With Steve McClaren appearing certain to drop David Beckham and Paul Robinson for this evening’s match, Tom Dart looks at five big decisions England managers have got right - and five that went badly wrong Five big decisions the England managers got right

1966 Though the mercurial Jimmy Greaves was fit for the World Cup final after suffering a gashed leg, Alf Ramsey ignored the clamour for his return and stuck with the second-choice striker, Geoff Hurst. You know the rest . . .

1990 After a dire 1-1 draw with Ireland in England’s opening World Cup finals match, Bobby Robson abandoned 4-4-2 and deployed Mark Wright as sweeper, liberating Paul Gascoigne and securing a crucial draw against Holland.

1996 Alan Shearer was on a 12-game goalless streak for England going into Euro ’96 but Terry Venables believed his captain’s partnership with Teddy Sheringham would bear fruit and was rewarded with five goals during the tournament.

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BACKGROUND

• England drop Beckham and Robinson

• McClaren demonstrates courage for art of survival

• Gerrard urges fans to be twelfth man

• Defence called on to compile case for the untried

BACKGROUND

• Croatia driven by lure of Premier League

• Playing for a draw . . . a history of success

• Ten judgment days

Multimedia

• Live: England v Croatia, 2000GMT

• Fanzone: Lions need to be tamed

1998 For England’s crunch group game against Colombia at the World Cup in France, Glenn Hoddle bowed to pressure and inserted Michael Owen for Sheringham and David Beckham for David Batty. Beckham scored his first England goal and Owen was brilliant in the second-round defeat by Argentina.

2006 Few thought Owen Hargreaves was worth his place in the World Cup squad, let alone the team, but the midfield player proved everyone wrong, and Sven-Göran Eriksson right, with tigerish performances culminating in a man-of-the-match effort against Portugal.

And five they botched

1970 With England leading West Germany 2-1 in the World Cup quarter-finals, Ramsey tried to hang on and replaced Bobby Charlton with Colin Bell and Martin Peters with Norman Hunter, but this freed Franz Beckenbauer to adopt a more attacking role and Germany won in extra time.

1982 England needed to beat Spain by two goals to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup but Ron Greenwood left Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking on the bench for an hour of this goalless draw. Though the pair were not fully fit, they were effective once they came on.

1992 Gary Lineker’s stellar international career ended tamely as Graham Taylor curiously replaced him with Alan Smith with the scores level in a Euro ’92 group game with Sweden that England had to win. Tomas Brolin hit a winner for the hosts and the critics rounded on “the turnip”.

1993 “Can we not knock it?” Taylor implored as England tamely surrendered 2-0 to Norway in a World Cup qualifier. The answer was no, not when Taylor’s tactics - three tall defenders to nullify Jostein Flo and Carlton Palmer in midfield – backfired horribly.

2006 Eriksson admitted there was no logic in his decision to take Theo Walcott, a 17-year-old who had not even played a top-flight game, to Germany as one of only four forwards. It proved foolhardy since the Swede opted not to use Walcott despite the crisis caused by injuries to Wayne Rooney and Owen.