No sooner had Barry conceded defeat on Wednesday in his summer-long bid to join Liverpool – sorry, announced via his agent that he was happy to stay at Villa – than Liverpool revealed Gerrard was to undergo immediate groin surgery, sidelining him at Villa Park as well as for the start of England's first World Cup qualifying campaign under Fabio Capello.

Barry and Gerrard are bosom pals, their rapport on the pitch for England led to their being branded the Morecambe & Wise of midfield partnerships by TV summariser David Pleat. This conjured images of them sitting up in bed in striped pyjamas, one smoking a pipe and the other immersed in the Beano.

With Barry's switch to Anfield now dead in the Mersey, Capello must consider alternative pairings against Andorra in Barcelona next Saturday and the infinitely more daunting reunion with England's Euro 2008 nemesis, Croatia, in Zagreb four days later.

The much-mocked re-emergence of Steve McClaren, with Twente Enschede but without a brolly, was a reminder of what failing as England manager can do to your image. Capello, his CV full of triumphs in Milan and Madrid, was meant to be immune to ridicule.

But five matches into his £6.5m-a-year contract, the Italian appears no closer to solving England's problems than McClaren was. Moreover, by naming his predecessor's captain, John Terry, as his leader rather than Rio Ferdinand, and continuing to house the faded grandeur of David Beckham, he passed up two chances to break with the past.

Capello appears to have confused his players. Against the Czech Republic, it looked clear that he was using a 4-4-1-1 system, with Wayne Rooney playing off Jermaine Defoe. After a 2-2 draw, he maintained he had set the side out in 4-3-2-1 formation. Perplexingly, he insisted Gerrard had played in the two alongside Rooney when the evidence suggested he was assigned to the left flank.

Previous England managers have never decided between Gerrard and Frank Lampard, whose all-round attacking game is productive in terms of goals, albeit less dramatic and dynamic. They have often fudged by playing them together, which seldom works. Now, Lampard has the opportunity to put his stamp on the attacking midfield berth.

Sir Alex Ferguson, by insisting Owen Hargreaves is not fit enough for World Cup combat, has similarly narrowed Capello's choice down to Barry. Martin O'Neill is gushing about how having him back in the Villa fold was "like having a new player". Getting the old one back would be preferable, Barry having worn a distracted air in Villa's loss at Stoke.

Capello is also waiting, like Ferguson, for Rooney to live up to his world-class billing this season. His patchy form prompts the once-unthinkable question. Will the 22-year-old ex-boy wonder fulfil his awesome potential, or does the variety of roles club and country shoe-horn him into reflect a growing sense that he has already peaked as a striker?

Where to deploy Beckham is not a dilemma; the days when critics lobbied for him to play in the centre are gone. Since relocating to Los Angeles, though, he has lacked the mobility to get forward, or back to cover his full-back, resorting instead to long, diagonal passes. Tempting as his experience and set-piece prowess will be in Zagreb, the time has come for Capello to trust in the greater energy of David Bentley.

Winning games while playing poorly is supposedly a trait of champions. While England have mastered the second half of the equation more than once since the FA sacked McClaren, the tabloid knives are not yet out for Signor Capello. But if, after the return to Croatia, the answer to Eric Morecambe's catchphrase question "What do you think of it so far?" is still "Rubbish!", the sharpening will surely commence.