Beckham is an absolute hero, by far my favourite England player of my lifetime (born in 91), commitment he showed was unreal compared to what we have now!
Hmmm, problems for England in midfield now, first Barry and now Lampard ruled out of Euro 2012. And why on earth is Henderson now in the squad. He was on the standby list and therefore gets called up. Henderson really doesn't deserve it, and there are so many better choices, in particular Carrick. Strange choice from Hodgson.
Considering Lampard, Wilshere, Barry, even Huddlestone and Rodwell are all injured, and Scholes and Carrick are not available, who is better than Henderson? I agree he doesn't deserve it but the cupboard is pretty bare. Again, Carrick ruled himself out, it's not Hodgson's choice not to pick him.
Carrick has been an idiot - you should never turn your back on England or your country imo (Although as I said, I can see where Foster is coming from, even if I don't agree)
Of the top of my head, I can also think of Danny Murphy and Leon Britton who are English, any good, not injure, premier league players. I guess there's also Shelvey and Spearing from Liverpool if we really didn't want Henderson. There may be 1 or 2 more, but it's not a long list.
Danny Murphy's had a decent season but I think Roy would be accused of picking his favourites if he did select him. Britton's done a good job playing a specific role for Swansea but if he's not going to be playing in that role for England it's a bit of a risk, and the style of play is... slightly different. Henderson has had a mixed season (to be slightly generous), but he's been involved with the under-21s recently so maybe the thinking is that he's had experience of the tournament environment and perhaps that will be an asset for him. I'm not exactly thrilled about him representing England considering his recent form, but to be fair to him, when he was at Sunderland he was very impressive. He's not the only one to move to Liverpool and fail to recapture previous form (and that hasn't stopped Carroll or Downing from getting into the squad either!)
Quite true, but if Roy gets the team organised, we've got as good a chance as anyone. This is genuinely a competition that anyone can win; nobody expected Denmark or Greece to do that well and we all know what happened there. I'm not saying we're favourites, far from it, but I think this is the first time for ages when the level of expectation is not that high and maybe we can play without the sort of pressure that normally reduces good players to the kind of dross we normally have to endure.
I second this. People underestimate him because of his lack of pace and flair, but the man is a genius with the ball. No one can hit a ball with pinpoint accuracy like Becks. I'm not at all ashamed to say that he could hit a ball even better than Le Tiss. He was the perfect captain as well. It's fairly obvious that the England squad has become considerably worse without him.
Beckham is also an example of what hard work can do. The reason he was so good at crosses and free kicks is that he practiced all the time...a team mate said that he was always the last to leave the training field. Some players with natural talent, find it easy and then don't put in the effort and go out nightclubbing too much. They can be overtaken by less talented players who work harder.
He may well of trained, but there are doubts over his overall fitness. Due to the injury he picked up for Spurs, just because he trained doesn't mean he is fully fit.