Euro 2008 qualifiers:England are a child who has stayed up well past bedtime. Everything just goes on too long and fractious tears must fall.

The side led in quarter-finals at the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004, yet there were tantrums by the close. Now the bid to reach Euro 2008 has gone badly awry and the FA is again reduced to wondering how this team is ever to stay the course.

One of the punishments for failing, in Moscow, to make use of an opening goal lies in the fact England are riddled with a sickly hope. Steve McClaren's squad can advance if Russia are denied full points in Tel Aviv before the formality of their victory over Andorra.

Should Guus Hiddink's side take care of business, England might get to the finals in Austria and Switzerland at the expense of Croatia. That, however, would require Slaven Bilic's players to lose in Macedonia and get beaten by a three-goal margin at Wembley. That latter outcome would be quite some coup, considering England have long been dogged by an incapacity to get the best out of their players.

McClaren is crashing into that same barrier. Even in triumph, Russia probably had a single footballer, in the captain Andrei Arshavin, who could demand a place in the England team. There is little likelihood of survival for McClaren, who has not corrected the exasperating syndrome of anti-climax. References to a "golden generation" are made satirically these days, now that everyone knows the sheen of these footballers is a bad paint job that flakes at the merest scratch.

Some call for an immediate sacking of the manager but that would be futile. Where would the benefit lie in installing a caretaker? Any long-term successor to McClaren who was available would baulk at taking over for the fag end of a sorry campaign. Most likely McClaren will scoop €3.6 million or so in compensation and the new man will be blooded in a summer tour.

The recruitment process surely cannot be as protracted again, since the FA already went through all of this in 2006. With luck, the chief executive, Brian Barwick, has held on to his notes. A tradition of running in the opposite direction from the latest disappointment implies a surge away from a native manager and back towards candidates from the continent.

Arsene Wenger, a Frenchman steeped in English football for 11 years, would be viewed as the ideal choice, but there is no proof he is any more available than he was in the past, particularly now the Arsenal project is entering another riveting phase. Luis Felipe Scolari, Fabio Capello, Hiddink, Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klinsmann would appear on the list of those targets whose roots are in the culture of mainland Europe. Should the priority be to locate someone whose prime gift lies in getting the very best out of every player, then Sam Allardyce or, even more likely, Martin O'Neill would be the ideal person to galvanise England.

Last night Aston Villa's owner, Randy Lerner, said he would not stand in the way if England approached O'Neill to be their coach. The American entrepreneur yesterday indicated it would be something of a privilege for the club to supply the next manager.

McClaren, until Wednesday, had been getting somewhere in the endeavour to prove he could develop England. In general managers are praised over-much in the aftermath of good results and damned extravagantly when a game goes wrong. There are always causes for complaint and no exemption is ever going to be granted the person in charge of England.

The preference to let Joleon Lescott start his first England match was a curiosity, in the light of his nerve-racked debut as a substitute against Estonia. Some, including Hiddink, detected opportunity in his inclination to drift from the left-back position and stick close to the veteran centre-back Sol Campbell, who proved not to require such aid.

Russia, for a long time, made little of the space on that flank where Joe Cole attempted to be an auxiliary defender. Even in the second half, Hiddink's team menaced more on England's right, where Shaun Wright-Phillips was stationed. No matter what criticism is made, the 1-0 lead for McClaren's side was intact with the game approaching the closing 20 minutes. Can a manager legislate for the ardent Wayne Rooney, who had dropped back to cover after Cole pushed up, clutching at Konstantin Zyryanov. The body language of the Manchester United striker announced he, too, thought it was a penalty, although replays show it to have been marginally outside the box.

So Russia were level, but a draw would have satisfied England. McClaren has kept on picking Paul Robinson and it was his gamble that the side would qualify for Euro 2008, giving him the chance in the spring to install another goalkeeper, whether it was to be Aston Villa's Scott Carson or Ben Foster. Robinson messed up when the England manager was 17 minutes short of a draw he would have seized with relief.

• Guardian Service