Frailty the flaw in Gerrard's rich promise

Steven Gerrard is of an age when he is much more likely to produce a sweeping pass than a judicious statement, which is no doubt how his England coach Sven Goran Eriksson would prefer it.

Gerrard's declaration after victory over Greeks who did not exactly impinge on the legends of Sparta that he and his team-mates have "unfinished business" with the Germans in September, though, was probably something better to think than to say.

In football, and most other things, you do not easily conclude matters with Germany. In football, their pragmatism and durability in the thin times has made them a phenomenon of the game, a fact they have been underlining more or less constantly since they shocked the world with victory over the sublime Hungarians in the 1954 World Cup final.

That said, Eriksson's England have emerged efficiently, coherently enough to give themselves a shot in Munich's Olympic stadium. The coach has been quick to say that going to Germany presents a challenge quite separate, and more severe, to the ones which were successfully, if not rampantly, met at Anfield against Finland, in Tirana against Albania and here against a Greek side plainly some way from the front rank of the international game.

The Germans will certainly not play a defender as naïve as the Olympiakos full-back Dimitris Mavrogenidis, who short of hanging a "for sale" sign around his neck could not have put himself on offer more carelessly when Emile Heskey delivered the ball to Paul Scholes for England's breakthrough goal in the 63rd minute.

Diminishing the Greeks should not, however, cloud the clear lines of Eriksson's progress. His in-tray of pressing problems, tricky decisions, is blessedly slight. The major one was not so hard to identify last night. Despite Heskey's vital intervention, and some frisky play early on, he, no more than his replacement Steve McManaman, is not likely to provide a permanent answer to Eriksson's current dilemma on the left side of midfield. It is a vacancy which the precocious Owen Hargreaves of Bayern Munich, all available evidence suggests, could well fill in his confident young stride, and, once admitted to the club, his membership is unlikely to be revoked in a hurry. Elsewhere, England have the feel of permanence.

Nowhere was that more apparent than up front. Indeed, Eriksson's greatest reward from this fifth straight victory, apart from the near certainty of a play-off slot and the maintaining of a chance of automatic qualification for the World Cup finals, was the exciting fluency of Robbie Fowler. The Liverpool striker was, by some margin, England's most accomplished performer, confirming beyond any doubt that he and Michael Owen represent the team's best chance of producing the kind of partnership achieved in the recent past by the likes of Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley, Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham.

Fowler, quick and visionary, looked exultantly at home in the Olympic stadium. He dissected the Greek cover almost at will, and both he and Owen were close to swelling England's margin by goals which would have come from moves of the highest class. Once, Owen was sent clear with a beautiful precision, only for his shot to narrowly miss the near post. Once, Fowler had the favour returned by Owen and had his header been slightly more acute the Greeks would surely have been devastated by a goal which had come from a dimension with which they were not too familiar.

Fowler and Owen are surely here to stay for England if not Liverpool. So, too, is their Anfield team-mate Gerrard. For the moment Gerrard promises considerably more than he delivers. But from a player just a few days into his 21st year, it is a promissory note of beguiling riches. Gerrard has already established, most dramatically in his club's double over Manchester United in the Premiership, that he is capable of making the big play, and he reminded us of this here most spectacularly with a long, sumptuous pass to his captain David Beckham.

However, the great players have to also make a series of effective little plays, and here Gerrard is less persuasive. If he is to become one of Europe's leading playmakers, and unquestionably the potential is there, he has to develop more continuity in his game. Paul Gascoigne, a player touched with genius, was always most effective when he bound his game together with a hunger to give the ball with penetration and receive it back in a dangerous position. At present Gerrard tends to stand back after delivering the big ball, rather like an artist reflecting upon the sweep of his brush. No doubt Gerrard's still fragile physical strength is a contributing factor, but both Eriksson and the Liverpool manager, Gérard Houllier, will be looking for more sustained influence over the workings of their teams.

In the meantime, Eriksson will be pleased enough with his midfield. Though Beckham's latest artistry with a dead ball ­ his free-kick so bewitched the Greek goalkeeper Antonis Nikopolidis his feet might have been anchored by the rubble of the Acropolis ­ guaranteed another flood-tide of personal publicity, his overall performance was, given his skills and his relentless aura, adequate rather than compelling.

Scholes was, as always, Scholes, feisty, relevant and instinctive in front of the goal. None of this justified Eriksson's claim that three of his midfielders could walk into any team in the world ­ France might be a little reluctant to so rapidly dispose of Patrick Vieira and Zinedine Zidane ­ but then the coach can be excused a touch of over-statement. It is better that he builds up his players than, in the fashion of some of his predecessors, relentlessly tells us how much they have to learn.

Players, however good, always have something to learn. Whatever he says in public, we can be sure Eriksson will not neglect this fundamental truth. It shows in the curve of his team's development. Here, England did not commune with the Greek gods. But they kept their shape and their patience. In a few months the teacher could have done little more.