Hodgson Finds Dossier on the the Things Milner Does Well
Tuesday 31st (morning)
As I write it’s the morning of the squad announcement and I’m
trying to get inside the mind of the old duffer who is picking the England
squad. He tried to be positive and name
his squad early to avoid giving the impression that he couldn’t make his mind
up about anything but he missed his deadline for that, then he named too many
players and now the Senile Old Goat has arrived at the last minute. Don’t fuck it up Roy.
The 25 man squad as it stands is unbalanced as there are too
many midfielders and not enough defensive minded players. Eric Dier and Danny Drinkwater are the two
defensive midfielders and the worry is that Drinkwater will be binned. If Dier then gets forced to play centre back
then we will have no defensive midfielder aside from Jack Wheelchair who is
only a defensive midfielder in Hodgson’s mind.
He proved against Australia what we all knew, that he has no defensive
awareness and playing there in the easiest qualifying group in history is not
relevant at all. The players who should
be under threat in the squad are Henderson and Milner. Milner is (gritted teeth) versatile (but not
actually good at anything) but Henderson is just a trundler, not providing
goals or assists or defensive cover.
He’s also been injured so should not make the squad.... but he will so
all in all, Drinkwater will be binned as he’s easy to bin as he’s not been in
the squad very long and isn’t a Roy favourite, which far outweighs the fact
that he’s just won the Premier League.
The Australia game was strange in that Wilshere was picked in
Drinkwater’s defensive midfield position and Drinkwater was picked on the left
of the diamond midfield, where the left footed attack minded Wilshere would
surely be better utilized.
The other player to miss out was to be Marcus Rashford but
he scored in the first 2 minutes against Australia so now he has to be on the
plane of course. Playing for Manchester
United and the media hyperbole that surrounds them helps as well. He did nothing for the rest of the game except
give the ball away but the media want him to be picked so he will be as that’s
what Hodgson does. In 2014, five minutes
before the tournament, we had a media
clamour for Raheem Sterling to play at 10 so that’s what Roy did, even though
it meant playing Rooney wide where he was useless. So, Rashford will go which puts pressure on
the perma-injured Sturridge who missed the two recent friendlies of
course. As long as he’s not in a full
body cast, he’ll go though so it means another midfielder will get binned,
namely Andros Townsend or Ross Barkley.
Townsend has been playing really well recently and offers something
different whereas Barkley has been useless and gives the ball away loads....
but he has been in every Roy squad for the past two years as he’s seen as ‘the
future’. Townsend is the only winger in
the squad aside from the piss poor Raheem Sterling so he should definitely be
in the Euro squad. To me, it should be
Rashford who doesn’t go as if you look through the hype, he didn’t do enough in
the Australia game to put him ahead of anyone else but it’ll be Townsend as once again, he’s
come into the squad late and it’s easier to leave him out than it is to leave
out a United media darling wonderkid, a Liverpool superstar or a Roy favourite.
So, Rashford and Henderson to stay behind for me.... but
it’ll be Drinkwater and Townsend and we’ll go into the tournament with one
winger and one defensive midfielder.
Tuesday 31st (afternoon)
I find it quite annoying that I know how Hodgson
thinks. Drinkwater and Townsend out –
two players in good form and it leaves us short of cover in their respective
positions. I am still none the wiser why
Jordan Henderson is so indispensible that he’s picked when half fit. I have no problem with Wilshere as he has
ability but not as a defensive midfielder – on the left of a diamond midfield
would be ideal for him as there’s no natural alternative there. I’m not sure why both Sturridge and Rashford
have been picked. I would say that
Rashford will be 5th choice to play up front behind Kane, Vardy,
Rooney and Sturridge.
Thursday 2nd July
The friendly against Portugal was basically an
abortion. The old goat tried too
shoe-horn Rooney into the side with Kane, Vardy and Alli and managed to get
nothing out of all of them which is the complete opposite of what a manager is
supposed to do. I’m not sure it was
meant to be this way but what we got was Kane wide right, Vardy wide left,
Rooney centre forward and Alli shunted over to left midfield. All four were shit, especially Rooney who is
not fit enough to play in midfield and hasn’t been for about 5 years.
In addition to this, in what was probably in his head the
first choice line up for the first game, he had fucking Milner in the
team. Milner is excruciatingly painful
to watch. He used to have no idea about
what he couldn’t do so he’d attempt a 60 yard crossfield ball and smash it into
the stand. Now it’s like he’s realised
that he’s can’t play football and he just looks paralysed so sticks to five
yard passes and guess what – he can’t do that either because he’s just
shit. He was probably keeping Wilshere’s
slot warm anyway but it’s appalling to see him starting England matches.
