I expect 90% was what Capello had lined up anyway, pondering over a few still. I can't see this as some radical start from scratch Pearce show, not this close to a tourny. Perhaps its an exercise to find out who to definetly not take.
If, as is being suggested in the media tonight, Pearce is looking to put himself in the frame for the job of taking England to the Euros, he'll want to convince the FA that he's a safe pair of hands, and isn't going to do an AVB. Looking at his selection in that light, I suppose we can say that he has mixed experience with a couple of players who are not the usual suspects. Still can't help feeling that he's missing a real chance to not only make a point to the FA, though, but also to prove his worth by doing something radical. Sure, if it all fell flat, he'd stand no chance of taking the England job on for more than this caretaker stint, but if he managed to revitalise England with a massive influx of new blood... All academic now, of course.
As the 'stars' have shown themselves to be not quite up to the job then you might just as well pick a team based on their willingness to 'die' for the cause. Denmark managed to win the European Cup based on that as did Greece. Pearce of all people should understand this.
442 will get us through the group stages but will come unstuck aganist any of the better teams. Ajax showed why last night. They had a spare man in midfield so Utd never got the ball and the wingers might just as well have been in the dressing room
As per usual, because the match isn't on the BBC, the BBC Sport website isn't doing the most it can do to keep people from being informed about the game. When you have to check the Sky Sports site just to know the starting line-up, that's just petty - and I payed £145.50 for the privilege...
The Beeb's live text is bad regardless. The update of the site made it even worse. LDL, wasn't the England team full of United's "future" tonight?
Add in who was on the pitch plus Cleverley...christ, thats nearly a whole team! ....on the other hand, that theory works for Spain now, and Italy a while back fielding basically an AC Milan team and a small cast of others. I think it was when they had restrictions on the number of foreign players.
