I sure as hell wouldn’t. Lampard does one job, and while he does it very well, Gerrard does it 10 times better. They clearly can’t play together, and Gerrard is shackled in the position he’s being forced to play. Drop Lampard, let Gerrard do what he does best, with Carrick behind him.

I cannot believe the treatment Frank Lampard’s getting here. He’s been among the finest midfielders in Europe for years – is there anyone here who, honestly, wouldn’t buy him and have him straight into the centre-midfield of their club side if they could?

Lampard’s misses may not have radiated ineptitude, but they certainly radiated a worrying laziness. And Joe Cole (who I think has been a vastly improved player both for club and country in the past six to nine months) had reverted to all his bad old ways; it was like he was parodying himself. Or parodying Christiano Ronaldo, come to think of it, who’s had two absolute stinkers so far for Portugal.

I agree, a genuine holding player behind the two – Carrick, or Carragher, or Hargreaves – is the solution. But Sven’s hamstrung himself by not giving Carrick the experience, and having no dedicated cover for Neville which now requires Carragher to fill in that role. You could interchangeably slot in Beckham, Lennon and Cole around them, playing either a 3-1-4-2 if you want to attack, or either 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 if you want more defence. But as that’s not currently an option, the courage has to be there to drop one or the other of them for the benefit of the shape and tactics of the team.

He’s the only attacking player England have who’s given the opposition any problems thus far, and was the quickest player in the starting line-up. Gerrard had an absolute stinker against Trinidad and Tobago – aside from the goal, he could have been charged admission. Lampard, for sure, didn’t have a great match, but neither did he try to hide from the match, as Gerrard did. His misses weren’t anything like as bad as Crouch’s, which radiated ineptitude.

There is an obvious problem with the two of them working together in midfield, but if one must be dropped, it should be Gerrard. Lampard isn’t a bad shot either. (The better solution, of course, would be to play Owen Hargreaves in the holding role.)

As for Joe Cole, he is quite frankly a liability, and England’s worst attacking player by far. He continually drifts inside, trying to get onto his favoured foot, taking one too many touches and dribbling the ball into an opposition player and losing possession, rather than passing to a team-mate or trying to go round him (Tom & I have taken to calling it “doing a Joey”, as he does it so much). The introduction of Lennon showed up Cole for the lightweight he is; Lennon was willing to take the game to his opponents, get into the final third of the pitch, and he was aware of players around him, something that Cole is severely lacking in. He might play well for Chelsea but on the left for England he is useless.

However, I don’t buy into Rooney being England’s best player – I think there’s several candidates for that place and he’s not really one of them. Crouch should not be in the team. He’s nowhere near good enough; an international-quality striker would have put away most of the chances he had yesterday rather than just one. Describing Steven Gerrard as the only other player besides Rooney who stands out in quality terms is grossly unfair to Lampard and Joe Cole, as well as Beckham (judging by his last couple of matches).

Meh. Come on Northern Ireland.