Brendon McCullum has won 26 of his 46 Tests as England head coach with just two draws. The final act of a traditional England away Ashes is about to play out. Hounded by the press from the moment the wheels touch down in Australia. Lose in Perth, lose in Brisbane, surrender the series before Christmas. Drink too much. Then comes the review.

It leads to this: administrators gathering at Lord's in the spring to tell us where it all went wrong, what they have learned and what they will do better next time. England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Richard Gould and director of cricket Rob Key have got some 'splainin' to do on Monday. "Review" was the word Gould used in January. In the lexicon of English cricket, a review usually means a raft of sackings, a meaty document and blaming county cricket. This time is different.

There will not be a 'ta-da', with white smoke rising across St John's Wood. England cannot blame county cricket, because they largely ignored it anyway. They can't rip up the domestic structure, because that was voted on last year. No one will be sacked. Instead, Gould, Key, coach Brendon McCullum, Test captain Ben Stokes, ECB chair Richard Thompson and everyone else connected to the England team will look inwards, realise they are all collectively to blame and decide they will stick together.

They have been confronted with mistakes they could have spotted in November, and certainly would have been aware of by January. England's Ashes coaching staff was too skinny and they got key selection decisions wrong. Their preparation was inadequate and their relaxed approach was brutally exposed by the relentless Australians.

Fixing these problems is relatively straightforward and would not have required lengthy discussion. England brought in a fielding coach for the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka and part of the T20 World Cup. A full-time appointment, along with a substantive fast-bowling coach, would beef up McCullum's backroom. Luke Wright has stepped down as selector of his own accord and the advertisement to replace his £115k-a-year role is in the public domain.

England have been formulating plans for warm-up matches before their three overseas Test trips next winter and there has been a midnight curfew in place for the white-ball team. A harder task for the England regime is to repair the damage caused to the relationship with supporters. This was the worst overseas Ashes performance in years, and the anger towards what happened on and off the field was immense.

Plenty of fans will be staggered that no one at the top has paid with their job. Winning cures most ills, and there is a calculated gamble from Gould, Key and co that England have a good chance of success over the coming months. Test series against New Zealand and Pakistan this summer are winnable, ditto for a winter in South Africa and Bangladesh, before the 150th anniversary Test against Australia in Melbourne. There is not another white-ball tournament until the autumn of next year.

Still, all triumphs for the foreseeable future will come with the asterisk of previous failures against the very best. Even if England regain the urn on home soil in the summer of 2027, this regime may already have its legacy defined by what happened in Australia. Central to the immediate future of the Test team is the relationship between coach McCullum and captain Stokes. Suggestions the two might not be on the same page come from the divergence in their messaging in Australia.

While still publicly backing each other, McCullum suggested England did not stick to their method, while Stokes batted like Geoffrey Boycott and said teams had worked out how to play against them. There was the notion that Stokes is the more powerful figure of the pair, yet his on-field output – certainly with the bat – has waned and his body refuses to complete a Test series without picking up an injury.

McCullum and white-ball captain Harry Brook seemed much more aligned during the T20 World Cup. It had echoes of Michael Vaughan galvanising the white-ball team in 2003, prompting Nasser Hussain to hand the Test reins to Vaughan. While there is no question – yet – that Stokes should step down as Test captain, we are certainly heading into Bazball overtime, regardless of the Ashes debacle.

When he took charge of the Test team in 2022, the New Zealander signed a four-year contract. His tenure would now be over had he not signed an extension in 2024. McCullum is now faced with a rebuild that has strong parallels to the situation he inherited four years ago. Back then, England had been hammered in Australia and were disconnected from their supporters. Their early summer opponents were New Zealand, as they are this year.

This year the first Test is at Trent Bridge - the venue of the second Test four years ago. It was Nottingham where Bazball was born – Jonny Bairstow and all that. On that occasion, England celebrated their astonishing victory over the Black Caps with beers on the dressing room balcony. Hours later, as night turned to day, players were filmed in a takeaway, with Ollie Pope gazing at his kebab like he had never seen anything so beautiful. And there's the rub.

The environment McCullum created in those early days brought success and was celebrated. Somewhere along the way, culture began to border on cult. The approach for which McCullum was once lauded has become England's biggest hindrance.

"We want to be a well-liked team on and off the pitch and unfortunately our performance didn't allow that to happen in Australia," said Pope earlier this week. "The perception that we weren't fussed was probably the hard thing. Every individual is trying to manage the pressures of an Ashes series and get the best out of their performance. All everyone wanted to do was win."

Pope's words lay bare the issues McCullum has to tackle. If the plan is to remove pressure, how do players then react when the pressure is at its highest? Is the "informal" – his word – method that McCullum favours getting the best out of the players? They might honestly believe they gave themselves the best chance in Australia, on and off the field, because that is the approach McCullum instructed them to take.

When he first arrived, McCullum liberated the likes of Bairstow, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Mark Wood and plenty of others. They were experienced, with enough understanding of Test cricket to use a relaxed environment to their advantage. Now McCullum must find a way to get the best out of inexperienced players who need more guidance than freedom – Jacob Bethell, Jamie Smith, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson. There may be more new faces to come, too.

Zak Crawley looks vulnerable at the top of the order and Smith had a poor Ashes. A frontline spinner needs to be identified, although an all-rounder like Rehan Ahmed or James Coles could be tried. There is a Chris Woakes-shaped hole for a new-ball bowler that could be filled by Tom Lawes.

Monday is unlikely to bring a seismic announcement, but it will begin the final chapter of the Bazball era. "Time for us all to buckle up and get ready for the ride," said Key when he appointed McCullum in 2022. Now England either get back on track, or career further out of control.