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…
