Might be a good thing, he could re-find his goalscoring form. Can someone tell me what his goal record is for england?
15 in 46. He looked pretty sharp in the City game, going by the highlights. If van der Vaart is out for the next game, then it could be interesting to see a return to a 4-4-2 and Defoe starting.
Yes we know United and the Scousers think they are bigger than England Luke. Most other supporters see England as important though.
Quite why Dave Stockdale was chosen is beyond me. Conceded about 10 in one week for Ipswich. But Fielding, he looked a bargain for Derby (400k from Blackburn). At the U21 Euro's he looked solid, as well as being very patriotic and always willing to play for England (you should see his roaring of the national anthem )
To use a cricket analogy Crouch and Defoe are 'flat track bullies'. They are of above average ability, consistent and have qualities which poor defenders find hard to cope with. But at the highest level, against the very best, their weaknesses are more obvious and they rarely do well. Rooney is pretty much the opposite - can get bored against mediocrity but is inspired at the higher levels. Not actually world class though - can't cope against Barcelona.
Its not really down to the competition. The "higher level" depends on the current opposition, IMO. If a player scores a hat-trick against a full-strength Chelsea in the Carling cup, and another scores a hat-trick against an injury-plagued Rangers in the CL, I know which one is more impressive, regardless of the competition.
For Rooney I meant the level of the top 20 club teams in Europe, most of whom are pretty good (better than most international teams) but on average much worse than Barcelona. And, yes, international level is not uniformly high: most national teams (eg Scotland, Wales, Finland and the like) would struggle to get through the group stages of the Europa league. So the Champions league knock-out stages are probably the pinnacle of our sport, with the average standard being better than the last 16 of the World Cup, I think. There are certainly loads of England matches against poor opposition where players like Crouch and Defoe can shine.
Actually this is one of the dilemmas of being the England manager. If you pick your mediocre but consistent players (like Crouch, Defoe, Walcott, Milner, Jagielka, etc) then you get solid performances, sail through qualifying and probably even the Final group stages but lose to the first decent side you come across. If you pick the ones with real quality but have other downsides like being inconsistent (what the media calls a luxury player) you can mess up in qualifying, but if you get through you've actually got a chance of winning. But it is easier to go for the first option - the best example in my memory is Wilkins being picked over Hoddle.
Normally we'd say you jinxed it. But given the attrition rate opur players have with England of late, you're off the hook.
