England face Lithuania and Italy this week, and all of the build-up talk has centred around the squad picked by Roy Hodgson.

The English media has been doing what it does best, and has dissected Hodgson’s choices. Though to be fair, this has been much less vociferous than in recent years.

But this time, the key factor in this England side isn’t about personnel. This is the first squad in a long time where the team doesn’t pick itself, and that’s a good thing.

Some eyebrows were raised when Danny Ings and Charlie Austin were left out, but the team still includes Wayne Rooney, Harry Kane and Daniel Sturridge. England have plenty of options up front, and they can’t use them all.

In terms of quality the squad is pretty similar across the board, though. We could reignite the ‘is Rooney world class?’ debate, but really, he’s not as important to England as someone like Gareth Bale is to Wales. Rooney is the only player in the team that looks to be above the rest in any way, and although it might be better to have Rooney than to have Walcott or Lallana, for example, playing others alongside Kane or Sturridge wouldn’t weaken England all that much.

In the past, England’s problem was getting all their quality on to the pitch – there wasn’t always room for all of the best players – Gerrard and Lampard couldn’t both play, Scholes was played on the wing.

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Now the problem isn’t about quality, or even getting it onto the pitch, the problem now is about which system to play. Though one problem still remains: the media

Over the next few England games, the talk will start again and it will undoubtedly be about Hodgson’s team selection. Does he leave out Kane, does he leave out Sturridge. If Welbeck starts to fire for Arsenal, maybe they’ll call for him to get a place? Should Rooney play deeper?

But this is distracting. What Hodgson has the ability to do with this team – and I think he is probably unique among England managers in this regard – is tinker with it. England have the ability to play different systems for different games. If you expect a physical game, you play physical players, if you expect the counter, you use players who can deal with it, if you expect to be up against a slow defence, you use the pace in your team.

England have players who can fit into all of these systems, and it’s up to the manager to be sophisticated enough to recognise which systems will suit each game.

The last thing Hodgson needs is the back pages telling him which team he should pick.

For England, the options are there, and if used wisely the team can qualify easily. But working with these different systems will help England even more in the long-term, too. Tournament football is all about playing horses for courses. It’s about beating the team in front of you, because if you don’t win, you don’t progress.

It’s not about which system is better overall, or even about which players are better – it’s about which system and which players will stifle the opposition’s strengths and exploit their weaknesses. And doing that doesn’t necessarily mean picking your ‘best’ XI, just the XI most suited to beating what’s in front of you.

Hodgson will have to pick a team for a system, not a system for a team. His formation shouldn’t be dictated by the ‘best’ players – but thankfully he doesn’t have any players who stand out as being that much better than the rest anyway.

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