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Fabio Capello was trying to sound reassuring. Spain, he said, became European champions having arrived from nowhere in terms of international success. It could happen to England, too. Even when asked about the shortage of goalscorers, he remained upbeat. Look around Europe and every country has that problem, he countered. Italy, Germany, France; there was only one exception. You guessed it: he name-checked Spain again. Oh dear.

The finest tacticians have been trying to make the pure goalscorer redundant for years now, but he will not go away. Croatia did not look as potent at the finals of the European Championship because they missed Eduardo. Thierry Henry and Luca Toni were off-form, and so were France and Italy. The absence of a world-class goalscorer is the main reason Portugal have fallen short at big tournaments throughout the past decade. In the same way that the Test team with the finest strike bowlers are usually the best in the world, so the team who score the most goals frequently become champions.

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The Premier League winners have also been the top scorers in ten out of 16 seasons and have outscored the team in second place in 13 of them. Spain won the championship of Europe because a technically outstanding and crafty midfield ran the game and found space, along with David Villa, as defenders were dragged all over by Fernando Torres. Without a world-class striker for the opposition to worry about, it would not have been half as easy.

This is why Capello’s England do have a serious problem, however much the coach tries to sugarcoat it. Without Michael Owen, who is there to fear in England’s front line? Nobody, really. Gabriel Agbonlahor scored a seven-minute hat-trick for Aston Villa yesterday, but he has been demoted to the under21s, and has not played in any of Capello’s build-up games, so it is fair to assume the manager was not impressed with what he witnessed in training. Dean Ashton is injured, but anybody who saw his match against Trinidad & Tobago is incredulous that he was to get a second chance so soon. Wayne Rooney, perhaps, but he is the second striker, the Villa to England’s missing link, their absent Torres.

Against the Czech Republic on Wednesday, Capello will choose a partner for Rooney from Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey and Theo Walcott: and which of that trio is going to take two men out of the game, as Torres did at Euro 2008?

The return of Heskey overlooks that his primary worth to England has been as a foil for Owen. Beyond that, his international record is poor, five goals in 45 matches, and is not going to divert the attention of a defender the way a true match-winner would. Capello talks of others taking the goalscoring responsibility, but once the opposition has identified that the No 8 has a greater chance of winning the game than the No 9, it is not hard to guess their game plan. It is no coincidence that Frank Lampard’s greatest success as a goalscorer for England came when Owen was around to distract defenders, who would then fail to guard against a late-arriving midfield player.

The problem is not Capello’s fault – no more than it was Sven-Göran Eriksson’s that his arrival coincided with a dearth of world-class English goalkeepers – but he may have missed a trick by not using Owen from the start of a match when he had the chance early on. Capello preferred to try other options, but unless he perseveres with Rooney as a lone striker, or can bring a step up in class from Defoe, these do not exist. If Owen is fit for the matches against Andorra and Croatia next month, he could start his first games under the new manager, which is hardly ideal.

Capello says the time for experiments is over, but this England front line is not the finished article. It is still waiting for its defining player and, without him, thoughts of emulating Spain are nothing more than a hopeful manager’s fancy.

Barry saga may be costly

Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, has admitted that he considered quitting after the club rejected his valuation of Gareth Barry. He remains disillusioned. If Benítez goes, will Liverpool’s board have made the most expensive £18 million saving in the history of the club?

Bolt from the blue?

The advice from one commentator on Usain Bolt’s 100 metres world record at the Beijing Olympics on Saturday is that until anything is proved we should just meekly report what we see. Fine. I saw the Jamaican run the first sub 9.7sec sprint in athletics history, while slowing down near the end, extending his arms, palms flat, which would make him less aerodynamic, and doing a silly high step over the finish line, while punching his chest. Oh, and he also had his shoelaces undone.

Same story, different face

There are some hardy annuals in football writing. When I was a young reporter, a favourite was the Paul Merson pre-season interview. It went like this: “I’ve had a haircut, I’m eating right, I’m not going out like I used to, I’m a changed character and this season I’m really going to knuckle down and show what I can do.” Cue photograph of Merse three months later, hair like the drummer from the Mondays, looking absolutely nutted after a night on the town. In modern times, this has been replaced by the interview in which an Arsenal player says that this season his team are going to toughen up, stop trying to achieve ballet with a ball in every game and show people that they can win ugly. This year it was the turn of Emmanuel Adebayor, the striker.

