Can't Leave Me Out Now, Can Yer?
It’s another international break and another chance for
every armchair manager to tell Roy Hodgson what to do. I’m on record for having the opinion that
Uncle Roy is a senile old goat but maybe these two matches will change my mind
on that, or not.
Back in November, before we played Spain in a friendly, I
had a stab at what I thought Roy Hodgson’s squad will be. Some things have changed since then as events
have ruled out some and enhanced the claims of others. My stab at Roy’s squad was as follows
November ’15
version.
Hart, Butland, Forster
Clyne, Baines, Shaw, Cahill, Smalling, Stones, Jones
Wilshere, Henderson, Milner, Carrick, Lallana, Sterling,
Chamberlain, Barkley
Walcott, Rooney, Kane, Sturridge, Welbeck
The two friendlies we’ve had in this break were a fantastic
2-0 down, 3-2 up win in Berlin against the Krauts and a disappointing, listless
and slightly unlucky 2-1 defeat at home to the Dutch. The Germany game featured a progressive line
up and was obviously the one that Hodgson was selecting the stronger side
for. With Butland preferred in goal to
Forster, a back four of Clyne, Cahill, Smalling and Rose, a midfield of Dier
behind Henderson and Lallana with Welbeck and Alli supporting Kane up front. In short, we were excellent from the off but
found ourselves 1-0 when Butland decided to limp on when he clearly had a
problem and Kross spotted him limping abut and smashed in a shot from 35 yards
which a fit Butland would easily have saved.
How’s that for ruthless German efficiency… bastards. On came Fraser Forster for Butland just
before half time and looked decent but he had no chance on the hour when Cahill
dozed off and allowed Gomez to run off him to head home a cross to make it
2-0. We looked set to drift to defeat
but not a bit of it with Kane pulling one back straight away with a Cruyff
(RIP) turn and shot into the corner, followed by possibly one of the best
England goals I’ve ever seen. It started
at left back and built up until Clyne took on the left back and beat him,
crossing for Vardy (on for Welbeck) to flick into the net from behind him. The chance to win it looked gone when Vardy
pressured the hopeless Emre Can into giving him the ball from a short goal
kick. He teed up Alli with an open goal
but he sidefooted over the bar. 2-2
isn’t bad I guess but there’s more as for once, Henderson out a corner to where
an England player could attack it and in came Eric Dier to thump it past
Neuer. 90th minute, 3-2 and I
know it’s a friendly but fucking have it. It was brilliant.
We played with a fearlessness and with great spirit
throughout and deserved to win. Closing
them down all over the pitch and looking good in possession in the main – apart
from Henderson of course, who was wank.
Defensively we were a bit dodgy with Cahill in particular bringing his
lousy club form to the international stage.
What I liked was the inventiveness and energy in the team with Alli
being the star man. He’s only 19 but
what a player he is already. How good is
he going to be and when are Real Madrid going to take him off of Spurs
(chortle). You-know-who was missing
through injury…. That’s right, our captain and alleged talisman… the bloke who
can’t run anymore and hasn’t been good in a tournament since 2004… no decent
form for him club… what’s his name?
Can’t remember. Hopefully Roy’s
forgotten too as you can’t play with any intensity when you are carrying any
passengers who can’t run.
The people who’d coughed up loads to go to Wembley to watch
the friendly against the Dutch were treated to James Milner as captain. If that doesn’t take the piss out of your own
supporters then I don’t know what does.
The FA are desperate for Wembley to sell out and then give the home
supporters Milner as captain. Anyhow,
only Rose, Lallana and Smalling survived from the Germany starting XI. John Stones was given a chance to prove an alternative
to Cahill and Vardy started up front.
Ross Barkley started to try and have the impact that Dele Alli had and
there was a debut for Danny Drinkwater.
If we played with great tempo in Germany then we were the complete
opposite against Holland with the only excitement of the first half hour being
Danny Rose horribly carting a Dutch forward up in the air for a stonewall
penalty which the referee missed.
Suddenly, football broke out and Lallana played a good ball into Walker
who pulled it back for Vardy to smash into the net for 1-0. Happy days and it stayed that way until Rose
had another go at giving away a penalty and succeeded with a handball. Jansen gave Forster no chance for 1-1 and so
it came to pass that Jagielka came on, was piss weak in a challenge and got
knocked over and whilst we all appealed for what probably should have been a
foul, it got pulled back and Narsingh tapped into an empty net with the left
side of the defence nowhere and so we lost.
Drinkwater was decent, Vardy did his thing and Stones and
Barkley had their moments but this wasn’t great the most predictable things
were that Milner would be shite and Sturridge would be greedy.
I now believe there will be 7 changes to that original squad
and here’s why:
OUT: Baines, Shaw, Jones, Wilshere, Carrick, Chamberlain,
Walcott
IN: Rose, Shaw, Walker, Drinkwater, Dier, Alli, Vardy
It looks like Jack Butland has knackered himself which
confirmed Fraser Forster as No.2 to Joe Hart at the finals. The 3rd and unused keeper will now
be Tom Heaton it appears as none of the usual suspect like John Ruddy or Ben
Foster are at the same level as the goalkeeper at the top of the Championship.
