After the humiliating, humbling defeat in Croatia last month, Steve McClaren was hammered for gambling on a 3-5-2 formation his players neither knew nor trusted. "Wrong team, wrong tactics, wrong motivation - wrong manager. He will be lucky to still be in charge when Israel and Andorra come round next March," claimed one critic, but others were just as savage. Fleet Street scented blood. This may have been a friendly, but for McClaren it was a must-not-lose match.
Most pundits expected him to fall back into the arms of 4-4-2, that missionary position of English football. Instead, he gambled again, this time on 4-3-3 - matching Holland man-for-man - with Andy Johnson as an unlikely right winger. This wasn't just McClaren sticking two fingers up at his detractors. It was him telling them: I am cleverer than you.
In truth, it was a junkyard of a game, full of misplaced passes, scrappy control and wild potshots. Imagination was as scarce as November sunshine. England were committed and defensively tight, but rarely strung more than six passes together. The Dutch were just as disappointing. A draw was probably just about a fair result, but 0-0 - and not 1-1 - would have been fairer still.
And yet McClaren's plan to stifle and suffocate nearly worked, even if his formation manifestly didn't.
You can see why McClaren is tempted by 4-3-3, for it allows Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard to tango together in central midfield - their best positions - with a dogsbody to do the dirty work behind them. It is also, as Greece and Bolton and other mid-ranking teams have regularly proved, mightily difficult to unlock.
But there are sacrifices and compromises along the way. 4-3-3 works best when a team has two wide men who can jink and trick their way past full-backs. So playing Johnson - a classic poacher, whose every instinct is to hang on the last defender, on the sniff for a throughball - out wide was Graham Tayloresque in its idiocy. The formation also does no favours to Wayne Rooney, whose best position is in a 4-4-1-1, floating menacingly in no man's land between attack and defence, not leading the line.
There are philosophical questions here too: should England go with a formation that allows them to take the match to decent opposition, trusting in their talents and their ability to impose their game - or one that is largely used to win ugly? Judging by McClaren's first four months in charge, more of the latter is on the cards.
Still, between the 38th minute, when Rooney put England ahead, and the 87th minute, when Rafael Van der Vaart equalised, McClaren's side looked as comfortable as a middle-aged man in his favourite easy chair. Holland might have had nearly 70% of the possession but England had by far the better chances. Only Arjen Robben - well marshalled by Micah Richards, perhaps the man of the match - threatened to cut through the mass of white-shirted bodies, even if he too often meandered down a blind alley.
Ten men behind the ball, spoiling and grinding, trying to nick something on the break - this was classic Middlesbrough under McClaren. It wasn't pretty, but it was very nearly effective. But then, at the death, England's defence sat deeper and deeper, just like they did against France and Portugal in Euro 2004 and Sweden in the World Cup - and once again they were punished.
But a draw in Amsterdam still ranks as a decent result, even if it was against a Holland team without Nigel de Jong, Wesley Sneijder, Robin Van Persie and barely any of the dreamy fantasy of the last two decades. No wonder McClaren's Ultrabrite smile made an appearance: this will keep the press pack, many of whom are deeply suspicious of him both as a man and a manager, at bay. For now.
Yet the question remains. What would Arsene Wenger do with this England team? Or Jose Mourinho? Or, perhaps more pertinently, any of the others who were once on the FA's shortlist to replace Sven-Goran Eriksson?