“We are going to keep in our heads that playing lovely football is good, but sometimes you have to be dirty to win games,” he said. “You have to forget about beautiful football and just make sure you win.”

Cue 247 exquisite single-touch passes, one duffed shot at goal and 60,000 Arsenal punters banging their heads against a wall.

Big fuss about very little

As a result of information forwarded by the Quest inquiry, Willie McKay, the agent, and Portsmouth were charged by the Football Association over the transfer of Benjani Mwaruwari to Manchester City in January. Bungs? Fraud? Missing wads of tenners in brown paper bags? No. McKay fell foul of the technicality that an agent cannot act for two different clubs in consecutive transfers involving the same player; it is alleged that he represented Auxerre when Benjani moved to Portsmouth in January 2006, and then Portsmouth when he was sold on two years later. Big deal. The mention of the Quest investigation is often accompanied by a dramatic fanfare, but it spends much of its time dishing out football’s equivalent of parking tickets.

Milking the Moore legend

West Ham United, who did so much to commemorate the life of Bobby Moore once he was dead, retired his No 6 shirt this summer. Well, almost. On the occasion of the ceremony, coinciding with a friendly match against Villarreal and the 50th anniversary of his debut, the club ran the following notice:

“FREE MOORE 6 SHIRT PRINTING! WEST HAM UNITED WILL BE HONOURING THE LEGENDARY NUMBER 6 SHIRT THIS WEEKEND WITH FREE MOORE NUMBER 6 PRINTING.” Free with the £39.99 purchase of a new club jersey, of course. Even in retirement, West

Ham will make sure that Bobby continues doing his shift at the club shop. Classy.

Barton court case too far

Joey Barton is not an easy man to defend. He has had too many chances to win a sympathy vote and, with each failure to reform, the mitigating pleas on his behalf sound increasingly hollow. Yet a whiff of unpleasant financial opportunism surrounds the legal action by Jamie Tandy, his former Manchester City team-mate, who had Barton’s lit cigar stubbed in his face during a Christmas party in 2004. Tandy, a youth player at the time, is claiming that Barton’s attack resulted in “a major psychiatric deterioration of his health, destroying any chance he had of playing professional football at a high level”.

Tandy’s career took a downturn after being released by City and he has played for Droylsden and Lancaster City, and may spend this season at Hyde United. The incident with Barton certainly didn’t do him any favours, yet the timing of his allegations handily exploits the present animosity towards Barton while glossing over the fact that there were two silly boys playing with matches four years ago and Tandy started a grim chain of events by attempting to set light to an item of Barton’s clothing; Barton responding in kind. There were no winners then, and there should not be now.

Teaching a bad example

What would make an experienced sportsman such as Blake Aldridge turn his back on the team ethic and blame a colleague for his failings under pressure, particularly one who was inexperienced and, in the case of Tom Daley, only 14? This post via Times Online may have the answer.

“I taught Aldridge when he was a cocky 14-year-old at school in South Norwood. I am glad he achieved his dream of making the Olympics, but his arrogance and inability to blame everyone else does not seem to have changed.” Matthew Benson, St Martin, Guernsey.

Yes, with fine role models such as Mr Benson, capable of bearing a grudge against a schoolboy for 12 years and then publicly airing it at the moment of his greatest vulnerability, no wonder Aldridge grew up such a rounded individual. And, by the way, sir, the word you were groping for was ability, not inability. I hope your pupils make a better job of checking their work. God help them on Guernsey.

Koller has wings clipped

Jan Koller, striker for the Czech Republic, is unlikely to start in Wednesday’s match against England at Wembley. Koller now plays for Krylia Sovetov Samara in the Russian league and his club drew 0-0 against Luch-Energiya on Saturday. Luch are based in Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast, 6,430 kilometres east of Moscow. “It is a 12-hour flight to England and Koller will be in no state to play,” Petr Rada, the Czech manager, said. Fortunately, the 12-hour flight from Los Angeles does not affect David Beckham — well, that is what they tell us, anyway.

It all adds up for Lampard

Luiz Felipe Scolari is no mug. Like every leading manager he studies the statistics, the ProZone reports and the record books. And it didn’t take him long to identify the player at Chelsea who scores the most goals from midfield, runs longer, plays more games and is fittest. And that is why, in the end, Frank Lampard got exactly what he wanted.