I though Baines would be first choice left back, purely
because he was a Hodgson favourite. I’ve
never rated him as he can’t defend for shit – good attacking player but a good
winger just makes him look stupid and England can’t afford to have full-backs
who can’t defend.... we have centre-backs who can’t defend so the full-backs
have to be sound. With Luke Shaw not
having recovered from injury as yet, there’s surely no time for him to prove he
can handle a tournament so I expect the two left backs chosen to be Danny Rose
and Ryan Bertrand. I expect Rose will
get the nod to start but it should be Bertrand because he is a miles better
defender. Rose was very dodgy against the Dutch and had a hand in both goals as
well as trying to give another penalty away.
Ryan Shawcross is the forgotten man which is strange as we’re weak as
piss in central defence. Cahill has been
shocking this season and has taken that form into the England games he’s played
in.
Phil Jones has been injured for months and he’s crap. He’s always been crap but now he’s injured
and crap. It seems that Roy has decided
that the modern game requires specialist full-backs and not centre backs played
out of position, or James Milner and for that reason I expect Kyle Walker to
get the nod ahead of Phil Jagielka. Eric
Dier can cover the central defence if he has to and so can Ryan Bertrand.
As I write I’m hearing that Jack Wheelchair might actually
be about to put on a pair of boots again.
It’s ridiculous that he’s even being considered but if he can stand up
and gets put ahead of Milner and Henderson in the pecking order then I’m all
for it as he’s got twice the ability of either.
Henderson is a real ‘nothing’ player.
He’s not anything going forward and he’s not defensive either – he just
runs around a lot and gives the ball away.
Basically, he’s a Milner and never good enough. If it was down to me I’d pick Drinkwater,
Delph and Shelvey ahead of the two Liverpool players and the crippled Wilshere
but I’m guessing that if Roy will go with the other three. I saw one pundit saying that he’d take Milner
even though he wouldn’t play. What the
fuck… I hear that he’s good without the ball a lot. I feel that footballers by definition need to
be good with the ball and besides, Milner has to be good without it and maybe
that explains why he gives the fucking thing away so much.
In November I didn’t think that Eric Dier would displace
Michael Carrick in Hodgson’s thinking even though Carrick is so far past it and
he was never good enough anyway. Dier is
effective in that role just in front of the centre backs and he’s happy just to
sit and let others play so good news.
Unlike Carrick he can actually run and deal with it when the opposition
play at a fast pace.
The emergence of Dele Alli has been quite remarkable and
sadly (for him) this will mean no place for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain whose
career has not so much stalled as gone into reverse in the last couple of
years. When he’s not injured, he’s not
scored or assisted any goal for Arsenal this season. He’s probably their 3rd choice
right sided attacker behind Walcott (more on him later) and Joel Campbell and
you would think, has no chance of making this squad. Alli looks like the real deal and has had a
brilliant season for Spurs and played amazingly (open goal miss aside) for
England in the Germany 3-2 win. Not only
is Alli in the squad but he has to start and he has to start in his best
position which is just behind the strikers.
I bet that Roy was hoping with every fibre of his being that
Jamie Vardy would tail off and make it easy for him to leave him out. True to form, Welbeck got fit and came
straight back in but Vardy simply can’t be left out after scoring in both
friendlies so the man who will be jettisoned will be Theo Walcott who still has
the tag ‘potential’ 10 year after leaving Saints for the bright life and wages
at Arsenal. It looks like Sturridge is
fit and if so, that’s Walcott’s place gone.
Sturridge – I wouldn’t bother with him.
The message that it’s a team game seems to be lost on the greedy twat
and whilst he might be superb in front of goal, there’s not the work rate or
the selflessness you need to be part of a great team. Then we have whats-his-name… Squirrel
Head. He’ll be in the squad and he’ll
start but he shouldn’t. He’s the 4th
best striker behind Kane, Vardy and Sturridge and he’s the 3rd choice
Number 10 behind Alli and Barkley. It
depresses the shit out of me that football people like Glenn Hoddle and Lee
Dixon think Rooney can play at the head of a midfield diamond in a 4-4-2. Not only do they overlook the fact that he isn’t
fit enough to play in what is basically a midfield position when you have two
strikers, they shoved Alli out to the left and picked fucking Milner to play on
the right. Scandalous.
So, I reckon Roy will go with:
Hart, Forster, Heaton
Clyne, Rose, Bertrand,
Cahill, Smalling, Stones, Walker
Wilshere, Henderson, Milner, Dier, Lallana, Sterling, Alli,
Barkley
Vardy, Rooney,
Kane, Sturridge, Welbeck
And a starting line up of:
Hart; Clyne, Cahill, Smalling, Rose; Dier, Wilshere; Alli,
Rooney, Welbeck; Kane
We have a great chance Roy Hodgson.... don't fuck it up!
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