Jay Rodriguez has been ruled out for around six months, after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament.
Horrible for him. Football's a **** game for injuries. England have a pretty impressive record of in-form players getting injured immediately before major tournaments. Hopefully he's the last major injury we get before the summer.
He's good but has barely featured for England and taking him would be a gamble. All we need is Sturridge and Rooney up front, Lambert to change the game and surround them with in form creative players like Lallana, Sterling, Oxlade, Barkley. What we must not do is go back to players who have already been given a chance and not performed, Young, Cleverley, Jones, Welbeck.
So it's Rooney, Welbeck, Sturridge and......anyone think of another 1 or 2 who might go? I feel/fear Carroll will be on the plane as 'an option'.
Since we're not gonna be favourites for most of our games I'd give the youngsters a chance. I'd like to see this. -------------Sturridge Oxlade------Rooney---------Sterling --------Gerrard----Lallana---- Baines---Cahill--Davies---Johnson ----------------Hart Bench- Barkley, Lambert, Carrick, Townsend, Shaw, Defoe ,Foster
Jeebus it IS a strange day today. I agree with that sentiment 100%. Twice for Smalling and Cleverley *just to be sure*.
Issue with that side is Lallana doesn't play that position for Southampton he is far more forward and it really isn't his best position. Surely Wilshere would be much more suited to that role?
Come on Macca. Bit ****ish. Surely you'd just rather they weren't picked? What on Earth has Caulker done wrong ffs?
Nice team but agreed, Lallana in place of Sterling (can swap with Ox) and Wilshere at CM. If we're talking youngsters/unfortunate realism, it'd be Jones instead of Davies - but Davies could easily be a CB for england for a few years.
I can't understand all the Carroll love at the moment. He's a useful player in a very specific style of play as used by West Ham. He's not really a footballer though. We're never going to play like West Ham; smashing crosses into the box from inside the centre circle. Welbeck is an all-round footballer and so is Lambert. I'd much rather take either of those two than Carroll. Welbeck suffers from not being a 20-goal a season guy so everyone thinks he's a donkey but he really isn't. He's scored some goals with really nice delicate finishes.
What on Earth has Welbeck done? For years he's been a liability and the odd 'delicate' finish doesn't change that. At least Carroll has something about him that works all of the time. We're not good enough to tippy tappy it around the likes of Brasil, Argentina and Spain. I imagine they'd really hate playing someone like him. Sorry PLT, but he is a donkey. Doesn't do anything and lives off his reputation of being the next Andy Cole when he's not ever going to be good enough for a mid table PL side let alone England.
I think Carroll offers something very specific, as you say... but what you say that we're not going to play like West Ham, I think we do have the capacity/tendency to do that when we're losing. Although I think putting Carroll on would only exacerbate the situation I suspect. Welbeck is a good link striker, I thought he was excellent against us actually. He fed Rooney, Januzaj and Young very well. Unfortunately he isn't going to be a great goalscorer, but I agree, he's far from a donkey. Sturridge wins hands down between Welbeck and him though.
