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There is support in the England camp for Walcott to replace James Milner. This could be part of a move away from 4-4-2 to something close to 4-2-3-1 which most successful teams favour

Roy Hodgson has never really been pinned down on why he has been reluctant so far to play Theo Walcott from the start but on the one occasion he did go into his reasons he left the clear impression it was a matter of trust and, specifically, that he would rather have someone in the team who was a regular six or seven out of 10 rather than an eight one week, a five the next and anyone's guess after that.

"The thing about Theo is that he has actually had quite a few chances in the team," Hodgson pointed out. "It seems to me that quite often his name will come up. And yet when he has started games it has been quite the opposite and people have said: 'You need someone else in there.'"

Looking back, the thought occurs that England's forward line in Euro 2012 might have been even more penetrative had Hodgson given Walcott more opportunity to demonstrate the qualities of speed, movement and directness that Sweden found so disconcerting on Friday.

Yet Hodgson had at least the basis of a point. A few days earlier, he had taken the team to Norway for his first match in charge and selected James Milner, the safer choice, on the right of midfield. Walcott, with the wilder performance graph, was introduced after 56 minutes and told to be positive, run at the left-back, John Arne Riise, and find out whether an ageing opponent might be vulnerable.

Walcott had been on the pitch only a few minutes when Riise slipped the ball through his legs and a loud, mocking cheer went up inside the Ullevaal Stadion. It is a different kind of cheer when someone has just been nutmegged, not so much to recognise the act of skill but the pleasure of seeing someone made to look foolish, like football's equivalent of a snowball in the face. A few minutes later, Riise did precisely the same again and there was the same mix of laughter and schadenfreude. Both times, it happened directly in front of Hodgson's dug-out. By the end, Walcott looked so disorientated the final whistle had the effect of smelling salts.

It's tough, this business, sometimes. It is not so long ago Walcott's father, Don, went to an end-of-season dinner and overheard one respected figure describing his son as "an apology of a footballer". He was at the Emirates, too, in late February when Tottenham took a 2-0 lead and a large and vociferous number of Arsenal supporters singled out Walcott for all their pent-up frustration. It was brutal and in those moments it is not an easy thing to know whether the average person comprehends how difficult it must be for a footballer to carry on wanting the ball.

Walcott has struggled for confidence at times and in the process there has been the sense of someone treading water rather than fulfilling all that promise that compelled Sven-Goran Eriksson, however premature it was, to take him to the World Cup in 2006, at the age of 17. There are, however, increasingly signs of a maturing individual and this perhaps is the most encouraging part of the message he delivered against Sweden and what potentially it might mean if Hodgson goes for adventure.

There is certainly a legitimate case now that Walcott should take over from Milner and there is support for it, too, not least because his inclusion, with Ashley Young on the left and Wayne Rooney playing just behind an orthodox striker – presumably Daniel Welbeck – would see the team move away from 4-4-2 into something more in keeping with the 4-2-3-1 formation that most successful teams favour these days.

Walcott may still be young, at 23, but the manner in which he influenced Friday's game indicates a player with the force of personality that is needed when it comes to turning potential into something more real and sustaining. Walcott is far from the player who wandered round Baden-Baden looking like an exchange student or who has admitted being so frightened of Fabio Capello before the last World Cup he would deliberately avoid eye contact and found his confidence was "killed". Older, wiser, he will probably always have a tendency to exasperate but there is a lot to be said, if we return to that Spurs game in February, about the way in the face of sustained abuse Walcott had the will to score two of the goals in Arsenal's 5-2 feat of escapology.

Whether he can dislodge Milner is another matter and, lest it be forgotten, Hodgson's responsibility is not to be swayed by public opinion but consider the overall effect on the team. In other words, there is more to it than just Walcott's ability to prise open defences. It is about the team's structure and, in particular, what happens when the opposition have the ball. Milner is one of only four players, the others being Scott Parker, Steven Gerrard and Young, who have started all of Hodgson's four matches and has the edge on Walcott in terms of work rate, yardage, time with the ball and positional awareness, particularly in terms of covering his team-mates.

The difference is that Walcott is a potential match-winner and players of this type are so rare they ought to be cherished. "Bringing on Theo was a stroke of genius and the reason England won the game," Eriksson puts it in his latest Expressen newspaper column. "He's fast as the wind. He doesn't like being on the bench and when he got the opportunity he did everything right. There was a glow about him. The Swedish defenders couldn't handle his speed."

As useful as Milner is, this is not the way any manager talks of the Manchester City player. He is more than simply the "good pro" that Eamon Dunphy wrote about in Only a Game but that, in essence, is his type. At City they tell the story of the sub-zero temperatures that wiped out almost the entire Christmas programme two seasons ago. Milner was the one player who turned out every day in his usual kit, including short sleeves. In Yorkshire, he explained, they didn't wear gloves, snoods, hats, tights or coats to play football. Managers appreciate players such as Milner, especially when they have just started a new job and want to see old-fashioned qualities such as tactical intelligence and hard running. Milner ran 1.4km further than any other England player during the France match and was on course to outdo everyone again until his substitution against Sweden.

All the same, Milner doesn't have Walcott's ability to menace the opposition left-back or the tendency to run beyond the front players. It is a question, essentially, of whether Hodgson considers he can trust Walcott to compensate for Milner's absence and not just be there to zoom down the wing. Alternatively, it might be common sense to put Walcott on the right and move Milner to the left in place of Young, whose encouraging performances in England's warm-up matches appears to have deserted him now it actually matters.

A draw would be enough to put England into the quarter-finals so there is, after all, no need to be too adventurous. It would just be a shame not to explore whether Walcott can be more than an impact substitute now he is tempting us to believe he can finally leave his mark on a major tournament.

Roy Keane is flogging the same old song

Of all the words written about Euro 2012, not much will beat the Irish Sun's front-page headline – "Murder on the Gdansk Floor" – after the Republic of Ireland's 4-0 ordeal against Spain.

Roy Keane, presumably, would just consider it more patronising nonsense in keeping with his grudge that nobody takes Ireland seriously enough, let alone the players themselves. "The players and supporters have to change their mentality," he says. "Let's not just go along for the sing-song every now and again."

Keane was once the go-to man if you wanted a good, original rant. Nowadays, he is starting to get drearily predictable when it comes to this subject and it makes you wonder what he expected of a squad featuring three players who don't even have clubs.

Richard Dunne offered a far more sensible outlook when he talked of a team that had probably found its level. It doesn't mean they didn't take it seriously – or whatever else Keane chucks at them on the basis, funnily enough, Keith Andrews, Simon Cox and Sean St Ledger (I could go on) had a few problems against the World Cup winners. Read More

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