Steven Gerrard insists England can still make the country proud in the wake of Greg Dyke's comments Spot on. Now is not the time for predictions, especially not from somebody at the head of the Football Association such as Dyke. Rather than stirring an intelligent debate on how to increase numbers of skills coaches and good English players, Dyke has inhibited clear-eyed analysis by wading into all this emotive chatter about repeating 1966 or not. On the eve of the resumption of England's World Cup qualifying campaign, Hodgson found himself having to deal with the fallout from Dyke's comments. "We don't believe our chairman sees anything as a "doomed mission,""" said Hodgson. He also said in his speech - I read it before he made it - how much he supports the team and hopes we get to Brazil and do well. I don't think he's giving up on the team. That would be harsh on him and even harsher on the team. They don't deserve that. I don't think many of you will be racing out to place bets on England to win the World Cup either. Our first job is to get there. Even if we qualify well and do very well between then and the tournament, I doubt very much we will be amongst the bookmakers" favourites. At the moment there are things preoccupying me: can we get the points against Moldova and Ukraine to make the matches in October viable propositions to get to Brazil? "When we've qualified and are wondering what we can do in Brazil, and whether England are ever going to be any good again or win a World Cup, I'll bore the pants off you."" Dyke started the wrong debate with his World Cup targets. He attends a Premier League meeting next Thursday in what could turn into an ambush, albeit an elegant one starting with smiles, handshakes and decent coffee. Club executives will want to know the exact remit of his newly-formed FA Commission, and whether any recommendations will be binding. A lot of people within football saw Dyke's speech in advance, everyone from Hodgson to the Premier League and a room-full of PR people, yet none thought to get the chairman to tone down the World Cup rhetoric. It would have been far more advantageous to a sensible discussion about the future of the national game for Dyke to set targets of a certain number of new coaches, a certain percentage of English players in the Premier League, say 50 per cent by 2015, and also set government some targets in tackling obesity levels. His highlighting of the diminishing number of English players was correct. Friday night's England team shows a reliance on three experienced thirtysomethings, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, and an inexperienced thirtysomething, Rickie Lambert. There are some good young players coming through, and Jack Wilshere's presence in the starting line-up is enough to lift an England fan's spirits, but Hodgson has put his faith in the older generation. Lampard's return, and Hodgson's indication that he would win his 100th cap in Kiev on Tuesday, has come at Tom Cleverley's expense. "I still like Tom Cleverley as a player,"" said Hodgson. He's a good player. But with these games coming up, it's very important I rely heavily on the quality of the players we have. In Frank and Steven we have two unbelievably good players with great experience. They are playing at top clubs who are buying big players, but they haven't been able to knock these guys off their perch. We're not short of talent. Michael Carrick said it as well, as did Steven. We're not short of talent, but is this talent going to develop in the right way? Will it get the opportunities to develop in the right way? "I did see a funny headline about "Hodgson brought back to dearth." I thought that was quite clever. We can't deny that, in certain positions, we have enormous competition and others where the competition is less. Maybe it is the right time to have this type of discussion, to take stock of all the things. Referring back to the Seventies doesn't help anyone. It's now 2013. What's going to happen in the years ahead and how are we going to make certain that whatever young talent we do produce, how is that going to be nurtured and turned into Gerrards and Lampards, Beckhams and Scholes? That is the big question. Hopefully all the parties will come together. That was Greg's thought on the matter. Let's get everyone together, get some opinions and let's see if there's something that can be done by us at the FA to make things better. As team-minded as ever, Gerrard was clearly annoyed at this idea of the next generation not being good enough. "That would be very disrespectful,"" said Gerrard. There's competition for places all over the team at the moment. These young lads are trying to push me and Frank out the way, but we have to keep working hard to be consistent and keep producing for club and country or we will get moved aside. There are some good players coming through: Ross Barkley, Jack Wilshere, Tom Cleverley, Raheem Sterling at training this morning. They will be around this set-up for a long time."" The future can wait. England to win against Moldova.