Why not Joe Cole? Why look a potential gift horse in the mouth, as Fabio Capello may well be doing by ignoring the claims of that rarity, a creative English midfielder? Very recently, after eight months sidelined by injury, Cole returned to the Chelsea team at Stamford Bridge, not in his subsidiary position on one of the wings, which has so long been his lot, but in his original role as playmaker in the centre of midfield. In glorious form, he tore the opposing defence to shreds, and went on to do just as well in the ensuing match. A huge delight for those of us who had followed his career for a decade, since he was the tantalising inspiration of the West Ham United youth team.

Yes, there were times, there always have been, when he could over-elaborate, could "showboat", as they say, with flicks and tricks which held up play rather than expedited it.

There was an example of the perils of this when as a teenager he was given his first cap in a central role at Leeds against Italy in a friendly. He in the event made one goal but gave another away. Yet not since Paul Gascoigne has England had a true general in midfield. Versatile and solid though he is, Cole's club mate, Frank Lampard, will never be that.

But in neither of Chelsea's two subsequent games did Cole start. He did get on the field at the Bridge against Manchester United, but only after 63 minutes and perhaps not surprisingly made scant impact. But then Deco, the Brazilian-Portuguese who played from the start, did even less. You could hardly blame Capello for turning a blind eye to Cole if his own club won't even pick him. But surely this is no way to run a railroad or encourage an undoubted talent such as Cole's.

When England last week went to play that half-baked distant friendly against Brazil in Qatar, they took three goalkeepers, but rested David James, still this season at 39 by far the best of them. Of the three, West Ham's Robert Green has had a very shaky time of it with club and country alike. Joe Hart, lent out by Manchester City to Birmingham, is still inexperienced. Ben Foster has had a mixed season both for Manchester United and England and embarrassingly for him, some of his worst blunders were at Wembley. Yet there was the glorious late save he made there with England on his and the team's most recent appearance at Wembley. If he could thus regain his former confidence he still looks the best but only after James, who despite his reputation for error, has this season been a bulwark in the Portsmouth goal behind anything but a solid defence.

What is it about English goalkeepers who over the years have numbered such illustrious figures as Gordon Banks, and until he fell apart in his final years, David Seaman. Once upon a time they seemed to grow on trees: Vic Woodley, George Marks, Frank Swift, Bert Williams. And if life has surely been made harder for them by the egregious rule on the back pass, forcing them to kick rather than pick the ball up, they surely have a charmed life by comparison with their predecessors between the wars and even after who weren't protected as a goalkeeper is today from assaults in mid-air. Those collisions were little else but that from challenging attackers.

Yet in so far as a multiplicity of goalkeeping coaches are employed by leading clubs, you start to ask yourself who coached Banks, author of that incredible save from Pele in the 1970 World Cup – I was there – in Guadalajara. Who coached Bert Williams? Yes, I can in fact answer that because that wonderfully resilient England keeper, hero of a 2-0 win against a dominant Italy in 1949, was the protégé of the renowned Harry Hibbs, when he was playing for Walsall before Wolves, and Hibbs, ex-Birmingham and England, was the manager. Frank Swift, a spectacular giant, England's keeper between 1943 and 1949, had no coach so far as I know. Nor did his famous, fearless Manchester City successor, the blond German Bert Trautmann, who broke his neck in the 1956 Cup final. Arsenal, by contrast, always have a coach, one of them was their old keeper Bob Wilson - yet none of their present four goalkeepers - two of them young Poles; one Vito Mannone, a young Italian; the other, the Spanish veteran Manuel Almunia - is truly satisfactory.

There have, of course, been developments in goalkeeping, notably the ability to save with the legs rather than the hands. And some keepers, especially those from abroad, are not truly reliable on the vital high crosses. They punch too much. But so, in the opinion of a once great star Cliff Bastin of Arsenal, did Harry Hibbs.