WITHOUT GOALS, a team win very few matches. That is why those who have the knack of scoring them are prized beyond measure. Strikers, they are called, more often than forwards. A forward is just the man in front of the rest, but a striker strikes. He is the one player in the team whose job can be assessed objectively.

How many goals has he scored? Everything else he brings to the table is a bonus and it might be a considerable bonus. But a striker who does nothing but score goals is worth far more than a striker with the complete game who doesn’t put chances away. It makes sense, then, when selecting a squad, to pick a decent strike-force.

England have scored five goals in three matches at this World Cup. Of these, only one has been scored by a striker — Peter Crouch, the third choice for the job. Three have come from midfield and the other was an own goal. And unless Sven-Göran Eriksson’s secret plan is to batter them to death with own goals, then he has a bit of a crisis on his hands.

At this stage, it is clear that Eriksson has gambled; and gambled badly. For he brought only four strikers to Germany and of these only two were fit. Wayne Rooney was recovering from a fractured metatarsal and so was Michael Owen. Neither, it is clear, was fully match fit and this problem was compounded by Owen’s Bambi injury against Sweden on Tuesday night.

Owen has not looked himself since he came back after the injury he suffered on New Year’s Eve. He seemed out of sorts with himself and his game. His style is based on sharpness: of vision, of acceleration. That nought-to-sixty seizing of a through-pass is Owen’s speciality and we have seen none of it.

Rooney has done astonishingly well to be here at all, but there is no concealing the fact that he is not fit. He played a stunning 30 minutes against Trinidad & Tobago and a first half of brutal splendour against Sweden. But after half-time, the edge had gone and he had to be substituted, chucking his boots about in disappointment.

Rooney’s presence is at once a blessing and a curse. He is wonderful enough when he is on the pitch, but as soon as he went off the boil against Sweden, so did England. The idea of doing things without him induces a state of panic and funk. Perhaps that would not be the case if he had failed to make the squad at all. As it is, England spend all their time waiting for Rooney to sort everything out. In two matches, they have gone from pretty good to pretty poor and each time the transition has come with the arrival or the departure of Rooney. It is clear that unless Rooney’s fitness has improved so that he can play a full-on match all the way through, England will be going home soon.

So with two unfit strikers, who else do they have? It is the sure sign of the weak gambler to back a hunch and then get cold feet, to go up to the bookies determined to back the hot outsider, then lose your nerve at the last second and back the favourite each-way. That is what Eriksson has done with the curious case of Theo Walcott.

Eriksson had the nerve to bring him to Germany but not the nerve to see it through and play him. If there was any thought of using him to make an impact later, he should have been given a run already. As it is, he is just a wasted place in the party of 23. And the World Cup is a squad game. As injuries and suspensions pile up, you have increasing need of your strength in depth. Walcott’s selection made sense; his treatment does not. Eriksson was bold and then frightened by his own boldness.

All of which leaves us with Crouch, the only fit forward Eriksson has left, since he has effectively ruled out Walcott. Crouch has many virtues, but as the cold-blooded assassin, he lags a little behind the Jackal. He lacks that sense of certainty enjoyed by the masters of the finishing art. Think of Gary Lineker’s viperish striking for England at World Cups. Crouch is not Prince Hamlet, nor was he meant to be. But the attendant lord finds himself in charge — England’s lone striker.

It is an extraordinary mess that Eriksson has made for himself. True, if England can get past Ecuador on Sunday and Rooney is fully fit by the quarter-finals, hope is not entirely lost. But from this weekend, you don’t want players to be 90 minutes fit. You want them 120 minutes fit. On Tuesday, Rooney was 45 minutes fit. That’s a long way to go.

It makes no sense. Eriksson knew that Owen and Rooney were not fit, he knew that Walcott was untested. So why pack the squad with midfield players and defenders? It all comes down to that damnable caution. We are now in a situation in which Eriksson’s caution has been exposed by circumstances as the wildest kind of recklessness. He has failed to play the percentages and now the odds are stacked against him.