David Beckham did the right thing in a dignified manner when he stepped down as England captain.

But he did not go far enough.

Beckham should have announced his international retirement as a player.

I can see why he would have found that difficult. Beckham loves England and all that revolves around the international team with a passion.

He still harbours a dream of breaking Peter Shilton's all-time England appearance record of 125 caps. The suspicion is that at 31 he still believes he has two or three years at least left at the top level.

If so he is deluding himself.

That might seem harsh at the end of a World Cup challenge in which he contributed, directly or indirectly, to 50% of England's six-goal output.

He still strikes a football as sweetly as anyone on the planet and his set-piece delivery, while no longer as consistent as at his peak, remains a potent weapon.

But like a fading flower at the end of a long, dry summer his talents are showing severe signs of wither and fatigue.

Never blessed with genuine pace, the legs no longer carry him from box to box as they did in his prime.

No longer can he seize a match in the way he single-handedly inspired his team-mates in England's World Cup qualifier against Greece in 2001, through sheer will and vibrant energy.

For me that remains his greatest performance in a football shirt and the memory afterwards of him walking, hand in hand with his toddler son Brooklyn, through the corridors of Old Trafford while being applauded by staff and media alike, will live forever.

But those days are gone. In truth they have been gone for some time.

Nowadays he struggles to make the space to get in those precision crosses which were his trademark. He cannot tackle, nor head, nor track back with any consistency. And he has always been susceptible as a marker as Sweden's Markus Allback exposed with a darting header in Cologne.

World Cup 2006 was always likely to be his final mission.

Anything more would be his bridge too far, even if his idea of staying on to help new manager Steve McClaren and the new captain, who to my mind should be Steven Gerrard, is a noble one.

Noble, but not realistic.

Beckham simply comes with too much baggage. His entire career has been accompanied by froth and candy floss. Not enough substance.

From his WAG-leading, ex-pop star wife to his obsession with fashion and hairstyles and the frivolous. The glare has always been on Beckham. He and his wife have gorged on it.

There have been times when team-mates have resented it, notably when the team met Nelson Mandela and it became an audience with 'Becks' and the ex-President.

Too many times also the Beckhams appeared to receive special treatment from the FA and the manager. Sven-Goran Eriksson might have insisted he treated him like any other player but he also boasted to the fake sheikh about his "special relationship" with his captain.

But the bottom line when it comes down to Beckham is that his image too often has outshone his footballing influence.

The image sold shirts, millions of them, but it will not win football matches for McClaren.

And that's why McClaren's toughest job when Eriksson has bade his final farewells, banked his compensation cheque and cleared his desk at Soho Square, should be to say 'Thanks, but no thanks David.'

That will be hard, especially since the two have a respect and a mutual admiration derived from hours on the training field when they worked together at Old Trafford.

Some will say Figo's fading talents are being utilised by Portugal, why not Beckham with England?

But Beckham's intelligence as a footballer does not match Figo's.

And his shadow looms over such as Aaron Lennon and others. He as much as admitted it himself.

"Now I feel is the right time to pass on the armband as we enter a new era."

A new era to consign the red-card shame of France 98, the injury problems of Japan 2002 and the sheer underachievement of Germany 2006 to history.

Beckham can be rightly proud of having become the first Englishman to have scored goals in three World Cups. He deserves a revered spot in England football history.

He just no longer has a place in its future.