hang on..... signing for MAN UTD - good for your England career? signing for ARSENAL - good for your England career? etc etc has welbeck not walked into the england side, has chamberlain? has walcott? in short name me one player form a top 4 side WHEN SIGNED that hasn't gone nearly straight into the england team.... (no Rios or carricks please, has beens are not new signings)
Let's face it, it's an embarrassment that the best English players represent a squad of players, four of whom have done nothing at all this season through being benched for superior foreign players (Milner, Carroll, Walcott, Defoe, Cahill), a couple of which have done surprisingly little through being injured (Gerrard, G. Johnson), one of which played almost all the fixtures in the league and was awful (Downing), a youngster who was playing in the lower leagues (Butland), a goalie who let the softest shot of all time through him (Green), a youngster who played feck all games because Whinger wants to protect him (Ox), and several players who weren't exactly brilliant this year (Terry, Lampard, Welbeck)... More than half the squad there I would contend would have found it difficult to break into most of the other national teams for those various reasons. I think top 4 clubs (which bemuses me considering Liverpool's horrendous season) do hold a lot of weight in these squads, and in fact I don't remember Fabio Capello even going further north than Manchester (even to there it was like once). Still, I don't think Roy has got too much wrong (besides siding with Terry over Rio, selecting Rob Green and picking Downing because he is marginally less **** with his left than his right), and the group seem to be so average that they are being forced to pull together and actually make a decent team!
