Why are England's best players pushed too far forward?

Whenever the England football team fails in an international tournament the complaint that our players are not that good technically is heard. I don't know whether the phenomenon I am about to discuss is a cause or an effect of this, but it seems to me that our best players get pushed too far forward.

Take Gareth Barry. I remember him as a wonderfully assured teenage centre back. I remember his manager at Aston Villa (I think it was Graham Taylor) saying something like: "We scream at him to lump the ball forward, but he takes his time and passes it out of defence. He knows what he is doing."

Yet in this World Cup we saw him as a holding midfield player, but one who was too anxious to get forward with the result that he left our defence exposed. If he had been playing alongside John Terry at the heart of that defence, many of our problems would have disappeared.

Or take the teenage Wayne Rooney. His first start for England against Turkey in 2003 was startling. He ran free in midfield and gestured to the more experienced players around him to show exactly where he wanted the ball played.

Today's he is pushed as far forward as possible, with the result that he gets the ball with his back to goal, has no room and gets fouled or gets frustrated. (The sage Arse Online has suggested to me that this is Alex Ferguson's fault: he has turned Rooney into an out and out striker because he has no one else to play there.)

Kevin Keegan was pushed further and further forward in just the same way in his day.

Steven Gerrard first played for England as a holding midfield player, a position for which he is ideally equipped. Today he has to be "Stevie G" and score all the goals, though you suspect that is more a failing of character than of tactics. Similarly, Bryan Robson had to be "Captain Marvel" to the end of his career, with the result that he never became the elder statesman of midfield that he should have done.

The best teams have players who are comfortable on the ball throughout the team. The England side seems compelled to play its best players too far forward in a desperate attempt to make things happen.