Roy Hodgson has to end selection chaos and decide on his best England team now

Finishing the qualifying campaign with a 100% record is very good on the face of things but context is key and the strength of opposition has not been up to scratch. Switzerland should have provided some kind of challenge but England won away there in the second match and qualification was basically assured from that point.

Just because England won all 10 qualifiers doesn’t mean they are better than at the World Cup, when they had a terrible time. We simply don’t know because the quality of opposition hasn’t been there. The next three games might be against Spain, France and Germany but they are friendlies – players will be subbed on and off all the time – so we won’t be able to learn much in those contests.

If we do manage to beat Spain or Germany, no-one is going to be fooled by that. The next real test England will have is in June when the Euros start, and given that England’s selection process has been so haphazard and constantly changing, it’s a big concern that we don’t know our best team.

Joe Hart is a given in goal but then what? Who is playing up front and on the wings? Does Jonjo Shelvey keep his place when Jack Wilshere’s back? And who makes up the back four? There’s uncertainty in all the outfield positions and that can’t be a healthy situation.

Luckily there is still time to remedy the problem – and an easy way in which to do it.

Hodgson has brought through some young players and he has to persist with them now. Players like Ross Barkley, Raheem Stering, Harry Kane and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have to play in all the friendlies as Hodgson refines his options and finally decides on what his best team is. England can’t afford to just let everyone have a try – they have to hammer this team into shape.

The defence has to be ready very quickly so they can all play together to gain an understanding of each other’s’ games, and then he needs to sort out his merry-go-round of a midfield. But I suspect Hodgson is going to play the players he thinks he has to play, rather than the ones who are the best fit for the job. Wayne Rooney, for example, falls into the former camp.

There is an argument that England should include more of their older players as they have big-tournament experience but it is the wrong kind of tournament experience. They are used to losing and heartache. Spain and Germany have good tournament experience, not England. Just look at Rooney's travails on the biggest stages.

With the same players, England will still come up short when they play the very best teams in tournaments. They will rely on set-piece situations, or a moment of magic from one individual, but as a team we aren’t at that level.

I fear that Hodgson, when it comes to the crunch, will abandon his young players and revert to cautious picks; it’s just what he does. He looks for guarantees instead of unpredictability - Michael Carrick or James Milner instead of Barkley. But sometimes that’s what you need to win a game.

The younger players are technically better and tactically more aware because of the way they have been coached. You can see the difference between coaching now and when the likes of Carrick and Rooney came through. The younger players have been coached well; now they just need regular exposure to first-team international football and this is Hodgson’s big chance to give it to them.

But it needs to be focused around a core of talented young players, not just giving out caps willy-nilly. Jamie Carragher was right to say recently that England caps are given out too easily – citing the case of Dele Alli who is one of the 30 players to have been used in qualifying despite only starting a handful of Premier League games. It has been too easy to walk into this England team and some standards need to be enforced.

I sat on the terraces for some time and then on the bench for some time before I actually won my first cap. Now you get on the pitch the first time you are called up and I don’t think that’s the way it should be done. You should have to earn the right to get on that pitch. I think there’s far too many players with one or two caps these days.

With the caveat that players such as Jack Wilshere and Daniel Sturridge could still get back into England’s plans if they can prove their fitness over a sustained period, this is the England team I would pick for the next set of friendlies with a view to starting Euro 2016:

NB: Ryan Bertrand is the left-back because try as he might, I just don’t think Luke Shaw is going to be ready. In midfield, I want a bit of strength in there and think Eric Dier of Tottenham is the right man for the job. You should pick the England team on club form so he deserves a go along with Barkley, Sterling and Oxlade-Chamberlain.