Surprise, surprise

The provisional squad has been announced and, to nobody's surprise, some of my predictions were as wide of the mark as a Roberto Carlos free kick.

The goalkeepers were as I (and the rest of the world) predicted, and I was fairly accurate with the defenders - on balance Eriksson has taken only a slight gamble (especially in comparison to his choice of strikers) in picking Campbell ahead of Brown.  In reality this is only a choice of who will be the fourth-choice centre half behind Ferdinand, Terry and Carragher, and Brown's advantage of being able to fill-in at right back is somewhat negated by the inclusion of Hargreaves, who as I predicted would be included if Ledley King was left out.  I suspect it is Hargreaves' versatility in this respect, as well as his relative state of health and match-fitness, that tipped the balance ahead of King.  Michael Carrick will be first-choice 'holding' midfielder should England decide to utilise that tactic.

The main surprise - for me - is the inclusion of Jermaine Jenas and to a lesser extent Aaron Lennon in midfield, in lieu of Shaun Wright-Phillips and a fifth striker.  As I explained below in my previous post, Wright-Phillips has barely seen the pitch for Chelsea this season save for a few appearances once the title had been secured, and was being linked only this morning with a £14m move away from Stamford Bridge to Liverpool (you can probably knock a couple of million off that now).  On the balance of his performances for Tottenham in the latter half of this season, there can be no complaints about Lennon's inclusion in place of Wright-Phillips, but I find it difficult to countenance Jenas' inclusion rather than selecting a fifth striker, unless he has been selected as a taster of the team dinners in order to prevent another outbreak of the Spurs Shits.

Jenas has not impressed me (nor many Spurs fans from what I can tell) in the slightest, either  in the Premiership or his occasional England performances, since his early days at Nottingham Forest and Newcastle.  When you also consider that he has not been available for Spurs recently, coupled with the prescence of both Carrick and Hargreaves in the squad and the injury problems up front, his inclusion makes little sense to me.

This view is enhanced by the inclusion of Theo Walcott as the fourth (and final) striker.  With question marks hanging over Michael Owen's fitness, and Wayne Rooney sure to miss most if not all of the tournament, a player with zero Premiership experience and who hasn't played a non-reserve game since January, could be tasked with leading England's line in the opening stages of a World Cup.

The result of this is that I suspect Eriksson will be adopting a radical departure from his usual 4-4-2 to the 4-5-1 formation used to various effect and in differing manners over the course of this season by Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal.  My feeling is that England will line up against Paraguay as below:

                                Robinson

             G.Neville – Ferdinand – Terry – A.Cole

       Beckham – Lampard – Carrick – Gerrard – J.Cole

                                   Owen

This would allow England to mirror the tactics employed by Jose Mourinho's Chelsea, with Carrick taking the Makalele role allowing Lampard and Gerrard leave to get forward in the same manner as Lampard himself and Essien/Gudjohnsen (and Ballack next season) do for Chelsea, with the wingers providing additional outlets in attack (Lennon, Downing and even Walcott can perform this role in addition to Joe Cole) whilst getting back to help pack the midfield when not in possesion (as achieved to great effect by Arsenal in the Champions League).

The main fly in this ointment is the England captain, David Beckham, who is not a winger in the mould of Chelsea's, and would be better utilised in the positions occupied by Gerrard and Lampard.  Obviously, all three will play so England will be forced to make adjustments for Beckham, giving them a slightly lop-sided look at times, but I do not subscribe to the view that an asymmetrical formation is necessarily a bad thing.

There is no doubt that, even if Owen is not 100%, England should cruise through the opening round, and by the knock-out phase they will have had three games to perfect their new style.  With the likes of Crouch, Lennon and Walcott to come on as 'impact' players, albeit inexperienced at international level, England will be somewhat of an unknown quantity to opposing teams, and who would bet against Lennon or Walcott being as Gazza in 1990 and, perhaps most aptly, Owen in '98 were to England in the past – young kids who come from almost nowhere to set the tournament alight.

Wishful thinking perhaps?  Here's hoping – stranger things have happened.  It's a funny old game, I think somebody once said…

Who’s in?

In just under an hour's time comes what to many people will signify the beginning in earnest of England's World Cup campaign – the naming by Sven-Goran Eriksson of his provisional 23-man squad, plus 4 reserves.

As is quickly becoming custom, Eriksson is faced with a number of difficult choices due to a number of players carrying or just returning from injuries, mostly of the metatarsal variety – England's biggest nemesis of recent times.

