Howard Wilkinson, who led England's youngsters to embarrassing failure in the recent European Under 21 Championship, is the man the Football Association wants to help Kevin Keegan plot tactics.

Just 24 hours after coach Keegan antly declared his intention to steer England back to recovery himself following the shambles of Euro 2000, he now faces the prospect of being given a tactical teach-in from technical director Wilkinson and his team - by order of the FA management.

Although Keegan has constantly insisted he is happy with his own hand-picked coaching staff of Derek Fazackerley and Arthur Cox, his immediate boss at Lancaster Gate, FA chairman Geoff Thompson, has made it clear that overlord Wilkinson - currently in the Low Countries compiling a report on the Euro 2000 teams and their methods - should now take a more active role in guiding the senior England team.

Thompson said of Keegan: 'We'll do all that we can to help, with whatever the technical department under Howard Wilkinson feel that we need to give him. We have a very good technical director and a lot of good coaches. We have to encourage the integration of that into the full international set-up.'

This will be a move that seems set not only to surprise Keegan but quite a number of his fellow professionals, who were baffled when Wilkinson removed the highly successful Under 21 manager Peter Taylor, only to lead the side to an early exit from a European tournament they had previously been favourites to win.

Only the morning after Tuesday's 3-2 defeat and elimination by Romania, which made nonsense of Keegan's pre-tournament boast that England would win Euro 2000, the coach was adamant that he did not need to seek help from a recognised football strategist from either outside or within the FA.

He was utterly satisfied, he said, with the backroom staff he had assembled and he would continue to take full responsibility for the way the England team played in the upcoming World Cup qualifying matches.

Yet, Thompson revealed himself to be completely at odds with Keegan on that score when he emphasised: 'I think Kevin may need a little bit of help in that department, and he would accept that himself.'

Keegan also insisted that he would start the World Cup qualifying campaign with the same players who failed in Belgium and Holland over the past 12 days.

Though critics pointed out that many of them were already thirtysomething and others were never good enough anyway, Keegan countered: 'They were the best players before Euro 2000 and they will be the players who will start the World Cup for me.'

Not, it seems, if his chairman has any say in it. Thompson said: 'We have to look at the younger players coming into the first-team. A lot of the Under 21s excite me.'

The chairman is totally committed to the national 'charter for quality' instituted two years ago by Wilkinson, which was aimed at revitalising youth development.

It is from the results of that charter that Thompson sees England's immediate future, in the shape of Under 21 stars like Steven Gerrard, Gareth Barry and Joe Cole.

'We are getting things in place', explained Thompson. 'Our youth policy is better now than it has been for years. We have to look at that being the basis for the future.

'We have the centres of excellence and academies and I hope that will bring our own players through, although that is more of a medium to long-term solution.'

Reflecting on the Euro 2000 debacle he confessed: 'Being there put us in Europe's top 16 but we are not in the top half-dozen by any means. This is the right position that we are in.

'One tended to have higher expectations than perhaps reality allowed us to. We do not have a particularly strong squad, nor do the Germans at the moment. But there is not a great deal of difference between the 16 countries at the championship.

'That has been shown by the results - Norway set off well but have gone home, while Spain went through (to the Quarter-finals) by the skin of their teeth. Euro 2000 has been a superb tournament.

'You saw on Tuesday against Romania that our players were nothing like as fit as theirs. It was the end of a long season for our players. That extra half a yard makes all the difference.'