Joe Cole stakes a claim for England's centre ground

If every English footballer was more like Joe Cole, there would not be so much trepidation around the World Cup qualifying match against Croatia on Wednesday. Not merely for his ability - Cole has bags of that, but so do a lot of other players in Fabio Capello's squad. What marks Cole out, beyond natural flair, is his versatility, his openness to new ideas and his interest in the way football has evolved.

His Englishness, worn proudly when he speaks, is shed the moment he steps on to a pitch, where he continues to develop the football intelligence to become every millimetre the continental No 10. In a week when Steven Gerrard identified his preferred central midfield role in such narrow terms that he claimed to have been played there only five times in 68 matches for England, Cole gave a definition of the job of the attacking midfield player that was so expansive, it is a wonder he does not have to join a different queue when the England team approach passport control at Luton airport.

“My best position is in the centre behind a front two,” Cole said, describing the Michel Platini playmaking role that is all but redundant in the modern game, one that Cole will not have been allowed to fill by just about any manager, for club or country, since turning professional. “But the way the game is now, you start there and go left or right.

“These days, if you watch players in my position like Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho or Cristiano Ronaldo, they play all across that line because football has become very fluid.

“Look at the movement of a team like Manchester United - they are so flexible. So it is more of a general position now: attacking midfield. I do think English footballers have become too set in their ways. If you are playing against an opponent and you know he is going to be in the same position, or making the same run every time, then anyone can mark him.

“If there is movement, you are stretched defensively, particularly if there are three or four players altering their angles of approach. At Chelsea last year we were too rigid; this season we are changing that.”

For England, the golden generation has become the tramline generation. Too much is played straight, too much has one dimension. It is argued that the English game lacks technique, but more debilitating is the absence of wit. If Gerrard, one of its finest players, cannot conceive of central midfield unless he is accompanied by a water-carrier such as Nicky Butt and is free to charge up and down like the best footballer in the schoolyard, there is a serious problem.

Every player trots out the same line in public about being prepared to go in goal for the national team if it means winning a cap - Cole and Theo Walcott were no different yesterday - but Gerrard's comments while in recovery from a groin operation and away from the England bubble indicate that, once out of earshot of the manager, there is much skirmishing for supremacy.

That must be the case within every international squad or big club, though, so more worrying is that there are highly experienced players who continue to see football in such limited terms. It is what holds England back - the affronted reaction when asked to do an unfamiliar job on the left, or with additional responsibility.

It does not happen nearly as much beyond England's borders. The great Luis Figo regularly switched flanks for Portugal out of necessity, without complaint, and at the European Championship finals in the summer Spain were full of players who were not deployed in a favourite role, not least David Silva and Cesc Fàbregas. Capello is trying to change this mentality, but two injuries in one position continue to disrupt his plans because too many players are in an intellectual pigeonhole.

Cole is an exception. He is no class swot, but he understands football, has used that knowledge to improve his performances for England and deserves to be rewarded with a starting role in Zagreb on Wednesday evening.

He has not had that since the second match of Capello's England reign, against France in March, because the manager believed that he was not linking quickly with the strikers from his position high on the left and presented little goal threat. Cole must be a quick learner because in his past two appearances as a substitute he made good ground to score three goals, the late equaliser against the Czech Republic at Wembley last month and two to end Andorra's resistance in Barcelona. “This is his time,” Capello said on Saturday, but the player is making it so.

Cole is combining well with Wayne Rooney, too, but it says something of the inscrutability surrounding Capello's methods that he is not considered guaranteed to start against Croatia. On form, though, it would be perverse if he did not.

“Anyone can play with Wayne, he finds passes, he drops in little holes, he is very much a team player, so clever,” Cole, 26, said. “I like to mix it up as well. I've studied a lot of players in my position, how they run without the ball, and now that work is beginning to bear fruit. Ludovic Giuly, when he was at Barcelona, had a fantastic couple of years. He was the best at that.

“It is very difficult to predict this manager, though. The first day he took over I phoned my dad and said, 'I'm in the team.' Next day I phoned him and said, 'No, I'm out of it.' He said, 'What did you do?' I said, 'I don't know.' The day of the game I was thinking I was out and then the board flipped over and I was in.

“That's the sign of a great manager, I suppose, because nobody is safe. He keeps you guessing, keeps you on your toes. That's good. For too long we had established names who knew they would always play. I can remember when I first came into the squad with England. I'd train really well, be doing well for my club, but I'd come away knowing I wasn't going to get a chance. I went through a number of years like that.”

Four, roughly. Cole made his England debut on May 25, 2001 and, amazingly, started his first competitive international on March 26, 2005. If this is his time, it has been long in coming.

What must be hoped is that it is not such an endurance test waiting for his team-mates to catch up.