England Squad for Macedonia and Croatia
Macca has released his squad for the next two Euro 2008 fixtures - next Saturday against Macedonia at home and the following Wednesday away to Croatia.
The big news is the inclusion of Newcastle's Scottie Parker, who's been in great form this season for the Magpies. Dawson drops out of the squad and Aaron Lennon is injured, while Rooney and Carragher are back in after suspension and injury respectively.
Here's the full squad: Robinson (Tottenham), Foster (Man Utd), Kirkland (Liverpool); G Neville (Man Utd), P Neville (Everton), Brown (Man Utd), Terry (Chelsea), Ferdinand (Man Utd), Carragher (Liverpool), King (Tottenham), A Cole (Chelsea), Bridge (Chelsea); Lampard (Chelsea), Gerrard (Liverpool), Jenas (Tottenham), Carrick (Man Utd), Richardson (Man Utd), Downing (Middlesbrough), Wright-Phillips (Chelsea), Parker (Newcastle); Rooney (Man Utd), Crouch (Liverpool), Johnson (Everton), Defoe (Spurs).
Your thoughts, gents?
posted by gatorbob @ 12:01 PM
7 Comments:
when i look through this i assume that robbo will start in goal. but i am increasingly worried about his level of confidence. he's looked shocking at spurs this season.
phil neville, brown, jenas... what's the point? for the first time in his career phil's been playing at a level of competence for everton, but that's no reason to bring back the almost guaranteed calamity he is for england. and brown and jenas are both below even premiership standard.
the inclusion of swp to me rewards a stunning lack of ambition shown by his choice to stay at chelsea where he's not considered as promising by maureenyo. it's not like he arrived the finished article from citeh. he's young, and fast, but needed to develop more to his game instead of a chronic number of splinters in his backside.
the good move is parker in. what i've seen of him makes me think that he's the guy to bring in place of lampard who is struggling with the sheer number of games he's expected to play.
i'm happy to see king back. if we were playing a good side, he'd play a hargreaves role for me. but i thought croatia were remarkably bad this summer and we should play a negative formation.
i'd go with Robbo, Neville-Rio-Terry-Cashley, Downing-Gerrard-Parker-SWP(sigh,), Crouch-Rooney.
I agree with your comments about the also-rans in the squad, but I don't see any of them getting a look in. I reckon your line-up might well be close to the one that starts away to Croatia, but it's too safe for Macedonia at home. For next Saturday, I'd go:
Robbo, Neville, Rio, Terry, Cashley, Carrick, Gerrard (wide right), Richardson (wide left), Lamps, Crouch, Roon.
For Croatia in mid-week, I'd go:
Robbo, Neville, Rio, Terry, Cashley, Carrick, Parker, Gerrard, Lamps, SWP and Roon alone up front. Crouchie first off the bench.
can parker provide from the left? downing doesn't provide the work and the tracking back, but he's been better getting the ball over to crouch.
yeah, home to macedonia, release the hounds.
Apparently Andy Johnson is crocked after Everton's game on Saturday and has been replaced in the squad by Darren Bent. Any comments?
Yeah, Andy Johnson is playing way above his head and is in no way international class. Period.
But Darren Bent hasn't had a chance to show us that he's not international class and he deserves it. He's done well at under-21 and we need another biggish threat to nod in the route 1 ball that we end up serving up when nothing on the floor is working.
Hands up anyone who thinks that Johnson is a better option than Rooney, Owen, Lennon, Pennant or even a nacent Walcott. Nah, let Johnson be Johnson, which is bog-standard Premiership forward.
I wouldn't have started Johnson, but there is an argument for throwing a bog standard Premiership striker who happens to be on a scoring streak on at the end of a match when we need a goal. I'd say the same thing about Bent. It's interesting that Macca has already seemed to have made up his mind about Jermaine Defoe, and given Tottenham's useless start, I understand it.
from today's Guardian Fiver on Andy Johnson.
"In his big breakthrough season (sic) of 2004-05, 11 of his 21 Premiership goals were penalties. This season he has scored six goals in seven games, but two of those were heading for the River Mersey before taking deflections, and another was a Pepe Reina own-goal in all but name. And for such a supposedly cool finisher, he has alarmingly regular attacks of barn-door blindness. Infinitely superior strikers have struggled to make it with England in modern times - Fowler, Wright, Cole, Cottee, Ferdinand, Ricketts - so why should Johnson?"
Now they go on to disparage Bent as well, I would say prematurely. If say Bent was as successful as say Vassel was for those few moments in qualifying in 2001, that would be a good enough return on very little investment while waiting for Michael Owen to recover and for Theo Wolcott to mature a bit and at least have a run in the Arsenal side.
I'd only take Johnson along in a tournament squad that's likely to see a penalty shootout at some point. Sub him on in extra time. If Macca thought that the luxury of taking along a passenger worth it, a la Wolcott and Jenas this summer, it would make some kind of sense. Otherwise, bog-standard lucky is just not worth trying to elevate.
Yeah, Defoe's bad run of form combined with Jol's hidebound belief in Mido and Berbatov before Defoe spells no more internationals in Jermaine's immediate future.
Post a Comment
<< Home