Aggers do may be Aggers don’t

But Aldo’s take on loyalty has been outstripped by the news BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew is offering anybody who’ll listen odds that England will trample Australia 3-1 in the Ashes this winter.

Maybe Aggers can afford such rash wagers because his house contains a huge pile of gold coins which he slides down Scrooge McDuck-style. However, anybody who thinks the Aussies are the only ones with problems in the wake of their defeat to Pakistan last week, is letting their hubris run away with them.

This Australian team may be mortal, but only extremely good sides win down under, let alone 3-1. And England aren’t an extremely good side. They have as many issues to address as their foes.

In a blatant back-covering exercise, this column appears during England’s clash with Pakistan at Trent Bridge, and if the tourists are in their complete-shambles mode, the game could be all but over by now.

If that’s the case, it won’t alter the fact England’s preferred line-up currently boasts a seemingly bulletproof opener who rarely makes big, crucial runs, Test cricket’s only unconvincing double-centurion, a formless, distracted star, an early-stage experiment and a wicketkeeper who is being messed about. And that’s just the batting.

England feel they have the security of a settled side, but much of that stems from a lack of options.

Would Alastair Cook, who has managed one century against anybody other than West Indies or Bangladesh in his last 32 Tests but whose selection is rarely questioned, be upping his game if he faced competition for his place?

There’s no genuine alternative, so he keeps making insubstantial scores without fear of the axe.

A similar problem infests the bowling, where England’s greatest worry might not be playing either four or five bowlers, but what’s going on with one of those definitely pencilled in for the Brisbane opener.

James Anderson has said for ages he wants to be the attack leader, only to frustrate and flatter to deceive. Squandering the new ball and producing the occasional inspired spell as he did yesterday won’t cut it in Australia, where he is the only current England bowler to have played a Test but where his wickets have cost 82 runs apiece.

Although Anderson’s place isn’t in danger, he is operating on a reputation only partially earned.

However, if he or Stuart Broad fall down a manhole between now and the opening Test – and let’s face it, at least three of England’s Ashes tour party usually end up on crutches at some point – the wicket-taking problem intensifies.

Yorkshire’s Tim Bresnan is an honest grafter but doesn’t look the part as a Test cricketer, and an Ashes tour is a tough place for Steven Finn or Ajmal Shahzad to hurtle around a learning curve.

If Graeme Swann is hit out of the attack, as Australia will surely attempt to do, captain Andrew Strauss will have a headache.

Form, or results masquerading as form, can be misleading.

England’s Ashes reclamation last year and the drawn series in South Africa owed as much to rearguard actions as anything.

Beating Bangladesh is no barometer for Ashes prospects, and the World Twenty20 triumph is as relevant to Tests as Lindsey Lohan is to the Quiet Night In Club.

England are in danger of sleepwalking towards complacency and self-delusion. That would be lethal.

This winter presents their best opportunity in a generation to win in Australia.

The hosts are over-reliant on Ponting and Michael Clarke for runs and the human scattergun called Mitchell Johnson for bowling firepower, their once-renowned fielding unit has cracks and they finally boast a sprinkling of average players and a lack of quality reinforcements.

Their armour has chinks. But so does that of their enemy.

No cricket team in the world is more dangerous when wounded than the Aussies, especially in their own backyard.

The series will be white-hot and blood-red. It always is in Australia. And if England are settling into a comfort zone, they need to check out of it quickly.