Ashton ankle break clouds McClaren's new dawn

Look hard through the gloom of a damp Mancunian August evening tonight, forget the strange legacies of David Beckham and Sven Goran Eriksson, and try to remember that this is a new dawn for the England football team. Only 74 days have passed since Eriksson bid farewell to Old Trafford on the eve of what proved to be his World Cup finals misadventure and, yesterday, Steve McClaren learnt his first cruel lesson in managing England.

McClaren picked Dean Ashton in his first England team on Monday night and, within 12 hours, the West Ham striker was in hospital nursing a broken ankle that could keep him out for three months. There will, therefore, be no new caps in England's team to face Greece tonight, although no one could argue that it does not have the McClaren imprint stamped upon it with his Middlesbrough protégé Stewart Downing on the left wing and Jermain Defoe restored to the attack.

While Friday's introduction of McClaren by the Football Association was one long explanation for the end of David Beckham's career, his second public appearance as England manager yesterday allowed more of the man himself to emerge. As a gesture of openness, McClaren named his team a day in advance, but it was his management of the expectations of the country that suggested he has no illusions about the scale of the task he faces.

The great debate over Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard's compatibility has lived on to haunt another manager. So has the possibility of England playing 3-5-2. And the question of the value of friendly matches looms in the shadows.

McClaren has been ridiculed in the past for trying to cultivate a media-friendly image but he did at least address these issues realistically and honestly. If being media-friendly means no more of Eriksson's mystical, impenetrable answers then it will prove to be most welcome. Tonight, the England players will see Old Trafford as never before: part empty. And winning back those supporters disaffected by the anticlimax of another World Cup quarter-finals defeat is implicit in everything McClaren's team accomplish.

"We're trying to instil that belief, we're really trying to get the shackles off and release the fear that may be there because of the expectations," McClaren said. "But to instil that belief and confidence you have to win football matches and that's why every game is important for England. I'm looking to develop very good team spirit. Teams win tournaments, we've got to create a 'Team England' and a team ethic."

It was clear yesterday that one of the players closest to the heart of the McClaren project is Owen Hargreaves, who starts alongside Frank Lampard in the centre of midfield tonight. The England manager talked about the "emergence" of Hargreaves in that World Cup quarter-final defeat to Portugal, although it did take Eriksson five years to realise that the Bayern Munich man was the answer to some of his problems in midfield.

The exclusion of Beckham has a lot to do with Hargreaves and his now famous one-man battle against Portugal in Gelsenkirchen. The questions McClaren is asked about the former England captain, and there are fewer now, are deflected by the England manager with praise of Hargreaves and the importance of finding a place in the team for a defensive midfielder who, unlike Lampard or Gerrard, is comfortable doing the job.

It is confidence in Hargreaves that has convinced McClaren to push Gerrard, arguably the most gifted creatively of England's midfielders, out to the right-sided position at which Rafael Benitez deployed him for Liverpool for much of last season. The decision to play Gerrard there is a risk but McClaren qualified it with the assurance that he had spoken at length with Benitez about the 26-year-old's suitability for the job.

McClaren said: "I like the width on the left and a narrow midfield. Stevie's played a lot on the right-hand side for Liverpool. He scored 23 goals last season. I had a very good chat with Rafa Benitez last week, just talking about Stevie and his role at Liverpool, and really just trying to transfer that over into the England team."

With Gerrard on the right and Downing on the left, it seemed logical thus far. At least England have a manager who wants to use players in the positions they occupy for their clubs and avoid the crazier improvisations of Eriksson's regime - not least the endless auditions for the left-wing spot before Joe Cole made it his own last year.

McClaren calls it "blend and balance" but the most vulnerable is surely Lampard, who will have to give way to Gerrard in the centre if the right-wing experiment fails.

These are solutions that have to work quickly and effectively if they are to be worth adopting because Group E in the qualification for Euro 2008 is no paradise of easy away wins and walkovers at home. Two of the three toughest away games are not far away - Croatia (11 October) and Israel (24 March) - while Guus Hiddink's Russia are still the most challenging opponent one year from now. Apart from Andorra, McClaren does not have a qualification group he can expect to breeze through, in contrast with the way Eriksson's side only had to dispose of Poland as serious contenders - with no offence intended to Northern Ireland or Wales - in the last World Cup campaign.

With that in mind, the England manager said he had "stressed" to his players that "all friendlies will be approached on the basis that they're games for England and the players should be proud to wear that shirt".

In this era of cold new realism, where a generation the English believed could conquer the world failed so miserably, McClaren could offer hope but no promises.

"It won't work all at once, it won't come together all at once, it will be a slow development," McClaren said. "Evolution."

This summer, the England team have parted company with their most iconic player in generations and, to some extent, they have been liberated from the usual dead weight of expectation. Rarely has an England manager taken up office with so little sense of a new era dawning.

But when McClaren looks up at the empty seats in Old Trafford tonight, and considers the arduous two-year journey to Euro 2008, he might give silent thanks that, for now at least, he is not overburdened by the hopes of a nation.

Probable Greece team (4-3-3): Nikopolidis; Vintra, Kyrgiakos, Dellas, Fyssas; Basinas, Karagounis, Katsouranis; Giannakopolous, Charisteas, Samaras.

Do you remember the first time? How England managers fared

Sven Goran Eriksson (2001-2006): England 3 Spain 0, friendly at Villa Park, 23 Feb 2001

Kevin Keegan (1999-2001): England 3 Poland 1, Euro qualifier at Wembley, 27 Mar 1999

Glenn Hoddle (1996-99): Moldova 0 England 3, World Cup qualifier, Republican Stadium, Kishinev, 1 Sept 1996

Terry Venables (1994-96): England 1 Denmark 0, friendly at Wembley, 3rd Apr 1994

Graham Taylor (1990-93): England 1 Hungary 0, friendly at Wembley, 12 Sep 1990

Sir Bobby Robson (1982-90): Denmark 2 England 2, Euro qualifier at Idraetsparken, Copenhagen, 22 Sept 1982

Ron Greenwood (1977-82): England 0 Switzerland 0, friendly at Wembley, 7 Sept 1977

Don Revie (1974-77): England 3 Czechoslovakia 0, Euro qualifier at Wembley, 30 Oct 1974

Sir Alf Ramsey (1963-74): France 5 England 2, Euro qualifier at Parc des Princes, Paris, 27 Feb 1963

Sir Walter Winterbottom (1946-63): N Ireland 2 England 7, British Championship, Windsor Park, 28 Sept 1946

Elbow Greece: When Beckham saved a nation

England last played Greece in October 2001, also at Old Trafford, and David Beckham produced a virtuoso performance, running himself into the ground to drag his team back from the brink, scoring a stoppage-time free-kick to equalise at 2-2, and ensure qualification for the World Cup.