There was a slightly weird moment during England’s friendly victory against Scotland in Glasgow this week. Clive Tyldesley – who doesn’t make a habit of this kind of thing – got the name of England’s opening goalscorer wrong during his ITV commentary. “ROONEY!!” Tyldesley shouted as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain headed home a lovely pass yawned in behind the Scottish defence by Jack Wilshere.

There were a few odd things about this. For a start Rooney was standing close by, very obviously not in the process of scoring a goal. More than this, while there are similarities between the two men – both have the kind of physique that might have led football magazines of the 1970s to employ phrases such as “the chunky schemer” or “the bulky ace” or “the power-packed England raider” – there are obvious differences too. Not least skin tone, hair, shirt numbers and, crucially, not really looking like each other very much at all.

In spite of this the same mistake – GOAL! ROONEY! – appeared simultaneously on the official England Twitter feed. Even odder, Oxlade‑Chamberlain was also involved in the most notable case of mistaken identity of recent times when his handball at Stamford Bridge in March led to Kieran Gibbs being sent off in his place. Which makes in total three separate incidents of mistaken identity in the past eight months. All involving the same player. And all in a sport where mix-ups among these lavishly marketed household-name athletes (“Nicknamed The Ox because of his surname, physique and power” – not my words; the words of Lucozade Sport) are pretty much unheard of.

It does perhaps make some kind of sense, though. In its own way this is all very Oxlade-Chamberlain, a fitting case of high-profile semi-visibility for a young English player who is right now that rarest of things, neither particularly underrated nor overrated. Who is very talented, but not so talented as to induce the familiar shrieks and blurts of misplaced hope and strangled desire. And who may just end up doing something unusual. I don’t want to build him up too much. But perhaps English football might even have found a young, talented player with the freedom to be simply OK. Useful. Up to it. Decent. Par. Welcome to the age of the Ox, of the unbellowed name. Welcome to the age of quite good.

Maybe. It is a point worth making, though, if only because being young, English and talented has so often been such an upsetting business for everyone concerned. Rooney was very good very young. Wilshere was quite good quite young. Both have been forced since to fight a kind of rearguard action against debilitating expectation, stalked by the parallel Wayne, the ghost Jack, the player who never grew old but remained forever all fearless potential energy.

In less angst-ridden football nations, players are often allowed to be young and high-profile and no more than just quite good. A good Italy team will always have its share of redoubtable soldier ants: hard-working, quite fast, quite skilful players with nicknames such as “The Little Woodlouse” or “Tiny Marching Legs”, who scurry and link and score the odd important goal and end up celebrating tearfully in their underpants when, bolstered by a core of genuinely dreamy talent – and Italy has its own long-standing issues with those operatically beaten and battered No10s – they end up winning a trophy.

Perhaps the Ox could end up in time being England’s own tiny marching woodlouse legs, a high-end component part who, by exploring the limits of his quite good abilities – Look! He dribbles! Sometimes! He can do slightly awkward glancing headers! – might become the kind of quality filler all promising teams feed on.

He does at least present an entirely sensible model. Not so much the Young Rooney-style magic bullet player, portrayed even by some very experienced coaches as a kind of foundling genius, discovered ready-made crawling out of some urban dustbin. But a type the system might reasonably hope to reproduce on a wider scale: athletic, technically good enough, tactically versatile. If he has an extreme quality it is simply that concussive, rugby league-ish dribbling style, an updated note of English physicality.

Indeed the junior pitches down below academy level already seem to be fairly well stocked with skilful, scrawny (as the Ox was once) young players being taught to play on small pitches with small goals, to value the ball but also to play with energy and speed. So much so it seems reasonable to assume the Oxlade model may just be the default young English footballer of the future: well‑drilled athletes with a shared technical competence and an eminently sensible base from which to build.

There has already been some hand-wringing over the perceived lack of ragged edges, the absence of something more untamed in the modern academy-schooled player. But there is even here an element of that old personality obsession, the over-celebration of individuals and “leaders”, the urge to shout “ROOOONEYY!!” or “SHEAR-AAARGH!!!” where once a terse “one-nil!” seemed fair enough.

Martin Keown, an excellent player whose words now carry some extra weight as a consequence of being delivered with the haunted, sandpapery intensity of a disillusioned military hostage negotiator called out, wearily, for one last job, has suggested Oxlade-Chamberlain doesn’t defend enough or cover his flank effectively, a flaw that in fairness to Little Scurrying Woodlouse Legs is exposed more by Arsenal’s papier mache central midfield.

There are also some who say Oxlade-Chamberlain hasn’t made a real statement yes, or had his “breakout moment”. But perhaps he’s simply not going to break out. Perhaps such complaints are still part of the tyranny of overheated expectation, of spikes of doomed individualism.

Plus Oxlade-Chamberlain is above all a team player, and a very likeable one. At the end of England’s victory in Glasgow there was a nice moment. Walking back from applauding the travelling fans, Oxlade-Chamberlain – semi-visible as ever – bumped into Gary Neville, who proceeded to pat and cosset him, mussing his hair, squeezing his shoulders, petting him like you would an eager, friendly cartoon horse. This seems to be the correct response. Don’t shout his name. Burden him with no unreasonable expectations. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: he’s quite good, you know.