Group E Israel v England: Steve McClaren is only seven matches into the job but sounds as if he can hardly recall a time when he was not manager of England.

Israel v England Tel Aviv, 6.30 On TV: Sky Sports 1

That is not necessarily a comfort and he spoke yesterday as someone already weary of talking. He must know what a cliche it is to speak of a "time to deliver" but the demand that such a cliche be uttered is part of the punishment for losing games.

The subject will not change until results do. In McClaren's case there are already questions about his future with England. The greatest personal reward for beating Israel would be the sense of silence falling over that topic. His side needs to prove itself because the manager has surprisingly little time left to show his own worth. The Euro 2008 campaign will be in real jeopardy if there is defeat tonight.

Ridiculous as the suggestion might appear, McClaren had a hard act to follow. While Sven-Goran Eriksson's relationship with the country ultimately exhausted itself, he had nonetheless followed the capture of league titles in three different countries with a record in England qualifiers that was tainted by only a single defeat, against Northern Ireland.

Recriminations flare up over what happened next at the tournament finals but McClaren has much to do before he is even judged at that level. None of his predecessors was appointed amid scenes of such indifference. He appreciated fully that Luiz Felipe Scolari and a few others would have been preferred by the public at large.

It is curious, indeed, that he is asked to vindicate himself while in the post. In the normal order of events a manager gets on to the England scene after acclaim elsewhere. McClaren has been neither an immense success nor a failure and, if it is any consolation, everything continues to hang in the balance.

He appears to accept that and was reasonably relaxed yesterday even if he was at pains to avoid specifics. There is an honest recognition of his own failings. Despite misgivings at the English Football Association, McClaren was resolved to have as his assistant a better known and more widely acclaimed individual in Terry Venables.

It was uppermost in the manager's mind that there should be someone close by who could question his ideas rigorously. Trust in McClaren himself is quite limited. Jim Smith liked him as second-in-command at Derby County because of an open-mindedness that made McClaren one of the first fully to commit himself to the video analysis of matches. In the same way Alex Ferguson took him to Old Trafford as an innovator.

Roy Keane, whose respect is hard won, was complimentary about McClaren's work on the training ground. Nonetheless, progress takes a person to ever lonelier heights in his career. The ambivalence concerning him as a manager has never been entirely resolved since he first got such a post by following Bryan Robson at Middlesbrough.

Ask regular attenders for their reaction and many will complain that it was boring at the Riverside under McClaren. These people are thinking of the long stretch of everyday fixtures, because a far more favourable conclusion can be reached if the focus is purely on the highlights.

McClaren would be right to boast of winning the club its first trophy, the League Cup, of taking Middlesbrough into European football, of claiming a place in the 2006 Uefa Cup final. On the other hand, he had five seasons at the Riverside and finished in the top half of the Premiership table only once, despite Steve Gibson's unstinting investment.

There are always vying interpretations. The Uefa Cup run was thrilling but why did Middlesbrough, on their own pitch, need to score three times in the second half to beat Steaua Bucharest?

In the final itself there was embarrassment when the desperate, daredevil tactics had been so well-anticipated by Sevilla that Juande Ramos's team exploited the weaknesses to hit three late goals and win 4-0.

To McClaren's credit the setbacks have often been followed by a strong reaction. After losing 7-0 to Arsenal and 4-0 to Aston Villa it looked possible that he would be sacked early in February last year but a 3-0 triumph over Chelsea and the Uefa Cup surge were to ensue.

His best contribution to Middlesbrough was probably the continuation of the youth development work begun under Robson. While admiration rightly goes to the academy manager, Dave Parnaby, McClaren had a great willingness to draft the newcomers into the first team.

It is unknown, though, whether McClaren can lead top-class players and mould them into an England team. From the moment he was appointed the manager has brooded over the contrast between international displays and those on the domestic scene.

"This is where they will be judged on their performance," he said of the fixture his men face this evening, "and on whether it is as good for England as it is for their club."

He feels that Aaron Lennon, starting an international for the first time, and Andy Johnson will give England pace "we haven't had for two or three years".

McClaren's prayer is that a moderate Israel will be outclassed. Several performances of that type will be needed before anyone is convinced that the manager himself is of the highest calibre.

• Guardian Service