James Lawton: The night Eriksson risks becoming an unqualified failure

A lot of heat is coming into the debate over the future of Sven Goran Eriksson and no doubt the thermostat will be shot to pieces in Sunderland tonight if, as is entirely possible, the World Cup semi-finalists Turkey confirm the growing impression that England are going nowhere.

But then it could happen that England, with the scimitar at their throats, will produce something more of the order of their performances against Germany in World Cup qualifying and Argentina in the finals. That will make direct qualification to next year's European Championships in Portugal much more likely, if still far from certain, and render Eriksson's job something less of a juicy bone to be howled over by a pack of blood-maddened dogs.

The truth is the Football Association is in no mood, or position, to lash out millions of pounds worth of compensation to a coach who is proving himself to be in this quarter, and surely most others, a dismaying disappointment.

For the moment the issue of Eriksson is hinged to one basic question. Will England qualify? If they do, Eriksson is safe until after the European finals at which England, for all the boasting of the captain, David Beckham, after the dismal exit from last summer's World Cup, cannot expect to be listed as anything but the darkest of horses.

Eriksson has failed in the fundamental challenge facing any national team manager. He has not produced any sense of a developing team. The nature of the departure from the World Cup was without a hint of redemption. Performances in European qualifying have been abject, and such low points as the defeat by Australia at Upton Park are simply beneath consideration, so debased are such games by Eriksson's total failure to make any practical use of them.

Not the least worry is the coach's apparent heavy need for another coach to work alongside him. Images from training, caught by the Turkish video spy, will no doubt show the new assistant, Brian Kidd, in a starring role.

When Steve McClaren did the job there was a similar emphasis on the No 2. It provoked the enquiry: what does Sven do? That was the huge question posed by the paralysis which gripped the team in the second half of the surrender against Brazil in the quarter-final in Japan, and there has been no satisfactory answer since then. The crushing sense for some England contenders must be of futility. James Beattie, of Southampton, was called up for 45 minutes of inconclusive action against Australia, and then he disappeared. How did he betray himself in such a brief exposure, and, if he did, were his crimes any worse than anyone else involved in the night of bone-numbing humiliation for the national game?

Much is being made of the collapse of the Eriksson aura, and of course that started to happen long ago – not least when his splendid air of detachment, his ability to convey the impression of a football man of cool and intelligent principle, was rather severely breached by his decision to seek out every available piece of commercial exploitation of his role as a World Cup manager. At the time some dismissed the implications of this, saying that he was free to take his chances on and off the field, and quickly discovered that it was a propensity of his which did not require a whole lot of encouragement.

Unfortunately, such opportunism was not so apparent when he sat on a big-match bench. However, Eriksson retains one asset which still sets him apart from some of his clumsier predecessors. He tends not to say stupid things. He sits back and awaits developments, a habit which recently has led to veiled criticism from the experienced player Gareth Southgate, comments which might have carried a little more weight if they had not been shot through with self-interest. Southgate's beef was Eriksson's passive approach – and tendency to overlook the claims of older players.

What Eriksson's withdrawn stance does mean, of course, is that, if England should erupt into something like encouraging form against Turkey, he is in a good position to produce a martyr's sigh at the retreat of his critics. But then if the result goes the other way, well, we will surely be looking at a point of breakdown, one heralded as much as anything by this week's willingness of players like Sol Campbell and Michael Owen to join in the debate about Eriksson's choice between the chronically under-performing Emile Heskey and Wayne Rooney. Under Sir Alf Ramsey, such discussions would have been shut down by one withering glance.

Eriksson's promise when he arrived two years ago was of leadership underpinned by implicit authority. He had been around the football parishes, and his voice would carry all the more weight for its sparing use. Now, while even the eminently sensible Owen publicly discusses the relative merits of his club team-mate Heskey and the challenging Rooney, Eriksson offers the merest platitudes.

He will probably pick Heskey, which is another worry. No doubt the big man has his virtues, but are they really best suited to an international field? The record says not. Yes, Rooney is young, but he is also extraordinary, and the threat he would pose to Turkey in a vital match is demonstrably higher than that offered by Heskey. Eriksson will probably say it is too soon to rush Rooney, but then you wonder when was the last time he looked at his watch. Rooney has a career in front of him. As England coach, Sven Goran Eriksson may well have just one match.