The revolution within the set-up of the English national football team that many people have expected from new manager Fabio Capello – or why else pay him about £6million a year? – will clearly take longer to transpire than we had all hoped. England, who lost 1-0 to France at the Stade de France tonight, in just Capello’s second match in charge, looked lost for ideas at times, particularly struggling in attack, offering little suggestion that on the pitch they have progressed since failing to quality for Euro 2008 under predecessor Steve McClaren.

Time will tell, of course, how influential Capello’s disciplinarian regime and vast managerial experience will prove to England’s prospects of future success but, in their first test against quality opposition - one that reached the World Cup final only 20 months ago - they disappointingly lacked creativity and penetration. The final ball was poor. Chances were incredibly scarce. Desperately, the long-ball route started to appear. While there is no need to panic wildly or feel truly despondent just yet, significant improvements will be required before they face Croatia in Zagreb on September 10 – where the home side have yet to lose competitively – in the second World Cup qualifying match.

So what exactly did we learn tonight? That centurion David Beckham is not the long-term solution on the right wing – David Bentley deserves that slot from now on – proving relatively ineffective. That Steven Gerrard has yet to translate his courageous and inspirational Liverpool form onto the international stage. That playing with one man in attack is not the right way forward.

For David James, who has been in excellent form with Portsmouth this season, the penalty decision was harsh. Once he had committed himself to rush from his goal-line and retrieve the pass in the penalty area, the goalkeeper would have surely collected the ball had Nicolas Anelka not managed, crucially, to nick it away with his right foot before the pair collided. Had a significantly slower player than the tremendously quick Chelsea striker latched onto what was an excellent through-ball from the right wing, it is likely the German referee would have been more sympathetic towards James. As it was, though, the penalty was given, Arsenal-target Franck Ribery scored and France took the lead, perhaps deservedly so.

Half time was a period in which to assess properly the true impact of Capello – in the dressing room. What would he say to change the mentality of the players? What decisions would he subsequently make to bring England back into the match? The four substitutions were very revealing: besides the injury to John Terry, which forced his hand slightly, the manager rightly added some much-needed width to the team with the introduction of Stewart Downing of Middlesbrough. Also, quite interestingly, he brought on Peter Crouch and Michael Owen, reverting to two up front – asking Wayne Rooney to work tirelessly on his own against a quality defence can sometimes back fire.

Was this a pre-planned tactic – let’s hope he hasn’t bowed down to the wishes of the top four clubs by resting their key players, as Sven-Goran Eriksson and McClaren did – or a wise response to the action that unfolded in the first half? Whatever, it is fair to say that it had little effect as France retained far more possession in the second half and continued to test the abilities of James more so than England did with Gregory Coupet.

England offered little and were surprisingly unproductive. As well paid as Capello is, he clearly has a lot of work to achieve when he returns to his office in Soho Square, with more questions than answers emerging from Paris tonight.

One other thing, though, that should be pointed out – judging solely from the television images – is that the French fans impeccably observed the English national anthem before the kick-off. No whistling or booing was evident. Just a shame that it cannot be regularly reciprocated by our fans at Wembley.