Don Fabio Drops the Hammer!
There's a lot of Fleet Street buzz this morning about Fabio Capello's squad for Friday's crucial Euro 2012 qualifier in Montenegro - especially the absence of Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard. I think it makes sense if the players aren't fit enough to play a role. I also expect the remaining members of the "Golden Generation" to retire en masse after next summer's tournament. Here's the squad: Scott Carson (Bursaspor), Joe Hart (Man City), David Stockdale (Ipswich); Leighton Baines (Everton), Gary Cahill (Bolton), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Phil Jones (Man Utd), Micah Richards (Man City), John Terry (captain, Chelsea), Kyle Walker (Tottenham); Gareth Barry (Man City), Stewart Downing (Liverpool), Adam Johnson (Man City), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), James Milner (Man City), Scott Parker (Tottenham), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Ashley Young (Man Utd); Darren Bent (Aston Villa), Andy Carroll (Liverpool), Wayne Rooney (Man Utd), Danny Welbeck (Man Utd), Bobby Zamora (Fulham)
So what's your starting XI from that lot?
posted by The Blue Devil @ 8:54 AM
8 Comments:
Well, it's all a bit quiet on the LOB this week, so let me get this thread started with my starting XI from this mob:
Joe Hart, Kyle Walker, Gary Cahill, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Gareth Barry, Stewart Downing, Ashley Young, Wayne Rooney, Andy Carroll, Danny Welbeck.
I'm totally with Bob starting all three forward thinking Man United players Rooney, Wellbeck, and Young, and having Downing bombing down the flank. Is this 4-3-3? You've included the loaf that is Carroll too.
I might tend towards Baines because I think experience at the back is more important than a trial for Walker in a match this important. I'd have said Jones, and he's good, but just on a bad run of form and until he sorts that out, should be back of the line behind Baines and Richards and Walker. Parker instead of Barry?
My scheme was actually a 4-4-2 with Welbeck and Carroll as the forwards and Rooney playing in central midfield where he seems to want to play and Downing and Young as wide midfielders.
My worry is that Don Fabio will pick a side without any strikers, with perhaps Welbeck and Rooney as the front pairing. Welbeck IMHO is a midfielder who's been converted into a striker by Fergie. At least he has the discipline to play the role, which Rooney doesn't. Left to his own devices, Rooney will always drop deep so that when the ball comes in from the wide men, there's no one meeting it in the box. Whispers about his drinking regimen aside, Carroll is the only out and out striker in the squad (the other two are Bent and Zamora) that I would pick.
I don't think Carroll's abilities match with what Montenegro does. They've plenty of huge assassins at the back to select from and he's got nothing special enough at international level on the deck. If I thought Carroll would be capable at this level of holding up the ball, that would be one thing, but I don't. You're right that Bent and Zamora don't either.
I don't think tactically we should be looking to beat the Montenegro team by lumping it forward to Carroll. They'll eat it up all match long. We need to be able to use the wide areas and play the ball in to Welbeck and a trailing Rooney.
By the way, I also don't think Carroll's drinking is a problem at this stage of his career. It's only in a players later career that it hastens the end.
Merson, Adams, Gazza, and even Romario and Garrincha were often bladdered the nights before a match and played the best football of their career through it. It catches up with you later, but if that loaf wants to fuel up during his early twenties, as long as he leaves out the GBH and picks a stool that's not so high or slippery, good luck to him.
I reckon that Carroll's a more skillful player than he's given credit for. The problem for him is that his teammates at Liverpool seem to have the knee-jerk reaction you mention of lumping long hopeful balls at the kid whenever he's on the pitch. England's midfielders might have the same tendency - I don't know yet. Ironically, he was better served at Newcastle because Joey Barton and Jonas Gutierrez had the nous to play the ball about until they were able to find the right ball to Carroll - his scoring record there speaks for itself.
My fear about England is that Fabio is at risk of doing what a lot of Premiership sides are trying to do - aping the Barca way without having the personnel to do so. If a side chooses to go without out and out strikers, then it needs to have players of the quality of Messi and Iniesta to break down defenses without resorting to crosses into the box. Instead, what I keep seeing this season is teams fizzing balls over from wide areas into the penalty area devoid of any of their players because they haven't picked any real strikers.
I think you're forgetting that it's precisely that Carroll did profit from being the big target up front. So much of his success is due to his being an awkward aerial problem to deal with at the league level. If you're suggesting that he has other tools in his locker, I think that's an overstatement. He's hit a long range one in big games, but those are the stuff of highlight reels, not regular goal scoring activity. Leon Best has a better record at Newcastle of scoring as a target man and running the line match in, match out. Were it not for borstal botherer Barton putting balls right on his forehead, he'd be known as "not quite as good Kenyon Jones."
But I take your point that England doesn't have the skill level to tiki-tak their way to success like Spain or Barca does. But possession of the ball is going to count tomorrow. And I think that a line of Welbeck and Rooney would be more dangerous than one of Carroll, which is what would happen. You don't think that with Carroll up front, that Welbeck AND Rooney will drop deep? Or that Terry and Cahill and Barry will keep launching missles up to Carroll? And that the big Slavs at the back won't double Carroll and head it down to their midfielders? I'd much prefer that if we've got Young on one side, and Downing on the other, that they are free to cross or cut in without the thought that they have to find Andy free of his defender.
Well, unfortunately I won't be around tomorrow to see the results live as I'll be taking a day trip up to Canada with some colleagues. But I do hope that, like United this season, England will have enough weapons (as you say, Young and Downing cutting inside might trouble the Montenegrans) to at least secure a draw without actually getting the tactics quite right.
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