England V Estonia 13th October
Even with Heskey gone we'll have Rooney back and hopefully the midfield will have more options avaliable. It should be a game that will see England take three points and lessen the stress of our away trip to Moscow and it's artificial pitch.
Now with Owen and Terry out we're buggered! I'm just glad we're playing Estonia and not Russia!
The Sunday Mirror rightly says the five players on yellow cards John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Wes Brown, Ashley Cole and Joe Cole - should be left out. We do have cover for them and Estonia shouldn't trouble us with out them.
Garreth Barry is a cert in my mind. He proved totally capabale of being a midfielder that wins the ball and sprays it out wide.
I also think Peter Crouch will play ahead of Wayne Rooney just to keep him back for the important Russia game.
Dean Ashton is out (again) which is a bugger as we need all the firepower we can get when you consider that Alan Johnson is out too.
We know Rooney will start and there are some good odds for him to score the first goal.
Sol Campbell will take over from John Terry according to Steve McClaren:
Don't forget you can watch it on BBC today at 2:30pm.
So how do I think will play? Well I don't think the gaffa will listen to me, he'll go for:
Paul Robinson, Phill Neville, Micah Richards, Sol Campbell, Nicky Shorey, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Steven Gerrard, Gareth Barry, Steven Downing, Wayne Rooney, Peter Crouch.
Sir Alex reckons the pitch will be a major problem for the England team. Speaking to Goal.com he said:
“There is no problem with safety, On the old [artificial] pitches you used to get a lot of grazes on hips and knees when players went in for challenges, but the surfaces of today are terrific. There’s no problem with that.
“The problem they will have is the bounce of the ball, the speed of the ball and of course Russia will be far more used to it than English players.
“That will be a big problem, it’s not easy to handle that.”
The squad:
Robinson (Tottenham), James (Portsmouth), Carson (Aston Villa), Richards (Man City), P Neville (Everton), Ferdinand (Man Utd), Terry (Chelsea), Campbell (Portsmouth), A Cole (Chelsea), Shorey (Reading), Brown (Man Utd), Lescott (Everton), Barry (Aston Villa), Wright-Phillips (Chelsea), Bentley (Blackburn), Gerrard (Liverpool), Lampard (Chelsea), Downing (Middlesbrough), J Cole (Chelsea), Owen (Newcastle), Crouch (Liverpool), Smith (Newcastle), Johnson (Everton), Defoe (Tottenham), A Young (Aston Villa), Ashton (West Ham).
Venue: Wembley
Time: 15:00
1 Comments:
you'd have thought we'd have been buggered before the last two games without lampard, rooney and hargreaves...however with the stunning performances from the likes of heskey and barry, you never know how players will react to putting on the England shirt.. Personally I think it would be crazy to think about leaving out gareth barry, he has proved the long-held theory that lampard and gerrard cancel each other out. Barry plays like lampard, he is in the same mould, his passing is exceptional. We always suspected that having two potentially marauding mid-fielders was a mistake - let gerrard have a free role and barry can do the holding role. Similarly I don't see why lampard and barry can't link up when Gerrard is not available.
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