England are so programmed that the only channel change comes at half-time when the management rips into the team. It is time for Martin Johnson to give players access to the remote control, but after another international at Twickenham that did not justify the inflated sums being demanded of spectators, how many players would fight for it?

Lewis Moody, again England's stand-out performer, would and, probably, Paul Hodgson and Shane Geraghty. When England won the 2003 World Cup under Johnson, they had leaders throughout the side, players who would challenge the then head coach, Sir Clive Woodward, and volubly question tactics.

The England team is now full of followers, even allowing for the chronic injury list that has assailed Johnson and his coaches. Despite the lack of initiative there was just enough there to beat an Argentina team whose lack of preparation time and reshuffled back division stifled their ambition, but they will be picked off not just by the might of the southern hemisphere but also Wales and Ireland.

England kicked and kicked in the first half on Saturday: so did Argentina but the Pumas also passed the ball more. After the break, and a dressing down from Johnson and the coaches, England kept the ball in hand and while their play was largely lateral, they managed one passage which, finally, featured off-loading and scored the only try of the afternoon.

England passed the ball in the second half more than three times as much as they had in the first. If the players saw how their initial tactics were profiting Argentina, they kept kicking. "I aged about 20 years," said Johnson. "It was difficult to watch at times and we were our own worst enemies. I cannot defend some of the things that happened on the field and if we play like that against New Zealand, we will lose."

The players are very much their master's voice. Those made available to the media afterwards they talked about nerves, the weather and how the result, never mind the performance, would engender confidence, but it is flashes of individualism England need, someone to rise above the collective muddle.

"Our try was the result of keeping the ball through a few phases rather than handing it back," said the scrum-half Hodgson, who tried to inject pace and devil into the game but too often found himself scrabbling around for ball slower than a double-decker chugging uphill. "I would far rather see us play for a little bit rather than give the ball away as we did in the first half."

Even Jonny Wilkinson was sucked into the mediocrity. He has always been the better for an incisive inside-centre alongside him such as Mike Catt and Will Greenwood. England are missing Riki Flutey with Geraghty looking more like the successor at outside-half, more instinctive and bossy than Wilkinson, than a 12.

Instinct is what England need rather than half-time team talks or messages sent from the stands. They await the All Blacks, armed with a player in Daniel Carter who does not need instruction, having lost to a limited but smarter Australia and being dragged down by an Argentina side intent on damage limitation.

"I think there was an improvement on Australia in terms of the balance of our attack," said Geraghty. "It is a matter of generating enough ball to play with and through that will come belief. When you play a side like New Zealand, you are only likely to get two or three opportunities and we will have to take them."

England seem to confound themselves more than the opposition. "We knew what to expect from England and they did not surprise us," said the Argentina captain, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe. "Wales next Saturday will be tougher for us because they play good rugby. It would have been big for us to have won at Twickenham: this is our level now and we can never go back to where we were."

If Argentina had the advantage in the tight, England were more adroit in the lineout, where Tom Croft made his most telling impact. There was so little flow in the loose that Croft's pace around the field was largely rendered redundant: England should consider moving him into the second row, allowing James Haskell to move from the blind side and paving the way for a specialist No8 in Jordan Crane.

Injuries have prompted Johnson to pick players out of position, such as Haskell, Geraghty and Ugo Monye who, as he waited for a queue of garryowens, looked like a wing playing at full-back. Ben Foden has twice been sent home early this month, too unpredictable and mercurial for stolid England, too likely to go off script, but England should go for it against a New Zealand side that is not in free-scoring mode. It cannot be as lamentable as what has gone before.