Gareth Southgate changed everything that could be changed, and tried to disguise the rest. Post-Russia, he needs a playmaker and a cure for England’s habit of losing their grip on possession when good opponents put them on the rack.

With large parts of his mission accomplished here, England’s manager turns to problems that are partly beyond his control. Coaching may stop his teams reverting to type, as they did after half-time against Croatia, but he has no engineering workshop in which to manufacture domineering midfielders, the archetype of which is Luka Modric - relentless in control of the central areas and his use of the ball.

All the good stuff is in the bank. The goodwill, the positivity, the rise, in Russia, of Jordan Pickford, John Stones, Kieran Trippier and Harry Maguire. The back of England’s team, commonly expected to be its weak point, ended up producing much of Southgate’s “core” (his word) for Euro 2020 and beyond. The front of his side, though, found its limits from 45 minutes on against Croatia and lacks a Modric, as it so often has, on account of historic production line imbalances.

Southgate namechecked Sir Trevor Brooking out here for encouraging him to dedicate himself to the Football Association’s national manifesto and age-group teams. Brooking’s great pronouncement from 2011 also flared back to life as England’s defeat to Croatia was being broken down in search of ways to improve. Praise for England’s march to Moscow can easily co-exist with a hard-headed analysis of what they need to add to reach the final in 2020 or 2022 in Qatar.

Seven years ago Brooking drew urgent attention to the congenital lack of “creativity and subtlety in the final third” in the English game. This creativity was evident in the work of Modric and Ivan Perisic, who kept the ball and worked the angles until England began to panic and launch balls from the back.