McClaren equalled that in seven games.

One of the few things in his favour is that he has consciously sought to revive the concept of meaningful friendlies, so devalued by Sven Goran Eriksson. Thus England have this season issued invitations to Greece, Holland, Spain and Brazil - beating only the first of them in what proved to be the most deceptive of false dawns. The trouble with last Friday's fixture, for a manager who regularly insists "preparation is key", is that a visit from the Brazilians could hardly be more different to a trip to Tallinn. Had England wanted the best preparation for meeting Estonia, current Fifa rankings suggest a game should have been arranged with Guatemala or Botswana, the countries who straddle their position at No 106 in the charts. More realistically, an away game with neighbouring Latvia, riding low in 90th place, might have done the trick.

Such encounters, alas, will not help the Football Association pay for their splendid new national stadium.

McClaren was therefore forced to risk further damage to his personal statistics, which duly materialised with the just result of a 1-1 draw provided by Diego's late headed goal; a 40 per cent win record is worse than any other England manager except Kevin Keegan, whose resignation in the toilet seven years ago brought down a suitable shabby curtain at old Wembley. What England hoped to take out of the game was some improvement to confidence and morale, which they duly achieved and were determined to talk up.

"I think we gave a performance tonight, in front of 88,000 people, " said John Terry, the first England scorer at Wembley since Tony Adams in a friendly against Ukraine. "We showed that we were very determined.

But we know that our main task is on Wednesday. We need a win. For me, it's just about results now. The result didn't really matter tonight, but it will on Wednesday. We don't want to go there, play well and end up losing the game. It's unthinkable that.

We need to go there and pick up the win and the three points. I thought we were very good tonight, collectively.

And that's good to see."

The possibility of losing is, indeed, so unthinkable that it is widely believed McClaren would resign - an outcome rather at odds with his contention two months ago that "They will have to drag me kicking and screaming out of Soho Square because I've got work to do and I'm not leaving until I've done it."

His mantra after the Brazil game reflected the work of a good sports psychologist in emphasising the positive and conceding only that after that disappointingly late equaliser: "A lesson we said after the game is that we must learn to see the game out for 93 minutes. But against a team with the four attackers they've got we defended very, very well. They key thing was the amount of challenges and tackles and the passion the players showed and we must carry that forward."

A desire to pass quickly over the negatives even led him to praise Alan Smith and Frank Lampard - who were probably the worst England performers - and to insist once more that Lampard could work successfully with Steven Gerrard, who overshadowed him once again.

"Many people question whether they can play together but they've only lost one game together, " he said. "I thought they were exceptional in that key role. They showed great discipline, protected the back four and fed [those] further forward."

Charts of the game confirmed the impression that Lampard did not touch the ball once inside the opposing penalty area, even though Gerrard was the deeper of the two in central midfield.

It can be assumed they will be paired together again on Wednesday - there is hardly any point introducing a more naturally defensive player against as timid a side as Estonia - but both will need to be much more aggressive in going forward.

In seven visits by home countries to Tallinn, only Wales have ever conceded a goal and McClaren was surely being over-optimistic in suggesting Estonia will come out and play. "Despite not winning games, they try to play football and try and attack so it might hopefully be an open game, " he said.

"Hopeful" is right. More realistically he added: "It's not really about Estonia, it's about what we do. If we do the job as we have done in the B game [against Albania ten days ago] and this game, we expect to win."

Smith must expect to be replaced, probably by Peter Crouch, who would be more likely to make more of David Beckham's diagonal crosses.

Beckham, welcomed back as a potential saviour by the Wembley crowd, did what Beckham does, albeit more effectively than at any stage in the World Cup.

With Aaron Lennon injured, Blackburn's supremely confident David Bentley is now the understudy on the right and it would have been more useful to have given him a run as substitute for the former captain than Jermaine Jenas.

On the other flank, the increasingly enigmatic Joe Cole should be less satisfied with his performance and will need to be much more direct against a packed Estonian defence or risk being replaced even earlier by Stewart Downing.

Whatever happens, it is a sobering thought that by Thursday morning England are likely to be further behind in Group E than before their three main rivals have played two matches each.