A Farewell to 4-5-1?

One of the most painful sights from the World Cup was watching Steven Gerard and Frank Lampard tripping over each others' feet in a hilariously overcrowded midfield. Clearly Sven Goran Eriksson knows more about football than I do - which is why he was chosen for the England job and not I - but at times, even I could have told him what to do and that advice would have made a huge difference to England's chances. Here's an example:

Tactic 1: Play Gerard beside either Crouch or Rooney as the second striker -- that way, Lampard gets his freedom with Hargreaves playing as the holding midfielder.

Tactic 2: Start with Lampard on the bench and play two strikers - Crouch-Rooney or Crouch-Walcott, Rooney-Walcott, Crouch-Lennon, etc. Gerard plays his favoured midfield role and if he proves to be ineffective, swap him with Lampard in the second half.

So the problem with tactic 1 is that Sven didn't have the imagination for it and with #2, he didn't have the balls for it. That, in my opinion was the main reason for England's below par performance throughout the tournament.

The Steve McClaren era has begun with an unconvincing 4-0 friendly victory over a Greece team who were nothing short of shambolic in the first half. Which is somewhat enigmatic considering that most of the players on this team were part of the Euro 2004 winning side. The important thing for England, however, is that all four goals were scored with a 4-4-2 combination. I think that is the way ahead. 4-5-1 really needs to be done away with and it was one of the main reasons why the goals practically dried up for all the teams in the World Cup after the group stages.

 McClaren seems to have borrowed a leaf from Rafa Benitez' book and played Gerard on the right, in place of the axed Becks. It looked like a good move in this game, but the question it does bring up is, what happens now to the excellent Aaron Lennon?