In the dog days of an England manager's tenure there is always a danger of a certain over-ripeness creeping in. In recent matches Fabio Capello has made an effort to avoid this seasonal sterility by blooding new, if not always youthful, faces: 14 of the 25-man squad for the friendly against Spain on Saturday have fewer than 10 caps, albeit the likes of Bobby Zamora and Phil Jagielka are unlikely to have many international managers frantically thumbing the secret weapon indexes of their comprehensive international player directory.

Capello has, however, resisted the urge to reintroduce a discarded perennial from previous four-yearly cycles. Joe Cole had a fair chance of making this England squad, if favourable voices within the English media are to be believed. Yes, that Joe Cole: last seen on these shores in the guise of baffled and jowly Anfield meanderer, and currently attempting a career momentum-reverse at Lille. Joe Cole! The most elusive English footballer of his generation, albeit perhaps not in the sense of the word he would have hoped for. What exactly is Cole best at? And when, exactly, is he going to start doing it? These are still the dominant questions surrounding the golden boy now grown to peripatetic maturity. In spite of which the gathering certainty of a first Cole-less England tournament squad since Euro 2000 still feels like a significant departure, a reining in, a toning down of expectations. Have we really given up on all that?

Cole has been a cautious success at Lille. Perhaps more importantly he has looked happy: he scored the third goal in a 3-1 defeat of Lyon two weeks ago and celebrated by having some fun with a flag in front of his new fans. Last week he started against Internazionale at San Siro in the Champions League, watched by Capello. He failed to stand out in a 2-1 defeat, but then so did the rest of the Lille attack, including the eagerly coveted junior fantasista Eden Hazard, a Cole-style prodigy currently being primed for his own big gear-change move to a more established power – just as Cole first made the step up from mid-tier promise by signing for Claudio Ranieri's Chelsea in 2003.

As long ago as 1999 Kevin Keegan was agonising over Cole's readiness for international tournament football, beseeching him to mature and foment in record time. In part this was the standard parental pushiness of English football around its creative players. The thinking goes: we have a skilful player, finally; he must therefore be the most skilful player in the world. As recently as last year Steven Gerrard was still comparing Cole to the incomparable Lionel Messi. And so when our creative players turn out not to be the most creative player in view – and in David Silva and Luka Modric England has living, week-in week-out proof that Cole will never be so – we become confused, a little vindictive, offering scorn where before there was overheated praise.

But then Cole's timing was always unfortunate. He first emerged into the light in 1997 with stories of Manchester United attempting to buy West Ham's 16-year-old child genius for £10m. In the process Cole became the Premier League's first real prom queen, the most cosseted of prodigies at a time when English football found itself feeling unusually muscular and fertile and infused with historical ascension. The media loved Joe Cole, as much for the pre-loaded narrative of what he would become as for his appealingly impish decorations in a West Ham team that would ultimately be relegated with Trevor Brooking wincing on the touchline. But then everyone loved Joe Cole at the time: he was our crush, our weakness, an advance glimpse of a brilliant future, irresistibly skilled, hyper-modern, supremely fun. The Premier League would provide all of this from now on: here was proof.

For all the fine times and the bulging trophy haul at Chelsea, Cole's career still looks unavoidably bitty now entering its final third. He has completed a full 90 minutes 11 times in 56 England caps. A third of his Chelsea appearances came as a substitute. More tellingly, the last time he played regularly as a central midfielder, his preferred position, was eight years ago at West Ham when he was 21.

There are those who believe the process of spoiling Cole was begun under José Mourinho, who always seemed be on the verge of leaping up over the touchline and pursuing him crossfield with a polo mallet, wagging a finger at perceived track-back oversights, pressing deficiencies and the crime of "beating one man too many".

Cole undoubtedly has weaknesses along these lines: a tendency to appear rushed and caught within his own train of thought, a lack of peripheral vision, a tendency to fade from view rather than dictate. However, approaching 30 he also has something else, a set of acquired flaws he might have avoided with better husbandry: the frazzled look of a player who has spent a decade running away from what he's actually good at, burying the qualities that first made him stand out, being told to bulk up and knuckle down, to discipline his fripperies (his best part, those fripperies), eradicate the helicopter turn, and present himself front and centre for the concussive demands of the Premier League.

It is no coincidence that Cole's best football has often been played in other environments: he was brilliant against Barcelona in the 4-2 Champions League win at Stamford Bridge; and at times he provided rare sweetness of movement and execution on the left of Sven-Goran Eriksson's rigid four-man England midfield.

This was one of the dimly articulated hopes of the move to Lille: freed from the relative inflexibility of the Premier League, Cole might regain some of the expressive freedom of his youth. After signing he said: "I'm a lover of football and the way the manager Rudi Garcia wants to play is so much on the same wavelength as I feel football should be played."

As it is Cole has improved slowly playing on the right of a front three, the inside-forward position that perhaps suits him best. There was a sense that this was his way back in with England: a horses-for-courses role across the newly flexible 4-3-3 favoured by Capello. Cole can also scheme in the space behind a striker: perhaps Wayne Rooney's three-match ban might yet open a door there.

Keeping faith with old hands can be a fatal flaw and Capello has rightly diluted the influence of that group of much prized domestic superstars of the last decade. But keeping faith with pure talent, with the promise of buried inspiration, still seems to make some sense. Maybe it was just too early for a poignantly circular recall to face the same nation Cole once scored seven goals against in a single youth international (incredibly, England beat Spain 8-1 that day).

And no doubt good sense has prevailed this time. The protective instinct says: leave him be, let him carry on with the process of being carefully pieced back together by the French like the fix-it mice in Bagpuss. For now the role a rejuvenated, back-to-basics Cole might have filled is taken by the blue collar worthies Gabriel Agbonlahor and Stewart Downing. Products of a more realistic age perhaps, but without the high ceiling, the vaulting possibilities – illusory perhaps, but still thrilling – that the Premier League's own desiccated golden boy might still offer.