There is an almost amazing lack of top Engish players. Sterling may be the only player Real or Barca might be interested in, and only in a year or two, if he keeps improving.
In a way that might help. No longer just moving it to Lampard or Gerrard hoping they do something miraculous (we're still waiting) might mean we have to actually build a team. You could make a decent team out of this lot, but then just keep them together so they get used to playing together. And for God's sake pick Huddlestone.
12 days without PL football Another long break, yet the season's hardly started. But plenty of time for players to come back injured They might as well give League 1 players caps v San Marino. So why don't they?
Stones has been replaced in the senior squad by Chambers, who's been promoted from the U21s. Should've called up someone else for bench duty and let him play in the play-off. Dopey decision, for me.
Dyer, Routledge, Naughton, Davies(Curtis), Huddlestone, Livermore, Noble, Bertrand and some you've mentioned should all have been in the conversation for the squad. Without them we're just building another squad of players that don't suit playing together. It's as unbalanced as United's squad to look at it. I think there's a lot more talented players eligible for England than we're given credit for. The trouble is they're so ignored that it just becomes easy to assume they're not good enough. I think we identify the problem with of a lack of stand out players and the few that are highly rated not performing at the level you'dexpect but the solution seems to be to carry on doing the samething we've always done and keep picking the same players. Players like Lampard and Gerrard are grat English players but not great England players and they should've been embarrassed collectcting their 100th caps considering that was their only acheivement at international level. So many better England players have a lot less caps but instead of pointing this out everyone gets caught up in the love-in and praising them through the roof for their achievement of turning up. Their caps is equivalent to getting a certificate for attendance at school but the treatment of it is like they've won a Nobel Prize. The fact is we've been consistently out-achieved by teams with players far worse than ours and no one wants to acknowledge it. Until we do we acknowledge it and address it we can only fail at international level.
The problem with England for years has been that managers pick (or feel pressured to pick) a sort of 'English Galacticos' team, who in reality may be the best 11 English players but have rarely been the best English team. Look at the past when managers were always panned for never managing to get Gerrard and Lampard to play together well, whereas really the problem was that few managers had the balls to just drop one of them and come out saying one was better than the other at that moment in time. Even now, there is always attempts to shoehorn Jack 'future of English football' Wilshere into the team, even when he hasn't progressed in any meaningful way for ages as a player and he never ends up playing in his best position anyway because Captain Wayne has to be picked come rain or shine in the no. 10 position, despite the fact that Sterling is by far the better option there in my opinion out of the 3 of them. During the World Cup there was a serious case to be made for dropping Rooney for the good of the team, now that can't happen because he is captain and we English do love to kick up a fuss if the national captain is dropped for any serious game. Teams need the balance provided by a midfield engine room of players like Henderson and Huddlestone, players who are willing to put in the hard yards and who can actually pass the ball very well respectively. An out and out DM in the squad wouldn't go amiss either - Delph may yet form a partnership with Henderson, but surely someone like Rodwell or even Livermore (don't laugh haha) have to be wondering what they have to do to get a call up when there really isn't anyone else to properly fill that role. Especially given the level of the opposition we're facing now even in competitive games, surely the time is now to blood such players so that if the time comes when we actually need an out and out DM then they have some experience with England?
Rooney will play as part of the plan to make him England's highest scoring player. And it will be a sad day when that happens.
Just like when they took some of the top u-21s to Brazil for friendlies instead of playing them in competitive u-21 matches.
Kane scores the tying goal in the U-21 win against Croatia, which finishes with Kane, Carroll and Dier on the field. Can anyone comment on how they looked?
Good to see Hodgson has picked a squad of in-form players again - Lambert, Walcott and Smalling have been excellent lately.
Barely, but then he's a United player so he gets in on that technicality Just like Smalling who has been ****e.
To be fair Townsend was far and away England's best player in the two World cup qualifiers he played last season before he got injured.
You had me for a second! Same old Hodgson bullshit squad. Hopefully Downing, Clyne and Berahino will actually get some game time and aren't just being selected just for the sake of appearances.
But Townsend played pretty much the same way he did for us only it seemed to work! Beat players by skill and speed, passes and crosses found team mates, shots went in. He didn't deserve to be dropped and hasn't been.
