IT is telling that, when Wayne Rooney felt the need to lash out during the half-time interval of Wednesday night's calamitous World Cup qualifier in Northern Ireland, he did not seek out England boss Sven Goran Eriksson.

Instead, he directed his ire at David Beckham, allegedly branding the skipper a "flash b******" as the pair almost came to blows in the Windsor Park dressing room.

The manner of Rooney's outburst cannot be condoned - but at least the man he was aiming it at was the right one. If you've got a problem, you go to the top and, when it comes to England at the moment, that means only man. And he is not Swedish.

While Eriksson might continue to claim otherwise, Beckham is the person currently pulling the strings in the England camp and, consequently, Beckham is the person who could yet cost the national side a place at next summer's World Cup finals. It is time Eriksson realised as much and took tangible steps to address the issue.

While last week's events exposed a number of serious flaws, by far the most chronic problem was the new-look system foisted on the England players on the eve of their game in Cardiff.

It hindered them during the 1-0 win over Wales, before handicapping them to such an extent against Northern Ireland that players from Peterborough, Plymouth, Hull and Motherwell put them to the sword.

Or, to be more exact, it handicapped ten of them. For Beckham, in his newly-coined quarterback role, the system allowed him to see as much of the ball as he wanted and enabled him to spray the kind of 50-yard passes he loves so much.

Never mind that those passes arced towards areas of the field in which England could not hurt the opposition. Never mind that, by constantly demanding the ball from the back four, Beckham effectively neutered Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, two of England's most creative midfielders. 'I'm alright Jack' became 'I'm alright Sven'.

Eriksson claims the switch of systems came from a conversation with some of his senior players following last month's humiliating 4-1 defeat in Denmark. For senior players, read Beckham. It is no co-incidence the only person who benefited from the change is the only person Eriksson trusts, confides in and finds utterly undroppable.

Yet, despite England's inability to create a meaningful opening against a side ranked 116th in the world, it is not the 4-5-1 formation that has rendered England so incredibly impotent. Both Chelsea and Manchester United use a variation of the system to devastating effect in the Premiership.

It is Beckham's role within it. The best parts of the Real Madrid midfielder's game - the deadly killer ball and rasping drives from the edge of the area - are rendered irrelevant, while the worst aspects - the lack of positional responsibility and inability to tackle - are brought to the fore.

Northern Ireland's players had the wherewithal to exploit England's obvious imbalances - imagine what the likes of Brazil, Argentina or France might get up to.

If England are to win their next two games and exorcise the demons of Wednesday night, Eriksson must re-assess his captain's role. If he is to be kept in the side - and, in his mind at least, anything else remains unthinkable - he must be returned to the right wing and told to stay there.

Ideally, it would as part of a 4-4-2 formation but, if the England boss wants to stick to a five-man midfield, he must name a genuinely defensive midfielder in the holding role. A Michael Carrick, a Scott Parker, even an Owen Hargreaves - but someone who will provide the platform for Lampard and Gerrard to do what they do best.

He must also abandon the disastrous experiment of playing Rooney on the left wing. He will have to against Austria - the Manchester United striker is suspended following his yellow card in Belfast - and, while Joe Cole remains something of a round peg in a square hole, he did enough in the home game against Northern Ireland to suggest he can successfully adapt to the role.

Those changes demand a clarity of purpose that has so far been lacking in Eriksson's thinking. They also require a sacrifice from the skipper. If Beckham really does love his country as much as he repeatedly professes in so cloying a manner, it is one he will be willing to make.