Chuffed for Mason, he must have had moments when he thought he'd never make it with us let alone into the England squad so soon, and for his attitude nobody deserves it more IMO. A young English Spurs lad living the dream, good on him.
There were four in the Euro '96 squad - it would've been five if we didn't sell Barmby to Middlesbrough.
Great! We've already played more games than any one else and our players must be in need of a rest and what happens? Other players pull out due to ''injury'' and our players get a chance to play another two games while the 'Pool and Utd players get another rest.
I’d be unhappy if I thought we had a realistic chance of a top four spot. As it is, 6 points plus GD down with eight to play, the chances seem really remote. We would have to win two more games than Man U, and pick up another point on top of that. We would have to run the table and Man U couldn’t win more than five of eight, in other words. It’s bleak, in a nutshell. Of course, there is some chance one of the 2-4 teams will collapse, but recent history is that top four chasing teams at the end of the year drop very few points. The refs tend to make certain most of them don’t, for one thing. And even if a team does collapse, we’d still have to get more points than both Liverpool and Southampton.
Good call by Hodgson, Mason is to closest thing England have to a Paul Scholes, he's a better tackler too.
Rose might get a ten minute cameo because Hodgson doesn't want England's fourth-choice left back representing Jamaica.
I think it unlikely Kane will start in the qualifier for various reasons. One is that if he scores a few, it would be too difficult to justify leaving him out in future, which surely would happen. Hodgson has a pecking order and Kane simply isn't high on it, it doesn't matter how many he scores. Even if he scored a hattrick, if Sturridge was available for the next qualifier he would play. Now maybe if Kane played for Liverpool... he could then play the qualifier and then go home before the friendly in case he got tired. Poor Sterling, he does get tired quite a lot doesn't he!
it's a good job for Sterling that he's not at Spurs,he would be to tired from the training,to play in a match!
England team: Hart, Clyne, Cahill, Jones, Baines; Henderson, Carrick, Delph, Sterling, Rooney, Welbeck
All our boys on the bench. Pritch and Tommy Carroll start for the U21s. You'd expect to see Kane tonight and perhaps to start the friendly so Roy can get a proper look at him.
I don't really mind when Kane starts, it's a bad decision if Hodgson was genuinly picking his first choice 11 but frankly the Italy friendly is a better test for Kane, that's the important game, fill this line up with flat-track bullies like Welbeck and Rooney. Good to see Clyne and Delph starting, it must've been killing Hodgson to have to leave Smalling out of his dross backline. Got to be pleased with a balanced looking midfield starting for once too, although Lithuania wouldn't have been the worst game to throw an extra attacker into.
YV, remember you already screwed up by not betting on Kane to finish as premier league top scorer. Don't screw up again and place a bet on Kane to finish his career as England's all time record scorer. Rooney is just about to break that record but Harry Kane is young enough to take that crown one day!
That would rely on the FA being competant enough to sack Hodgson. If Roy remains in charge he'll stick by Rooney and Kane will have to compete(/rotate) with Welbeck and Sturridge for the other striker role. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the likes of Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard shouldn't be celebrated for their high number of caps they should be embarrassed by it. They've achieved nothing of note, at least Ashley Cole and Beckham were consistently good performers for England and Beckham in particular made many key contributions throughout his international career. One more thing I've just remembered. Carrick has turned down England call ups on a number of occasions, he shouldn't even be considered for the squad let alone starting.
Rooney was outstanding at Euro 2004 but he wasn't helped by Gerrard doing a pass back (a move he has perfected!) to allow the French to win, in a game where Rooney was brilliant. That tournament was where Rooney peaked at international level in terms of his overall standard. He has never performed to that standard of when he was 17 at international level.
Rooney hat trick? He will want to break it before facing Italy although we still have to play San Marino!
He's never had the same licence to play in such an uninhibited way. His game is different now. He's shown what he can offer already tonight - unlucky not to have a hat-trick.
