Like a lone voice in the wilderness, one of England's most revered football personalities, Sir Bobby Charlton, insisted today that Kevin Keegan's men can confound their critics in the European Championship.

The 1966 World Cup winner was among the crowd in Malta as England laboured to a 2-1 victory just nine days before their first Euro 2000 match against Portugal in Eindhoven.

Charlton was there as part of the Football Association's charm offensive, hoping to persuade Malta's FIFA member Joseph Mifsud to support England's bid to host the 2006 World Cup.

The fact that the Maltese were spared humiliating defeat and made Keegan's men look so inept wouldn't have harmed England's hopes in the voting stakes though, from Keegan's point of view, that wasn't the object of the exercise.

If the England coach was looking for a sleek, well-oiled machine ready to test the best in Europe, he was sadly disappointed. But Charlton, whose 12-year England career earned him 106 caps, had words of encouragement for Keegan today.

'I don't think you can read much into that result or performance in Malta,' he said. 'These games immediately before the big tournaments are a notoriously unreliable guides to a team's form.

'I've seen enough of England under Kevin Keegan to believe that they really have a very good chance of doing well in Holland and Belgium. I'm not saying they'll win it but I believe the quality of the players is such that they're capable of going a long way. It's not as though there are loads of teams significantly better than us.

'We didn't play well against Malta but I remember Sir Alf Ramsey taking his team there in 1971 and they only just won 1-0.

'In some ways, from Keegan's point of view, it's better to know that you've still got to improve. It means they're going to be really sharp and focused against Portugal.

'It's better surely than coming away with a huge win over a team like Malta believing that everything in the garden is rosy.'

It's far from rosy and Keegan knows it.

'That was a disappointing performance and if we play like that in the next three games we'll be coming home early,' he said.

Nothing in England's past five games - Scotland (0-1), Argentina (0-0), Brazil (1-1), Ukraine (2-0) and Malta (2-1) - suggests to me that Keegan has developed a strategy good enough to have a realistic hope of success in the Low Countries.

In the four games since the play-off defeat by the Scots Keegan has used 27 different players and seems no nearer a settled team.

Although I favour a flat back four, there is a growing feeling that England perform better defensively with three centre-backs. Sadly, England's flat back four were no better than indifferent against a modest Maltese attack and, more than once, Ipswich's debutant goalkeeper Richard Wright was exposed by lack of cover in the heart of the defence.

Tottenham's Sol Campbell looked vulnerable on Saturday, illustrating that a fit Tony Adams will be needed in Euro 2000.

Keegan, I think, will have to start the campaign with a back four because Portugal are one of the few teams in the world who play with three attackers and these will include Rui Costa and Luis Figo.

Charlton has an open mind on the subject but did say: 'Sometimes I wonder why we don't persevere with the sweeper system.

'A sweeper would have cut out a couple of those scoring opportunities the Maltese had when they were one-on-one with our goalkeeper.

'The other thing we have to do in the next few weeks is get players behind the opposition defence. We're not doing that at the moment.'

Happily, Nicky Barmby provided excellent running with the ball and passing. His re-emergence in the past couple of weeks has been a big plus for Keegan.