After Lee Carsley picked the England national team equivalent of a Homer Simpson-designed automobile for Thursday's UEFA Nations League defeat to Greece, pragmatism and balance returned for Sunday's trip to Finland.
Urgh, pragmatism. That sounds like one of those boring Gareth Southgate adjectives. We're taking the handbrake off nowadays, didn't you get the memo?
Of course, handbrakes can be useful if you want to avoid hurtling to a clattering crash. The most significant aspect of the midweek defeat was that the margin of defeat probably flattered England.
Carsley conceded his XI against Greece, which featured five attacking midfielders and no fixed centre-forward, was an experiment, something worth trying.
The interim head coach is far too much of a deep tactical thinker to have picked a side to satisfy public opinion but Cole Palmer, Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Anthony Gordon all lining up together felt a bit like fantasy football. The reality was jarring.
"Whatever happens with England managers you always have some people saying negative stuff," Jack Grealish told ITV after Sunday's 3-1 win in Helsinki where the Manchester City man opened the scoring, his second goal in three matches under Carsley.
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"People were crying out for all the so-called best attacking players. It didn't work for one game and then there's a few people moaning."
Grealish missed the Greece game with a minor injury and Carsley strongly inferred he would have played if fit. He described his fellow Birmingham native's performance against Finland as "outstanding".
"We played with a lot more control," Carsley said, echoing one of Pep Guardiola's key maxims.
"Looking at the data that we've just got we had massive possession (69%), lots and lots of passes (713), created a lot of chances (15). But I think we can still be better."
"When you have as much possession as we do, you're always going to get chances from 70 minutes onwards."
Why England need Jack Grealish
Those sort of performances are far more likely with Grealish around.
They are also traditionally the sort of displays England have failed to produce as a nation blessed with a plethora of attacking midfielders seldom interested in reverse gears.
Steve Gerrard, Frank Lampard and their collective international heartbreaks show this is not merely a 2024 problem.
"D'you know how good Jack is?" Declan Rice asked rhetorically after wrapping up the scoring in a game where Grealish completed 56 of 58 passes.
"You watch him in training and you watch him in games, he's got something that's really special as a football player. And I'm not just saying that because he's one of my best friends in football.
"The way he takes the ball under pressure and takes touches and relieves you of pressure as a team is just incredible. I'm buzzing for him because when we've got a Jack Grealish who's happy and smiling and playing well he's a massive boost for England."
Grealish, of course, did not have a smile on his face in the summer when he was omitted from Southgate's 26-man Euro 2024 party.
Although that decision was understandable in the context of the player's struggles for form and fitness at club level last in 2023/24 and arguably vindicated by England's run to the final, it remains faintly perplexing.
There's also an irony that a player who came to prominence as a freewheeling swashbuckler at Aston Villa and fell foul of Southgate was the man to usher England back towards something a little more prosaic and sensible. Of his 39 caps, only 18 have come as a starter.
It's time for the 29-year-old to be more than an afterthought.
Who should start for England in midfield?
Angel Gomes provided a wonderful assist for Grealish's goal and, just as when Kobbie Mainoo came into the starting lineup during the Euros, it was once again clear that Rice is a far more effective performer when he has someone to knit play together alongside him.
The fantasy football element and that English tendency to treat the national side like it's a school team would make Rice the lone holding midfielder once everyone is fit, probably playing in the middle with Jude Bellingham as people shout about dovetailing as if the whole Gerrard-Lampard thing never happened.
Then Saka, Palmer and Foden can all line up behind Harry Kane with the latter probably taking his Euros short straw to be stationed on the left. But Carsley or whoever leads England in the long term should steer clear of Einstein's definition of insanity. Variations on that team have been tried and tried again and not worked.
Grealish and Gomes (alternatively Mainoo when he's fit or perhaps Rico Lewis) need to be mainstays because they are the type of tempo-controlling players England lack.
That will mean difficult decisions elsewhere, such as Saka or Palmer but not both; Bellingham or Foden but not both. Unless the conversation has become Bellingham or Rice.
Grealish is not England's best player and you'd struggle to find anyone ranking him ahead of the above quartet in terms of overall ability and recent individual achievement. But England don't really have another player like him and that should carry plenty of weight as we tick towards 60 years of hurt.
