The Big Question: Is Sven Goran Eriksson a good manager, or just a lucky one?

Why are we asking this question now?

Because England are in the quarter-finals of a World Cup, some bookmakers make them second favourites to win. Tomorrow, in Gelsenkirchen, they face Portugal, who have their playmaker Deco suspended as well as their key defensive midfielder Costinha. England have Wayne Rooney back to full fitness and, other than the injured Michael Owen, a full team at their disposal. This is a golden generation of English footballers and they have a fabulous opportunity.

But nevertheless, there has been a paralysis of optimism around the team. They played appallingly in the previous round against Ecuador, who have been described as an international pub side, and narrowly won 1-0. England are the only out-of-form team in the last eight. Sven Goran Eriksson has played a different XI in each of the four games and seems powerless to influence the course of the match. He appears to be making it up as he goes along.

Any other reasons he is under scrutiny?

Eriksson leaves his post after the World Cup finals and the man in the way of a happy farewell is Portugal's manager Luiz Felipe Scolari. His Portugal team eliminated England from the European Championships in 2004, ditto his Brazil team in the last World Cup. Apart from being Eriksson's nemesis, he turned down the job to succeed him in fairly dramatic terms in April.

Big Phil has come to represent everything Eriksson is not: passionate, uncompromising and unafraid of putting famous players in their place. Eriksson is from Torsby, in the great featureless expanse of Sweden's Varmland state, and seems to have none of those qualities. Eriksson earns £4.2m a year and has the greatest generation of English players since 1970. He cannot afford to lose to Scolari this time around.

Doesn't Eriksson have a great record as a club manager?

As with so much of Eriksson's career, no one seems to have the definitive answer. Certainly, at the first serious club he managed, Gothenburg, he is remembered very fondly because he led them to the Uefa Cup in 1982 - a Swedish club triumphing in a European competition was considered a remarkable achievement. He is also remembered fondly at the Portuguese club Benfica, which he managed on two occasions, winning three national championships.

But there is a question mark over whether he was ever a great club manager. He took Benfica to the European Cup final in 1990, but lost, and in Italy, where he spent 14 years and managed four clubs, he is remembered as perdente di successo - "the successful loser". He kept just failing to win the Scudetto - league championship - until, in what turned out to be his final full season at Lazio in 2000, he finally got there.

Why did the FA give him the job?

That's an easier one to answer: there wasn't an Englishman up to it. Or so the FA's then chief executive, Adam Crozier, thought at the time. After accepting Kevin Keegan's resignation in the lavatories off the Wembley tunnel in October 2000, he decided to appoint the first-ever foreigner to the post. Eriksson's appointment made great sense. He had just won the Italian championship and his consensus style of management was seen as ideal for getting the 2002 Word Cup qualification campaign back on track, and calming the players after the rocky regimes of Keegan and Glenn Hoddle before him. Eriksson also listed a love of Tibetan poetry among his interests, which made him sound mysterious and profound. He hasn't mentioned it since.

Why such press hostility?

Through no fault of his own, the John Bull lobby was always going to be difficult for Eriksson to get on side. The rest of the problems have been partly his own making. He is immaculately polite but has never been known to name-check a single member of the press pack. Fair enough, but among the big beasts of Fleet Street, it's hardly a vote-winner. The clandestine meetings with executives of Manchester United and Chelsea during his tenure may have resulted in massive pay rises for Eriksson, but also general doubts over his passion for the job.

The English press like a row: it clears the air and allows people to move on. Eriksson doesn't give them that, although, uncharacteristically, he did take one of our brethren gently by the shoulder last week and asked him innocently: "How do you live your life being so negative?"

What are his virtues as a manager?

Players like him. Or rather they like him up to a point. His laissez-faire attitude, his free and easy England get-togethers, the wives and girlfriends-come-along-too provided the perfect antidote to the stress of the Keegan and Hoddle eras. He was a breath of fresh air when he started and the players responded magnificently with the 5-1 drubbing of Germany in Munich in September 2001 that gave English football its self-esteem back.

Gary Neville explained it best when, exasperated, he once asked, rhetorically, if we wanted "a return to the dark days" before Eriksson, when there was no continuity and a hectic change of managers. With Eriksson, all is calm. Perceived troublemakers who spoil the karma of the group are weeded out. Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler were ousted. Lee Bowyer got one cap and was never asked back.

And Eriksson's brilliant at qualification campaigns for major tournaments - three out of three accomplished. It's what England do when they get there that's become the problem.

What are his faults as a manager?

The players don't trust him any more. Or at least, if you are managed by Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Arsène Wenger or Rafael Benitez you know that Eriksson does not do enough. His attention to detail is hopeless, he often never knows, for example, who the match referee is going to be or much about the opposition. He is an aloof, marginal figure at training - again it may look mysterious and profound, but the players have grown tired of that.

He has not rebuilt his first team after 2002. However you feel about whether David Beckham or Michael Owen (before his injury) should be in the team, what is obvious is that Eriksson is never prepared to make sweeping changes. In trying to create a secure environment in which players feel safe about their status, he has resisted change and instead created chaos. Football teams are dynamic and changeable - especially at international level. They decline and are renewed on a basis that may seem brutal but is natural and necessary. Eriksson has interrupted that cycle of renewal.

Is Sven Eriksson the right manager for England?

Yes...

* His record speaks for itself: his team are in the last eight at the World Cup

* His style of consensus management puts the players at ease

* Criticism appears to have no effect on him

No...

* After five and a half years at the helm, he still does not know his best formation

* He seems incapable of making decisions that change games

* The players have come to doubt his tactical acumen