There are four-and-a-half hours to go until kick-off in Manaus, so let’s cut to the chase. Adam Lallana changed the game.

Wingers changed the game. Pace changed the game. Skill changed the game. The rest is just chatter.

Unnecessary chatter, too, given the circumstances. If we work on the basis that England are unlikely to win the World Cup, then the best that can be hoped for is that they give it a right old go. And that does not mean hoping to bore Italy into submission up the Amazon.

It means meeting them with a bit of verve and aspiring to a memorable performance, one that perhaps inspires a serious assault on the European Championship in 2016, when several members of this squad will be coming of age.

So with three games to go — that’s four-and-a-half hours in pitch time — what does Roy Hodgson wish to take from this match?

The lifeless, listless first half, when he had Daniel Sturridge and Wayne Rooney alternating on one flank, and room for just Raheem Sterling from his squadron of wide players?

Or the last half-hour, when he introduced Lallana, kept Sterling on, played Sturridge down the middle where he belongs and created the pressure that led to the 82nd-minute goal?

Slow, slow, slow, quick, quick: if England are to get anywhere in Brazil, they have got to utilise their attributes more positively than this. Each generation has its strength. Sven Goran Eriksson was blessed with midfield talent. Terry Venables had great strikers.

Roy Hodgson has crackerjack wingers. In greater abundance than he knows what to do with. But surely he can find room for more than one.

It seems an extreme failure of imagination that with Sterling, Lallana, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Andros Townsend all available — and Adam Johnson not even selected — Hodgson should send out a 4-3-3 system that dumped three of those players on the bench.

For years, England’s 4-4-2 has been decried, but now there is finally the personnel to play it — or 4-4-1-1, considering that Rooney operates behind Sturridge — what irony that it should be abandoned.

Instead, poor old Sturridge had to do the dog work, while the player who would eventually make the difference — Southampton’s Lallana — sat kicking his heels until arriving to save the day in Jack Wilshere’s place.

Only then, with a flying machine on either flank and Sturridge and Danny Welbeck through the middle, did England create enough chances to explain why they were going to the World Cup, and opponents Denmark were not.

Near the end, there were three lively lads on the field: Sterling, Lallana and Oxlade-Chamberlain — Townsend swapped with Sterling with minutes remaining — and this change in approach won the game.

Lallana, with an excellent body swerve, having received a return pass from a short corner, provided the cross that Sturridge headed in at the back post, the reward for pressure that had built as more pace was injected into England’s front line.

Given the resources at Hodgson’s disposal, a pedestrian first hour was almost inexcusable. It was everything this England team should not be.

As faster specimens were introduced, so England became energised and the way forward was clearly lit. Will Hodgson see it that way? He was on the brink of going out at the qualifying stage before he gambled on Townsend in the final two home games.

Here the key presence was Lallana, an obvious starter in Brazil if England intend to travel with any ambition.

Sterling’s international debut was a mixed bag and it would have been nice to see him with the shackles off. Sadly, Hodgson’s teams don’t play like that.

So he did a lot of hard work and took the game to Denmark when he could. He also missed one of the best chances when a great cross from Ashley Cole picked him out, only to find a post from close range.

Still, it was promising enough, and what is England’s alternative? An extra clumsy striker, another pedestrian central midfielder? If expectations are low in Brazil, why not gamble on youth and vitality? Sterling can grow from here, as he has with Liverpool.

Yet will England ever play in the style of a Brendan Rodgers team? They should, with so much Anfield influence; but they didn’t on Wednesday night.

The best of it came late, once England — and Lallana in particular — were at the Danish defence. Welbeck and Sturridge both had good chances smothered by goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, and Sturridge had a shot from the wide edge of the area tipped round.

Good heavens, the game needed an injection of life by then. Even for a Wembley friendly, this was tame stuff.

‘It wasn’t much of a party,’ Ronnie Corbett once said. ‘A light bulb blew and we were still laughing about it two hours later.’ It was a bit like that on Wednesday night.

Among the biggest cheers of the first half came when a linesman’s flag fell off its little pole. Oh, how we roared. Anything to keep from concentrating on the action, such as it was.

The nervous moments were mainly medical emergencies. At this stage of the season, with the conclusion of the title race and a World Cup looming, every injury is a potential calamity, and Wembley thought it had seen real horror here.

In the 11th minute, Daniel Agger, Liverpool’s inky central defender, took a touch so heavy he might as well have been wearing diving boots. Wilshere, ahead of him, looked to pounce.

The loose ball became a wince-worthy 50-50 that saw Agger connect with Wilshere, who went flying through the air, signalling with one hand for assistance before he had even landed.

He lay writhing on the surface, plainly in agony, as assistants raced to the scene. Replays showed a thunderous blow to his foot so forceful it turned his leg.

Could be a problem at the point of impact, could be knee ligaments. Wembley fell quiet, not that it was altogether possible to distinguish this from its previous state. It looked bad. Wilshere appeared anguished, his face contorted. Lallana prepared to come on.

And then, the strangest thing. Wilshere walked from the field quite casually and, after a few little stretches and twists, returned to play.

It was like showing all the symptoms of bird flu and then coming into work the next day with the sniffles. But it reminded how vulnerable players can be at this important time.

World Cup places, sporting destinies, are at stake now. At the same time, it is hard to take an event seriously when Wilshere is down for quite some time and the referee adds just a minute for injury; when there are 18 players on the England bench, more in keeping with the NFL matches here; and when a plain red-card offence earns a caution because it is better for the hosts if the teams stay 11 versus 11 and damn the rules.

That occurred after 18 minutes when Steven Gerrard robbed the aptly named Casper Sloth in Denmark’s back line and strode towards goal with only Schmeichel to beat.

On the edge of the area Sloth tripped him, from behind, with no intent to play the ball. In any other game it would have been a red card.

To the relief of all, Dutch referee Kevin Blom showed Sloth a yellow. It would have killed England’s preparations to have played 10 men for 72 minutes, so Blom did the right thing; but it added to the feeling that this was a faux game, almost a training exercise.

It could have been played behind closed doors without greatly depriving the world of its few wonders.

—Daily Mail