As the winner of a six-month audition that seemed designed to bring him down a peg or two, John Terry may have found a welling of pride matched only by immense relief yesterday, but the newly reinstated England captain had only to listen to Fabio Capello alongside him to realise that neither he nor any of his team-mates can take his place for granted in future.

“No one is untouchable,” the England manager said when asked if Terry’s appointment made him an automatic selection in the starting line-up. “The captain cannot play if he is limping, but no player is untouchable. The fact that someone is captain does not make him undroppable.”

Some will say that the England manager could hardly state the opposite — that Terry or indeed anyone else would be guaranteed a starting place — but Sven-Göran Eriksson, a not-too-distant predecessor, often said during his tenure that David Beckham would always play when fit.

Capello seems determined to shake the biggest names in English football out of the unhealthy assumption that there will always be a place for them in the starting line-up — in the case of Michael Owen, he seems determined to go further — and, with Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard seemingly competing for two places in the XI against the Czech Republic tonight, it is a message that is becoming unequivocal.

Capello asserted yesterday that what mattered to him was not the name or the reputation of the player but the “moment of the player”, by which he meant their form. It has not always been thus in the England team, with Stewart Downing complaining this week that “in the past I always felt the team was picked before we met up”, but the Middlesbrough winger added that, under Capello, “you get the feeling that, if you play well, you will get into the team”.

Downing is a serious contender for a starting place at Wembley tonight, with Capello having remarked recently that the 24-year-old was the player who had surprised him most since he arrived in England. Downing seems certain to get a run-out on the left-hand side of midfield at some stage, whether from the start or as a replacement for Joe Cole, and, with Capello unconvinced by Wayne Rooney as a lone striker, it is a safe assumption — as much as anything is where the Italian’s plans are concerned — that the likely selection of Gareth Barry would leave Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard competing for two places in midfield.

As for Terry, he was a happy man, having emerged victorious from a trial in which he had to walk out behind Gerrard and Rio Ferdinand respectively before the friendly matches against Switzerland in February and France in March. Beckham wore the armband in England’s most recent fixture, the friendly away to Trinidad & Tobago in June, but by then Terry had already staked his claim, impressing Capello by leading the national team against the United States in May, only six days after the heartbreak of missing in the penalty shoot-out when Chelsea were beaten by Manchester United in the Champions League final.

“I think that showed what kind of character I am to the manager, to come back and bounce back like I did after that huge disappointment,” Terry said yesterday.

Capello said only that Terry’s “big personality” had earned him the nod ahead of Ferdinand and Gerrard. England need big personalities in the years ahead, but that is not to say that personality alone will guarantee selection in future.