Its all well and good giving fringe players a run out in friendlies but I don't think England can afford to do that right now. When you look at, say Spain, Germany and Italy, nearly all their top players play for one or two clubs (with a few notable exceptions) - Spain mostly at Barca and Madrid, Germany mostly with Munich and BVB, and the spine of the Italy team seems to be Juventus. Most of their top players play together at club level playing high level club football of a good quality. England's players I would argue don't have that. Our first choice centre half pairing of Cahill and Jagielka hardly has CL pedigree in spades (I guess you could make a decent argument for Cahill but definitely not Jagielka). The likes of Townsend and Lallana have never played in such competitions. Where are the combinations going to come from if not from the clubs? Terry and Ferdinand were a good pairing for us but for me they were an exception to the rule, and besides how long were they firmly established as England's first choice centre backs for? You can argue for a lack of quality meaning that there has not been two natural successors so that Roy could say "These are the two best centre backs England has, they play" but also I think there is too much pressure for Roy to experiment in some ways. If he comes out and says he knows his best team then complaints will be made about him ignoring form players from 'lesser' clubs, but at the same time there is a concern that he can't seem to, at the minute, come out and state his best team so close to a World Cup. Given that nobody seems to know England's best team right now then we should be using these friendlies to find it, injuries permitting.
