Six years on and, sadly, it appears Kevin Keegan has learned precisely nothing about how to close up a game.

Despite all Keegan's claims to the contrary, he remains the same man who spun the roulette wheel on a weekly basis at St James' Park, the manager whose team touched the heights but could not stay there.

And if ever there was proof that not even a greying leopard can change his spots, it came in the Philips Stadium as England's Euro 2000 hopes rose and then plummeted in a dizzying 90 minutes.

For anybody who clambered aboard Tyneside's equivalent of the magical mystery tour, there was something all too familiar about watching England toss victory away in Eindhoven. If there was a match that summed up his time at Newcastle, it was the home UEFA Cup tie with Athletic Bilbao in October 1994.

Three-up and cruising, Keegan could not resist the lure of adventure, could not stop his team seeking more, that cavalier approach allowing the Basques the two away goals that were to prove fatal to Newcastle's hopes.

In the aftermath, Keegan admitted his side had been caught up in the Mexican waves of St James' in party mood, conceding: 'When we were 3-1 up you'd have thought we were 3-1 down. Perhaps I could've sent a defender on and tried to hold on. But that's Newcastle.'

Fast-forward the clock to Eindhoven on Monday. When Steve McManaman slotted home England's second inside 18 minutes, the supporters began to conga around the aisles of the stands.

It was St James' Park in 1994 all over again. This time the celebrations were even more premature, but Keegan yesterday found himself trotting out a familiar refrain.

'What was disappointing was the way that when we went 2-0 up we never thought about sitting back and letting them work for 10 or 15 minutes,' he said, at England's training base in southern Belgium.

'I think they got carried away on the wave of atmosphere and the euphoric way the fans were behaving. When it happens it's very hard to control. We were 2-0 up and they were looking for the third goal.

'You'll probably say that's typical Kevin Keegan, and I'm not against that. But I also like to see teams play with their head at times. I felt we should have steadied ourselves and then tried to pick them off.'

He added: 'If you call my time at Newcastle a failure, then nearly every manager in the Premiership is a failure. Well, all bar one. The time at Newcastle was a great success.'

Of all the criticism directed at Keegan, the most hurtful has been the suggestion that England needed a coach, not a cheerleader.

Yet whether he likes it or not, Keegan cannot control his natural instincts, the enthusiasm that makes him so popular with his players but leads to the charge that he remains tactically naive.

England might have taken a two-goal lead, but only the most blinkered of spectators would have said that the Portuguese did not always look just as likely to capitalise on England's defensive weaknesses as prove susceptible to their own.

Luis Figo and Rui Costa, unfettered by the England game-plan that left Paul Ince horribly exposed and overrun in midfield, giving Sol Campbell and Tony Adams no sort of screen whatsoever, had the run of the Philips Stadium and by the interval England were already hanging on to the ropes.

Yet Keegan sent on Emile Heskey for Michael Owen, when surely Dennis Wise's combative abilities in the middle of the park would have at least restricted the Portuguese. For Keegan, however, that was not an option.

'At half-time it was still a game we could win, so I just changed a forward for a forward,' he revealed.

'What got us 2-0 up could well have got us 4-2 up again. It's easy with the benefit of hindsight. If it was a computer game you'd take off a forward, put on a midfield player and slow it all up.

'But that's one of those computer games. The change I made was because I thought the game was there to be won. I stick by that.'

It was an honest revelation yet exemplified what Keegan's heart-on-sleeve approach to the job omits. Now he must get it right against Germany on Saturday, or see another European Championship campaign come to an early and embarrassing end.

What was so hard to accept was the scale of the holes Portugal were able to create in England's creaking back-line, as the folly of playing 4-4-2 and leaving his team outnumbered in midfield was laid out in its brutal simplicity.

It must necessitate wholesale changes in Charleroi. Steven Gerrard deserves the opportunity to prove his potential ahead of a three-man defence including Gareth Southgate. Nick Barmby's guile could also be utilised and perhaps Paul Scholes could play off lone spearhead Alan Shearer.

Upbeat as ever, Keegan sought to accentuate what positives there were to be gleaned. He said: 'It's still in our hands and my job is to tell the players the truth. The truth is we still have a chance.

Whether we're good enough, whether we're capable is something time will tell. That's reality. I'm not one to get depressed.'

But others will. After all, Keegan admitted the defensive frailties committed in Eindhoven were 'basic stuff', the sort of mistakes he had promised would not be committed in the tournament.

Although the prospect of Germany will stiffen English sinews, the pressure is now on Keegan. He has just three days to get it right.