New look England squad (vs Hungary 11/08/10)

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

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Goalkeepers: Ben Foster (Birmingham), Joe Hart (Manchester City)

Defenders: Gary Cahill (Bolton), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Michael Dawson (Tottenham Hotspur), Kieran Gibbs (Arsenal), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), John Terry (Chelsea)

Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Adam Johnson (Manchester City), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), James Milner (Aston Villa), Ashley Young (Aston Villa), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Jack Wilshere (Arsenal)

Forwards: Darren Bent (Sunderland), Carlton Cole (West Ham United), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Bobby Zamora (Fulham)


Robinson and Brown have both announced their retirement from internationals, what is a little surprising however is that they did this after the squad was announced. You'd have to question how much communication has been going on between the FA and fringe players such as them, as some might feel this is a bit of an embarrassment. Robinson totally understandable, as backup keepers rarely get a chance, Wes Brown maybe a little stranger as he can cover both RB (where we don't exactly have a huge pool of talent to call from) and CB where the likes of Rio, Woody and King are all crocks.

As for the squad itself, no idea what the likes of Walcott are doing in there, not good enough for Arsenal and not good enough to go to the WC, why is he getting another chance? Gibbs.... hmm, maybe he just wants a little look at him, because again he's not gonna be first choice at Arsenal, you could say the backup for Cole is undecided as yet. In fact the irony is that it's the first time Arsenal have had 3 players in the England squad for years and yet none of them have established themselves in the first XI at club level. I'm a big Wilshere fan but it's a sorry state of affairs when as England manager you have to look at such untested talents.

Assessing the rest of the squad, shame not to see Kirkland get a look in but at least we've discarded James and Green. Not too sure about the strikeforce; lets be honest here, Bobby Zamora is never in a million years going to be the saviour of England. 29 years old and has scored a grand total of 29 (count'em!) premier league goals in his entire career from over 150 appearances. Definitely a useful lower league striker (I rated him at Brighton) but it seems a bit strange to overlook Defoe and Crouch in favour of him.
 
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It's a funny squad to say the least. How do players like Carlton Cole, Zamora and Walcott not be good enough for a W/C Squad yet here we are 8 weeks later and they could be :confused:

I would have liked to have seen Adam Johnson put in there as well
 
^Johnson is in the squad :)

^^The point I was making is that surely there is little to learn from looking at Zamora? Bent and Cole, fair enough, but it would worry me greatly if Zamora was considered a better long-term prospect at international level than Crouch.
 
Capello is ridiculous....he drops Walcott for the World Cup...and then recalls him because he's obviously been utterly amazing since.
 
Loki said:
I would have liked to have seen Adam Johnson put in there as well
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HangTime said:
Goalkeepers: Ben Foster (Birmingham), Joe Hart (Manchester City)

Defenders: Gary Cahill (Bolton), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Michael Dawson (Tottenham Hotspur), Kieran Gibbs (Arsenal), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), John Terry (Chelsea)

Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Adam Johnson (Manchester City), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), James Milner (Aston Villa), Ashley Young (Aston Villa), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Jack Wilshere (Arsenal)

Forwards: Darren Bent (Sunderland), Carlton Cole (West Ham United), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Bobby Zamora (Fulham)
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Everyone goes on about getting more youth players in the squad to see what they can do.. He gets more youth players in the squad, and get's yelled at for using the wrong youth players.. Is there anyway he can win?
 
Don't be too baffled by the squad. This is about the only way Capello will be able to get fans onside with his management of the team.
 
Not the team I'd have picked.

Is he building a team / squad for the Euro's or the next World Cup?
 
BaZ87 said:
Weren't you one of the people calling for the senior players to be dropped and younger players given the chance? :confused:
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Yeah but perhaps not the youth players that have already got umpteen chances, are absolutely ****, even called **** by their own fans and were rightly dropped in the first place!!
 
