People keep writing us off as having an average, or even poor, team. But when you look at the internationals we have, it paints a different picture entirely. Coloccini - Argentina - 34 caps Santon - Italy - 7 caps Cabaye - France - 6 caps Ben Arfa - France - 8 caps Lovenkrands - Denmark - 22 caps (amazed I can count this guy) Jonas - Argentina - 20 caps Demba Ba - Senegal - 20 caps Best - Republic of Ireland - 7 caps Tiote - Ivory Coast - 20 caps Krul - Holland - 2 caps Ferguson - Northern Ireland - 1 cap Whilst there are some international teams there which aren't too difficult to get into at all (such as ROI and Denmark) we have internationals from Argentina, Italy, France and Holland - arguably some of the best international teams in the world. Now, for comparisons sake, let's look at Sunderland: Gordon - Scotland - 40 caps Bardsley - Scotland - 8 caps Brown - England - 23 caps Larsson - Sweden - 33 caps Richardson - England - 8 caps Angeleri - Argentina - 4 caps Vaughan - Wales - 26 caps O'Shea - ROI - 70 caps Dong-won - South Korea - 12 caps Westwood - ROI - 7 caps Mignolet - Belgium - 6 caps Elmohamady - Egypt - 42 caps Sessegnon - Benin - 37 caps Bendtner - Denmark - 40 caps (along with good old Lovenkrands) Now whilst they have a few more in number, in my opinion the only international team there to come close to the Argentina, Italy, France and Holland teams is... England, so Brown and Richardson. The rest are the likes of Scotland, ROI, Denmark, Egypt, Sweden and so on. The fact we've captured players who have been chosen to play for Argentina, Italy, France and Holland is just testament to the quality we have. We even have Cabaye and Ben Arfa, who are likely to become key parts of the modern France teams creative midfield play.
Very true - Tiote looks to become a major part of the Cote D'ivoire lineup, as their traditional defensive midfielder of Zokora is being dropped after his move to Trabzonsport and as Tiote's form improves. Colo hopefully will get look more of a look in for the Argie centre defence which has been terrible recently, and Jonas is well-respected over there so he still gets played despite their myriad of probably better options. Cabayes the most exciting though; he's definitely going to be important to the France side and hopefully if Ben Arfa reproduces his early form, he'll possibly get a chance (though they're pretty strong for attack midfield players right now). And if Krul can take the number 1 from Stekelenburg, I'll be very pleasantly surprised as Stekelenburg is quite decent and now plays for Roma where he's enjoying this hospitality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCVkk45eSmI But Krul is a top keeper; would love to see him between the sticks for Holland. He was great against Brazil from what I remember.
