There is an unhelpful idealism about international football, or at least about the way England approach international football. Everybody has their favourite to promote, the key creator who cannot be left out, the grand scheme that will secure success, and the result is often a terrible mish-mash – a team designed, if not by committee, then certainly with so many voices at play that a manager’s thinking can become clouded.

Part of the problem is the scarcity of games. A club manager’s thinking naturally evolves: his side play a game, he assesses form and fitness and will rarely make more than a couple of changes for the following game. Tactics evolve, players get to know one another; the best sides emerge through a combination of the coach’s philosophy and organic development.

At international level, that almost never happens. Players play a game, go away for a month, come back, by which time half of them are injured or out of form, and the manager is forced into wholesale changes that prevent any sort of continuity developing. That turnover means there are always opportunities for new players, but it also means one decent performance in a national shirt has a far greater effect in terms of keeping a player in a side than it does at club level. And that, in turn, means the mechanics of forming a side can be forgotten.

England’s main problem at the World Cup was at the back of midfield. As Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Aston Villa in January showed, playing Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson together there doesn’t offer sufficient protection to the back four. There were other reasons England failed in Brazil, but that basic structural issue was the main reason England lost games against Italy and Uruguay in which they had more possession and more chances.

Of course, there are structural issues in the English game, and it’s likely that some sort of coherent philosophy as exists in Spain and Germany would help. But it took Germany 14 years from setting up their academies to winning the World Cup (and they were starting from a significantly higher base than England). Perhaps the elite player performance plan will yield similar rewards – although there is much scepticism – but it was only voted through in October 2011: even if it succeeds, it’s likely to take another decade or so. There can’t be a new panacea after every tournament.

So what do England do in the meantime? Give up? Withdraw from tournaments until they are ready? They should probably just do what all but three or four of Fifa’s members do anyway, which is to make the best of what they have got. If you were picking a composite side from England and Uruguay, how many Uruguayans would you have? Luis Suárez and Diego Godín, for sure. Edinson Cavani probably. Anybody else? And Costa Rica? Anybody? Yet it was Costa Rica and Uruguay that progressed from the group because they had sensible game plans based on the players available: that’s what tournament football is about.

It may be that Roy Hodgson’s spikiness after the Norway game last week was part of a process of reasserting his identity, a realisation that he had to go back to the basics of Hodgson-ism after being seduced into a dangerously open approach in Brazil.

Long-term planning and idealism are for trying to ensure you have the best available squad, but once that squad is selected, the focus has to be on winning (or drawing) games. The yearning for Utopia tends to intervene, though, and the result is often that the unglamorous and functional are overlooked: the debate around England and the consequent team selection often feels as though it’s being driven by a nation of Florentino Pérez’s.

It may even be that the relatively unsophisticated nature of international football, the lack of time available to develop a truly integrated approach, means pragmatism is even more important than in the club game, that players’ roles have to be simpler and there is a greater value in the specialist ball-winner.

Think back to 1966. Was Nobby Stiles one of the best 10 outfielders in England? Of course not, but he was vital to the way Alf Ramsey wanted the team to play. Unfussy ball-winners at the back of midfield often are. Take the deeply limited Dieter Eilts, who was essential in Germany’s triumph at Euro 96. Or Dunga and Mauro Silva, or Gilberto Silva and Kleberson, in Brazil’s last two World Cup triumphs. For France in 1998, Didier Deschamps perhaps offered a little more in terms of creativity, but only a little.

Even ostensibly more gifted teams, those whose philosophies are held up as an example, need solidity at the back of midfield. Sergio Busquets may be an acquired taste but his partnership with Xabi Alonso was central to Spain’s run of success. Even Germany only resolved their defensive issues in Brazil when they got the Bastian Schweinsteiger-Sami Khedira pairing back together – and their issues against Argentina and Scotland since the World Cup without that pairing have been telling.

The general lesson is clear: at international level the most effective sides tend to have the sort of platform at the back of midfield that England have lacked, which is perhaps why opinion on Jack Wilshere’s performance against Switzerland was so divided.

He played perfectly well, and hit one glorious early diagonal pass to Wayne Rooney, but he didn’t really play well as a holding player. Stats from whoscored.com show he managed just one tackle and one interception, while his pass accuracy was only 82%. There were times, especially when England were in possession, when his positioning was poor, as he neither dropped between the centre-backs as Busquets, say, does habitually, nor pushed beyond Haris Seferovic, the Switzerland centre-forward, to create a passing angle.

That’s not to say Wilshere can’t learn the role – and it’s not as though there are huge numbers of alternatives. The only player to figure in the top-10 tackles per game, interceptions per game and passing accuracy (for English players) in the Premier League last season was Gareth Barry.

If you prioritise ball-winning, Mark Noble, Tom Huddlestone and Lee Cattermole score highly. Wilshere is more eye-catching than either of the last three (assuming Barry’s time has gone).

Perhaps England can get away without a ball-winner. Perhaps with Fabian Delph and Henderson flanking Wilshere, it’s the case that between them the three do enough ball-winning and are good enough in possession that greater specialisation of role isn’t necessary. Certainly those three offered far more protection than Gerrard and Henderson did in Brazil. But equally it may be that there are times that Hodgson, to maximise England’s potential in a one-off game or a tournament, has to turn to a player who doesn’t fit any grand philosophy but can be relied upon to do a solid job.