The reason for Defoe/Crouch not there is he knows how them and Rooney play together, he's seeing if theres better options. Personally I think Zamora/Rooney would work very well, won't score every game, but he's a better overall player than Heskey. Plus as long as he doesn't choke, and if he plays like at Fulham, he'll even pop up with a few goals.
 
Shamikebab said:
Yeah but perhaps not the youth players that have already got umpteen chances, are absolutely ****, even called **** by their own fans and were rightly dropped in the first place!!
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True but he's still young and hasn't had that many chances for England. There's not many obvious choices other than him too.
 
Cant see how Wilshire warranted a callup but Rodwell didn't :confused:

Both have had very good pre-seasons
 
BaZ87 said:
Weren't you one of the people calling for the senior players to be dropped and younger players given the chance? :confused:
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So youngsters = anyone young at all, no matter their ability?

Theo Walcott was deemed not good enough, as were MANY of these players, by THIS manager, who is now making excuses and picking people for whatever reason. Theo certainly hasn't put in a single performance since Croatia that would make you think he could be a player worthy of taking to the next cup, or even the next game. He most certainly hasn't done anything in preseason to redeem himself.

Teams a joke, maybe the single worst performer in Barry is still included, who is usually as bad as he was in the world cup, and people like Parker are still left by the side lines despite being the most obvious person to play in the DM role right now.

IF we're going to ignore inform central midfielders who can make a tackle, then its time to start thinking about one of our more capable on the ball defenders fitting into the DM role, maybe a Kieran Gibbs, or even Jagielka with Dawson/Terry at the two CB's.

We lost half our goals in the world cup to runners from midfield that, incorrectly people talk about Barry being to slow to keep up with, speed had nothing to do with it, he didn't see the runs full stop, you could be Bolt but if you don't see the run you have no chance. He's tactically, situational, positionally unaware and incapable of filling that DM role.

Its probably the biggest reason we sucked in the world cup and Capello's done smeg all about it.

The obvious worst thing is, we'll crush Hungary, 90% of England supporters and papers will be "woo, youth, we're brilliant now, we have a chance, woo, woo" and when we get spanked by the first half decent team again, we'll be like "how did that happen then?" .

England fans, the FA, crappy managers and the press never change, and thats why England won't change.
 
I wouldn't have recalled Walcott but equally I wasn't calling for the senior player to be dropped in place of younger ones.

Of the young(ish) wide players we have available, Walcott is one of the better options, even though he's ****.
 
Personally I think he was a bit quick to cast Joe Cole aside, also somewhat baffling that Parker doesn't get a look in.

As for the upcoming season, gonna be interesting to see what some of the English players at Newcastle do, I reckon Capello might give callups to one or two if they have a decent start to the season (and no, I don't mean Joey "I'm as good as anyone" Barton).
 
HangTime said:
Personally I think he was a bit quick to cast Joe Cole aside, also somewhat baffling that Parker doesn't get a look in.

As for the upcoming season, gonna be interesting to see what some of the English players at Newcastle do, I reckon Capello might give callups to one or two if they have a decent start to the season (and no, I don't mean Joey "I'm as good as anyone" Barton).
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Agreed, I was shocked not to seesee Parker in the squad. One of the best midfielders in the country last season and he can defend well too.

Agreed on the last point too, Joey Scumbag Barton doesn't deserve a call up - EVER :eek:
 
I guess if Parker wasn't seen to be good enough before he's not likely to get any better in the next 2 years.

Cole's a strange one. Like Crouch, I don't think Capello particularly rates him. It appeared as if he only made it into the squad because Capello had little choice other than him. But equally I'm not sure what's happened since the WC to change Capello's mind about Ashley Young who appears to have taken Cole's place.
 
I think we have to realise that England won't have a real shot at winning anything for around 8 more years. The bunch of players we've had in the last 8 years weren't good enough to get past the last 8 (can't even say they deserved to go any further), and looking at the players we have now it will take some time to rebuild.
 
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