Harry Kane is a great player and scored a load of goals last
season and there he is taking free kicks out on the wing which is really where
you want your best header of the ball.
It was shit. I guess that in the
tournament itself, Ryan Bertrand can take the set pieces but probably not
because he’s not going to get picked ahead of Danny Rose. Hodgson has shown that he will just pick who
the press say along with his personal favourites so with Spurs being the
flavour of the month, expect Rose and Walker to be the full backs and the
better defenders, Clyne and Bertrand to be left out. Defensively of course we weren’t tested and
this was because we played an hour against 10 men when Bruno Alves decided he
was a ninja and tried to kick Kane’s head off his shoulders. Eventually we put a decent cross in and
Smalling scored with a good glancing header.
Everyone says Smalling has had a good season but he’s been playing for
United who have been ultra-defensive in midfield this year so it’ll be
interesting to see what he’s like when put under any pressure, a bit like he
was in the FA Cup Final when he got sent off.
There is no way that Vardy, Kane, Rooney and Alli can play
in the same side so it’ll be Vardy who gets sacrificed with Rooney up front
with Kane and wheezing around from minutes 60-90. Hodgson has painted himself into a corner
with his vow to attack and his striker-heavy squad which means he has to play
two up front. This means Rooney will
have to play up top and therefore it was a complete waste bringing Rashford
along for the ride. Would have been
better bringing someone who might contribute.
We look forward to these tournaments despite past experiences
and then we realise that we still have Hodgson in charge and he’s fucking
useless and should have been sacked after the last World Cup. We’ll all be
there for the Russia match though, hoping…
Nostalgia has been out in force with documentaries about
Euro 96. A quick look down the players
in that team and you had leaders like Seaman, Adams, Pearce, Ince & Shearer
as the rest were Gary Neville, Southgate, Sheringham, MacManaman and Anderton. Oh, and Gazza…. There’s no comparison
really. Oh and we had as an astute
manager even if he was a massive wide boy.
Monday 6th June
Back to 2016 and as the squad was about to jet off to Paris,
news came through that Arsenal were trying to destabilise things by putting in
a bid for Jamie Vardy. He has a £20
million release clause which Arsenal met and he was given a deadline of
take-off time to make his mind up. Uncle
Roy has form with this kind of thing. In
2014 he issued a similar ‘no club business’ message before the World Cup, only
for Adam Lallana to spend the whole tournament talking about it and signing
Liverpool shirts. Mind you, as we know,
Adam is as thick as mince. So Vardy, a
player who loves space in behind a defence, possibly joining a team who by the
time they try and play a ball to the striker have had the ball for 5 minutes
and find the defence they are trying to break down on the edge of their own
penalty area. It doesn’t make any sense
for Vardy froma football point of view
but the money does. I really hope he
strikes a blow for decency and turns it down.
Anyway, the plane flew and there was still no answer.
Regardless of my lack of expectation for England to do
anything, I am looking forward to the tournament. What’s not to like about a month of
international football. Hopefully all
can put the greed of club football behind them for a while.
Friday 10th June
With all the Koeman shenanigans it’s kind of crept up on me
a bit but here we go with France against Romania tonight. There’s a good article on the BBC about the
racial tensions in France and how there’s a comparison with 1998 when they won
a home World Cup. Back then, their
multi-heritage team brought everyone together and now (obviously) it is needed
again. I wonder if the referees will
have bought into that. This tournament
was of course what turned out to be Platini’s parting gift to his homeland as
France were awarded this tournament ahead of Euro 2020 which is going to be
played all over the continent. How
convenient for France. Platini was also a major voice in expanding the
tournament to 24 teams which a) is too many teams and b) means only 8 teams get
knocked out in the group stages.
So England.... England should get through the group comfortably enough with a group filled with injury ravaged and old Russia, one man team Wales and very average Slovakia. Less than 7 points is disappointing and we should of course win the group. We'll get knocked out by the first decent team we play in the knock out rounds. The quarter finals are a minimum requirement and for me, only a semi final could be seen as a success.
Elsewhere I can only seem the traditional big teams doing well. France, Germany and Spain are the big three and of those I'll take the Germans. Next you have Italy and Belgium who are in the same group and I'll take the Italians as the Belgians are in the main, over-hyped Premier League players who are not as good as we are led to believe they are. Next up you have England and Portugal and I'd take the Portuguese as more likely to get it right out of those two which is mainly down to my lack of faith in Hodgson. If the winners came from elsewhere it would be a major surprise and if you want an outsider, I'll say Poland.
Please let it all pass off safely.
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