Interesting article on the BBC about the World Cup 2018 and what the England squad might look like. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28277119 Not one of the pundits has Lallana in the team and the majority of them have Chambers, will any other Saints players make it?
If anyone of those teams is close then it will be a miserable failure again. Any team built round the mighty player that is Wilshire will never get out of the group stages!
Five predictions, Shaw in all five and Chambers in four with one picking him CB. Only two pick the Ox. Wilshire in all five. Hmmm. Some picking Smalling even as LVG wants rid. Still, you can't win predicting something like this. Until we reach a decent level of quality in the national side, younger players will be rushed through. Someone like Muniain would be nailed on for England and can't even get in Spain's squad.
One of the things I thought was most interesting was that (I imagine) most of those pundits would have had Lallana in their 2014 lists and that was when he played for Southampton. When you consider the big club bias in most of those teams, the assumption appears to be that Lallana will not be a success at Liverpool.
These sort of teams are always so far out, they look too far into the future. And of course there will be new players on the scene we insist on playing before weve let others gain real experience.
We probably wouldn't even qualify for 2018, let alone get out of the group, with those players. Before the 2014 squad was picked, the hope was that youth would be given a chance, with an eye to the 2016 Euro's, and with the long-term view of a stable squad going into 2018. Now that Hodgson is in place for the Euro's, the only hope is that we will fail to qualify for them, so that he gets sacked in time for someone with no axe to grind to build a squad for 2018.
Hopefully between now & then England will withdraw from International Competitions because, lets face it, they are ****ing embarrassing. Or Greg Dyke will play for us along with Danny Mills, Rio Ferdinand & Hope Powell. Probably do better than a team with Wilshire & a geriatric Gerrard.
Amazing that Wilshire appeared in everybody's team. In reality he is a bit stupid like Gazza and Rooney, and sadly for him, only a miniscule of the footballing ability that they had or have. I'd rather have Joey Barton!!
These are the same pundits that at Christmas were telling the BBC Ravel Morrison should go to the World Cup and that Andy Carroll should go instead of the 'big lump' Lambert... Unless we bring through players that are technically better, more aware and don't solely rely on pace and take risks blooding young defensive players then we will continue to struggle but things could change quickly.
To do that, we need to get rid of dinosaur coaches who can't look beyond how big and beefy a kid is. Look at Luke Shaw, released by Chelsea for not being big enough and now an England international. But how many kids would have been in his position and didn't get the break he got at Southampton, thus falling out of football? Dozens I'm sure. And another example, Matt Ritchie, a player who Paul Hart had to be convinced not to let go because of Matt not being big enough but has been successful. Coaches need to get out of the stone age when it comes to coaching.
Oh, well there was some Southampton player who was released by Chelsea. I remember reading it on the Beeb.
Ignoring the Shaw error, you are right. Couple that with the teaching kids to win rather than develop their skills and you have the two biggest problems we have.
I don't know how true that is. Judging an eight year old on their size is beyond stupid and I highly doubt everyone in Chelsea's academy is 6'3" and stacked - two that I can think of in Ryan Bertrand and Liam Bridcutt can't be much more than 5'9".
