Facing the prospect of starting in Germany without Wayne Rooney, head coach Eriksson has tried Steven Gerrard in the role of support striker behind Michael Owen and drafted Liverpool centreback Jamie Carragher into an unfamiliar holding role in midfield.

Despite a 3-1 win over Hungary on Tuesday, Eriksson's experiment was given mixed reviews in the English media and Lampard was clearly stung by suggestions his own performance had not been up to his usual high standards.

"I thought it went pretty well," the Chelsea midfielder insisted, while acknowledging that the new system places more constraints on him getting forward as he does for his club.

"I don't know what people were expecting, if they are expecting me to score goals every time I play when asked to play a pretty responsible midfield role, it's not going to happen," he said. "It's impossible."

Lampard, who missed out on England's 2002 World Cup squad but was one of his country's best players two years later at Euro 2004, urged the media to get behind Eriksson and the team.

"We can keep analysing individuals in every game but you have to look at the team performance and I think it was a good performance, considering also that it was a slight change in formation to what we have played before.

"There were periods in the game when we weren't quite at our best but there were periods when we were and we made them count."

Lampard went on to insist that England would have a great chance of winning the tournament if they were capable of playing different formations.

"It is not a bad thing if other teams don't know how we are going to play, there has to be other options and it is not bad to have doubt in the opposition mind.

"We have to stay positive when we try different formations. We know what we are doing and the manager knows what he is doing and we need to go into the World Cup with the possibility of playing more than one way."

Lampard is heading for the World Cup on the back of two gruelling seasons in which he has played a total of 124 matches for club and country, but he was quick to dispel suggestions he has been left overly fatigued by too much football.

"I hadn't played in a month and I felt sharp," he reported. "After the hard training we've done in the last two weeks, I came through Tuesday's match feeling very good."

Lampard's outing against the Hungarians was marred by his failure to convert a first half penalty, but he will not be giving up his position as England's first choice to take spot-kicks.

"When you take the responsibility to take penalties, you know there is going to come a day when you might miss one. Its only human, everyone misses one. I'm disappointed but I'm pleased in a way that it didn't happen in a game that's cost us and it wasn't a championship game or anything.

"I'm not happy to miss but its a real reminder to myself that the next one I take, I need to make sure I score."