Jones and Smalling over Dawson? Dawson hasn't even had his best season yet was better than those two. Wilshere selected despite the unlikeliness of him being fully fit for the tournament. Danny Welbeck? Have a laugh. Bring on the embarrassment.
Dawson's the wrong side of 30 ,lacks pace and was left on his backside a number of times by the likes of Aguero and Suarez in English conditions in the PL. What would they do to him in the heat of Brazil?
Nope 2010 was worse. Heskey, Crouch, SWP and Lennon are worse then anything in the current team lol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_squads#England
COY Algerians! So I guess present Spurs are on Belgium, Brazil, France, Algeria, one on loan for Cameroon, and one Spur-for-life on standby for England. Who am I missing? I wonder what the odds are of a Spur winning the World Cup, after one (dos; barely--we hadn't moved him yet) won an Olympic gold medal? I would have gone for Hart Walker (if fit. If not, isn't there anyone better than Johnson?) Cahill Davies Shaw Sterling Huddlestone Rooney Lallana Sturridge Defoe/Lambert Huddlestone narrowly over Gerrard in the playmaker role. I hate to name Rooney, but I would have hated to name Gerrard and Wilshire even more. I love Hodgson choosing Welbeck over a player that got England into the knockout rounds once and can still score at a far brisker clip. If England crashes out at the group stages this time he needn't wonder why.
Davies is a good shout. as is Huddlestone (ridiculous that he gets over looked), especially when at international level its more important to keep the ball rather then at club football where its more hectic.
Good shout on Tommy Huddlestone, we are desperately short of a central player with an excellent range of passing, especially with no Carrick.
This is where I disagree and would make a more pragmatic argument. Crouch's scoring record for England is incredible, but he was discarded before his time as he kind of doesn't look the part. Yet all the players that do 'look the part' have continuously failed to perform at major tournaments. We have seen that international teams often can't handle the traditional English striker, so we go with our best version of the type of striker we would like to have, not that we actually have. And they are not good enough and/or cannot perform. In other words from this squad I'd much rather have Lambert than Rooney. On paper it doesn't really make sense but you don't win anything on paper. So maybe this time Rooney might actually deliver - but how many failed games have we had to endure before that happens?
Dawson's being done for pace by Teddy Sheringham this evening, so probably not such a good idea for a World Cup place...because it means the papers won't inevitably blame any Spurs player that doesn't get crocked in training for England's cock ups, rather than the other ten equally inept players around him.
Fair play to Hodgson he's gone for a fairly young team. From an outsiders point of view your centre halfs seem too weak to ensure England will progress far - there seems no dominant personality/enforcer that attackers would be "afraid" of.
Good analysis. I was a big fan of Crouch (being just about his height...) and now I get a good feeling about Lambert as well. Whereas you know that not only will Rooney do nothing, he'll end up embarrassing everyone with his behavior. Makes me wonder why I have him in my team.
England fans booing Crouch because they thought with his selection the team would play the long ball. Yeah, like England would play a free flowing passing game without Crouch.
Hart Johnson Cahill Jagielka Baines Gerrard Wilshere Sterling Rooney Lallana Sturridge Pretty confident that this will be our side if all fit. The front 6 are better than anything we've put out at recent tournaments I'd argue - as long as Sterling and Lallana don't get stage fright. Defence looks very good to me too despite none of them being very experienced or big names - solid and reliable. Off the bench we have a couple of midfielders who are capable of changing a game like Barkley and Oxlade. Not sure I trust Welbeck or Lambert to have much effect. The glaring anomaly in that squad has got to be Chris Smalling though, who has never given any indication of warranting the hype that he received as a young player. Average through and through and barely even gets in a dismal United side. There are a whole host of players I'd put ahead of him in the pecking order: Shawcross, Jenkinson, Lescott, Dawson, Flanagan, Caulker etc etc.
It's this idea that Rooney is "world class" so he must be in the team. And when he performs, which he will do from time to time, everyone decides they were right all along. But how many games does he have to play, how many games does he have to be useless, before a good game comes along? Even if he plays well this time his past performances for England do not justify selection. If you put it in numbers, say Rooney at his best can provide 100 "units of value" to the team, which he does 1 in 10 games, but the rest of the time he is only giving 50 or something. Yet another player at their best, being not "world class" could never even hope to get to 100 at their best. Lets say they can only reach 80... but they do that every game. So who would you rather have in the team? Personally I'd rather have a player that gave their all and did that consistently. With only three games guaranteed, most observers say we must play our best performers to have any chance of progressing. I say you need your most *consistent* performers, who may not be the best on paper. People's memory is too often skewed by a spectacular goal etc. I also say we should stop trying to pretend to be a poor version of another team and play to our strengths.
Its because Rooney at his best can produce displays which you would say are world class but he hasn't progressed from the intial impact he made from someone with world class potential to still he has world class potential but its too late now, he should have moved abroad but hes still a fantastic player and on form capable of playing to a level higher then anyone else. I remember the Euros agaisnt the french when Rooney was the best player on the pitch, Henry, Zidane, they where all wondering who the f**k is this kid! they could see he had a special talent but Fergie said it himself when he said Rooney and Gerrard both threatened to be truly special players but neither could match the genius of Gazza.
How many good games has Wilshere had in the last 2 years? Personally I think we're very unbalanced in midfield and I'd have taken Barry to give us an option that can shore us up in games. As for Smalling getting picked, words fail me. There are at least 15 better English centre backs and another 10 better English right backs. I think we'll struggle to get more than a point in the groups.
I'd prefer Delph as a more mobile defensive player for the heat in Brazil but he's never been called up.
