England seal World Cup place - but don’t expect a long stay in Russia

England 1 Slovenia 0

First, the good news: England have qualified for the 2018 World Cup. Now the bad news: their participation won’t last long.

Probably the same duration as the 2014 tournament when they were effectively eliminated after eight days, a humiliation that was nothing compared to what happened at the 2016 European Championships, and that defeat to Iceland.

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The brutal truth is England are a third-tier football nation, and to that end they should be congratulated on qualifying for the World Cup. That in itself is an achievement, even if in finishing top of possibly the most unimaginably easy group in the history of European qualification they rarely dazzled. Come to think of it, did they ever dazzle?

Certainly not on a cheerless evening at Wembley when a crowd of 61,598 fans were reduced to such tedium that they entertained themselves making paper aeroplanes. Some of them were actually quite good, one landing close to Gareth Southgate on the touchline. If only his team has showed similar innovation.

Instead they ambled across the Wembley turf, 11 millionaires indifferent to the jeers and paper planes that came from the crowd. For a number of years England’s finest have given the impression that turning out for their country is an unwanted diversion from the serious business of playing in the Premier League, where their limited technical skills can be masked by the mastery of their foreign teammates.

In an England shirt, surrounded by players of similar mediocrity, their limitations become all too apparent. At least in the old days the players would compensate for their poor technique by running themselves into the ground, but this England team don't even do that. The movement off the ball was non-existent last night, except that is, for the paper aeroplanes.

In the end, the very end, Harry Kane popped up with an injury-time winner, but the goal was missed by thousands of fans who had long since given up and gone home.

“We have a hell of a lot of work to do,” admitted Southgate. “It’s blindingly obvious we could have played better - but we are there.”

True, they are, England’s sixth World Cup in a row, and perhaps the problem has long been the unrealistic expectations held by many in England, from the fans to the media.

England haven’t been a major force in football for 50 years; the only time they’ve reached a final of a major tournament was when the World Cup was held in its own back yard in 1966. The last time they clawed their way into a semi-final was 1996, when most of this current squad were still in nappies. Yet that hasn’t stopped the more excitable fans of the Three Lions, whipped up by a feverish press, to bracket their boys alongside the likes of Brazil, Germany and Spain.

Try Iceland, Algeria and Ecuador.

“Tonight highlighted where we are,” said Southgate. “It is a work in progress and when I was given the job the aim was to qualify for the World Cup… in the end, it’s crucial for English football to be at the World Cup.”

Exactly. Celebrate the fact England will be there in Russia, even book a holiday to take in the tournament. But only for a week or so. The Three Lions will soon be back home.