Of players who would normally expect to be in the squad, Michael Owen, Ledley King, Jermaine Jenas and crucially Wayne Rooney are all currently injured, whilst Ashley Cole, Wayne Bridge and Sol Campbell have only recently returned to action.  I believe that it is simply not feasible to name all seven of these players in the squad – England were hamstrung in the last World Cup when selecting just two players who had recently recovered from injury, David Beckham and Keiron Dyer.

Wayne Rooney will be named in the squad, and I agree fully with this action – Rooney is a once-in-a-generation player who has the potential to take even an average team to the top (see Maradona in 1986).  Owen is also likely to be named, despite not playing at the weekend as he was "not feeling 100%".  Carrying two injured strikers into the tournament necessitates the selection of 5 strikers, rather than the 4 I suspect Eriksson would select if both Rooney and Owen were 100% fit.  One of these will certainly be Peter Crouch, with the other two likely to be Jermaine Defoe of Tottenham and Darren Bent of Charlton.

Defoe has not had the best of seasons, having spent much of this term flitting between the first team and the substitutes bench as Robbie Keane has taken the role of main striker (there was an excellent analysis of the pair from Alan Hansen on Match of the Day last night, illustrating the sort of movement in the box that Keane makes, in the same manner as Michael Owen at his best, and which Defoe does not do to the same level).  Bent, whilst starting the season in excellent form, has tailed off in the second half of the season (a microcosm of Charlton as a whole over the past few seasons), and did not overwhelm on his previous appearance for England – although this should not necessarily count against him as a one-off.

The most interesting decision will be whom Eriksson selects as the reserve striker(s).  The names cropping up in the papers include Heskey, Beattie and, today, Theo Walcott.  To me, Walcott represents the most intriguing of these and that is who I would go with – Heskey and Beattie are both well-tried at international level and have shown themselves not to be up to the task, whereas Walcott is unproven.  It may be that he is not yet ready for this level, but when somebody like Arsene Wenger with a proven track record of bringing through youngsters says that he "wouldn't stand in the way" of an England call-up, I think the risk is worth taking.

In midfield the majority of the decisions are easy – David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole are firmly entrenched as the first-choice quartet, whilst Michael Carrick has performed well enough for Spurs to become an automatic choice, particularly given the question marks over Ledley King's fitness, to fill the 'holding' role requirements.  Shaun Wright-Phillips has also done enough in his England appearances, despite starting less regularly than an Austin Healey at club level, to gain selection.

That leaves either one or two midfield spots up-for-grabs.  Given the injury concerns over Ashley Cole and Wayne Bridge, one of these will be a left-sided player, probably either Keiron Richardson or Stuart Downing.  I suspect Downing will get the nod, with Richardson in reserve to come in should further injury befall Ashley Cole or Bridge.  I suspect that Owen Hargreaves will also be named as a reserve, and will be brought in should Ledley King be forced to pull out.  I do not expect Jermaine Jenas to be named, as the risk amongst an already injury-ravaged team.

In defence, Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Ashley Cole (if fit – he looked OK yesterday) are first-choice, with Jamie Carragher and Wayne Bridge (again, if fit) nailed on for back-up spots.  Ledley King will also be in assuming he can prove to have overcome his injury concerns, leaving one spot remaining.  For me, this is between Sol Campbell and Wes Brown.  Campbell's recent problems have been well documented, and he has only just returned to fitness.  Brown, whilst falling out of Man Utd's first team to new signing Nemanja Vidic recently, has performed well when selected all season and provides extra cover at right-back, so he would be my selection.  Phil Neville has been mentioned in some quarters as a versatile, dependable player but although he is under-rated by many, he times are not yet desperate enough.

Between the posts Eriksson has his easiest job – it would seem that Paul Robinson, David James, and Robert Green have the three places sewn up, with Scott Carson in reserve.  Eriksson will be praying that he is not called upon to make use of James, Green or Carson though.

So my squad is:

GK: Robinson, James, Green

Def: G.Neville, A.Ferdinand, Terry, A.Cole, Carragher, Bridge, Brown, King

Mid: Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, J.Cole, Carrick, Wright-Phillips, Downing

For: Owen, Rooney, Crouch, Defoe, Bridge

Reserves: Carson, Richardson, Hargreaves, Walcott

We shall see how accurate this is in about 10 minutes.  This post was a bit rushed to best the 2pm deadline, apologies for any crap SPAG.