There are plenty of soundbites to back the belief that Charles van Commenee is the right man to deliver a carefully aimed steel toe-cap to the rear of British athletics. Dean Macey, the retired but never retiring decathlete, put it most colourfully when he said, “if he thinks you're a dick, he will tell you you're a dick”, while Kelly Sotherton, the heptathlete, admits that she benefited from being labelled “a wimp” and “a weasel”. Perhaps the best indicator, though, comes from his view on why the Holland football team are so bad at penalty shoot-outs. “Arrogance,” he said.

Van Commenee is expected to be unveiled as the new head coach of UK Athletics (UKA) this morning in a hotel room at Heathrow. For those who argue that British athletics has been going nowhere slowly for years, the setting is ironic, but with the Dutch Olympic Committee desperate to retain its technical director, today could mark the arrival of a new era.

The head coach will find the sport in Britain in modest health, neither in the throes of a crisis nor pulling up trees. However, a man who can be incredulous about the fatalistic approach of football coaches to penalties is unlikely to be philosophical about the way Britain's paltry medal haul of four - a gold, two silvers and a bronze - in Beijing was exacerbated by a quartet of fourth places.

He will need first to steer a course through mealy-mouthed apologists and one-eyed knockers to discover the true state of the sport. At the top end, Britain has one individual Olympic champion in Christine Ohuruogu. That is the same as 2004 and one fewer than in 2000 and 1992. In 1996 and 1988, Britain had no gold medals. Nevertheless, it is easy to find former athletes ready to damn the present crop as pampered makeweights succumbing to lottery-induced inertia.

That is over the top, but it is interesting that Ohuruogu became world champion after being shorn of her funding and cast out of the system, while Germaine Mason took silver at the Olympics after losing his lottery money and going home to Jamaica. Dwain Chambers, too, proved that desire and hunger are as important as money as he dominated the domestic sprint season before being barred from Beijing.

Whether the number of funded athletes is now trimmed remains to be seen. David Moorcroft, the former chief executive of UKA, argued that there was a case for promoting “sport for sport's sake”, but that is a romanticised vision when 2012 medals are the barometer of success.

The new head coach will find a sport beset by issues. The coaching structure needs a radical overhaul, as does education, while the grass roots and elite are barely on speaking terms. Clubs are housed in crumbling facilities, attendances at meetings are dismal and the throwing and long-distance events remain all but forgotten. It is no exaggeration to say that the next four years could make or break the sport.

Four years ago, Andy Norman, the controversial autocrat who ruled British athletics in its 1980's heyday, said: “We are being asked to hold hands and dance around the maypole celebrating mediocrity.” Many believe that little has changed, but Niels de Vos, Moorcroft's successor, has stated publicly that he wants athletics to be the sport that wins most medals for Britain in 2012. It may take someone to let the cycling team's tyres down to accomplish that, but no stone will be left unturned to that aim.

“When the Dutch football team come on to the pitch, they think they are superior to the opposition,” Van Commenee said back when he was Denise Lewis's coach. “I don't think they prepare for taking penalties and, when all of a sudden they have to, it's too late.” Nothing will be left to chance under the new regime. “His way of putting it was that I hadn't won silver, I'd lost the gold,” Lewis, the former heptathlete, said. Underachievers should be afraid.

Van Commenee would have been unamused to see Britain athletes grinning in the mixed zone after fluffing their lines in Beijing. He will also want to know why Martyn Rooney ran half a second slower than his best in the Olympic 400 metres final and why Lisa Dobriskey's tactics were so awful in the 1,500 metres final.

The good news is that, despite the doom-mongering, there is a lot of raw ability, which, with a bit of luck, fear and polish, should be peaking by 2012. The likes of Rooney, Greg Rutherford and Jessica Ennis are all in their early twenties, while Steph Twell, possibly the most precocious talent of the lot, is only 19, but has mapped out her career path until she runs the Olympic marathon in 2020. “I live it, breathe it, dream it,” she said. “It's a whole life package.” Her attitude is likely to go down well in the new era, but any British athlete with an inflated self-image can expect to feel the force of a boot any day soon.

Britain's top ten on the fast track to success at London 2012

Marilyn Okoro Jazz-singing French and politics graduate did not make Olympic 800 metres final, but should expect to win a medal at the World Championships next year

Jessica Ennis Fourth in the heptathlon at the World Championships last year, her Olympic dream ended when she broke her right ankle competing in Austria in June

Christine Ohuruogu The Commonwealth, world and Olympic 400 metres champion will aim to win another title down the road from the family home in 2012

Greg Rutherford At 21, the long jumper has bags of potential, but admits “technically, I'm not at all nice”

Andy Baddeley Injury hampered his build-up to Beijing, but it was still a fine year for the 1,500 metres specialist, topped by winning the Dream Mile

Steph Twell Paula Radcliffe comparisons aplenty, she won Britain's only gold, in the 1,500 metres, at the World Junior Championships in June

Germaine Mason Jamaica-born high jumper switched allegiance from his country of birth in 2006. Lost his lottery funding but found the form to take Olympic silver

Lisa Dobriskey Fourth in the Olympic 1,500 metres final, the Commonwealth champion won the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York on Sunday

Martyn Rooney The two-lap race may be where his future lies, but he is the fourth-fastest man in the world this year over 400

Montell Douglas Broke Kathy Cook's 27-year-old British 100metres record in June but disappointed at the Olympics