England time up for Cole?

Cole was not particularly on "606"

BBC Sport's Rob Bonnet believes Andy Cole's international days may well be numbered after his performance against Finland.

Right result - indifferent performance.

That has to be the conclusion from Sven Goran Eriksson's first time in charge of an England match that DID matter.

The World Cup qualifier against Finland in which Beckham and Gerrard shone, Seaman provided one crucial save and the rest were fair to middling - except poor Andy Cole.

I am by no means an expert judge of professional footballers - and by the time you've finished this, you may think that's blindingly obvious.

But then neither is your average caller to "606" who has his or her say at least three times a week.

And Saturday's programme host Adrian Chiles - an amateur goalkeeper of formidable presence when I last saw him in tracksuit bottoms - was peppered with shots from Cole's critics immediately after the match on Radio Five Live.

Hick and Cole: Share the same international traits

In the bombardment, some of them inevitably found their target and I have to say I thought Adrian let one through his legs when he said that there was more to Cole's game than scoring goals.

I'm still wondering: 1) what might be more important to a striker than hitting the back of the net and 2) what these extra qualities might be?

True, Cole made the final pass before Owen's goal.

But the replays seemed to show that he had fumbled his first touch and was making the best of a bad job with his lay-off.

True, he'd provided the pass from which Owen hit the post with a second half header.

But again, the replay shows that this wasn't a pass at all but a mis-directed strike of his own.

What is also true is that Cole missed the target from 10 yards for a second half 3-1 lead that would have made the game utterly safe.

And he still hasn't scored a goal in 12 internationals.

And so the listeners to "606" - me included - were drawing their own conclusions.

When judged by the highest standards, which is where England must stand or fall in their efforts to qualify for the World Cup, Andy Cole just doesn't seem to have it.

He is the Graham Hick of English football - a man to pulverise weak opposition, but who invariably fails at the top level.

Cole had clearly had a big psychological cuddle from Sven Goran, who'd gone to some trouble to describe him as a player of international class

  Rob Bonnet

Except Hick has technique.

Cole is like one of those spring-loaded mushroomy target things at the top of a pinball machine.

Occasionally the ball pings from him to maximum effect for maximum points and the whole world lights up.

But more often than not it rebounds fruitlessly away between the flippers for 'game over'.

It's all very well holding it up, laying it off and scoring goals with some regularity at Manchester United.

But in a Premier League described as "Mickey Mouse" by one 606 caller (I wouldn't necessarily go that far but I think we all know what he means), this is merely a question of playing the percentages just as you might with a scatter gun at a turkey-shoot.

And as Glenn Hoddle has told both us and Andy Cole, that's about one in five. 20%.

Earlier in the week, Cole had clearly had a big psychological cuddle from Sven Goran, who'd gone to some trouble to describe him as a player of international class.

Sven Goran has believes Cole is international class

It's the coach's priority of course to boost the confidence of fragile egos and get the best out of his players.

He can leave the more objective assessments to others, while Cole is let loose on the press to blame previous managers not only for "talking rubbish", but also, by implication, for his failure to succeed for England.

But I truly find it hard to believe that a man who coached Lazio to first place in the best league in the world doesn't recognise sound technique, genuine class and real talent when he sees it.

And that was my hope for Sven-Goran - that he would bring to the England team the kind of slickness and assurance in passing and movement that's taken for granted from foreign opponents and which has so frequently made our hit-and-hope, bumble-and-stumble football look so inferior.

It's a long haul of course and he must be given time. Much, much more - I'm afraid - than Andy Cole.