.

After Saturday England supporters are not expecting very much. It would not be a bad moment for Keegan to start turning water into wine. Or turnips into truffles.

England: Seaman, Neville, Le Saux (Gray 46), Sherwood, Keown (Ferdinand 34), Campbell, Beckham (Parlour 76), Batty, Shearer, Cole, Scholes. Subs Not Used: Redknapp, Sheringham, Fowler, Walker. Sent Off: Scholes (51). Booked: Scholes, Cole, Batty, Shearer.

Sweden: Hedman, Nilsson, P. Andersson, Bjorklund, Kaamark, Schwarz, Mild (Alexandersson 7), Mjallby (D. Andersson 82), Ljungberg, Larsson (Svensson 69), K. Andersson. Subs Not Used: Lucic, Sundgren, Osmanovski, Kihlstedt. Booked: Hedman, Schwarz, K. Andersson. Att: 75,824.

Referee: Jose Garcia-Aranda (Spain).