Come anticipate Roy Hodgson's three months in charge og England with me.

England u21 just went 6-0 up against Scotland u21. The future's bright.

hm

Lambert scores with his first touch more or less

When Roy Hodgson was asked this week which player he would most like to pinch from a rival team at the coming World Cup finals, the England manager gave his questioner, Garry Richardson of Radio 5 Live, an answer that was both amusing and diplomatic. He would take Mario Balotelli from Italy for the opening Group D fixture, he said, followed by Luis Suárez from Uruguay, and then, for the final group match, "whoever is Costa Rica's best player – I haven't quite done my research on that yet".

god i am going to be the biggest CR partisan that day

hes probably the least provincial england manager since robson so i assume that is because he wants to give an honest answer rather than saying whichever of oviedo or ruiz came to mind first

sturridge rooney
lallana
sterling milner
gerrard

whoops, didn't mean to submit that.

I was gonna say is that supposed to be a functioning front six?

lallana in the pfa player of the year nominations ahead of david silva

raheem sterling in michael owen's team of the year ahead of david silva, lallana on the rw with gerrard/yaya CM

the emergence of some actual fitba players means england could probably field a team that wouldn't look like an england team, but hodgson will probably play a mixture of fitba players and vermin like carroll, townsend, milner etc

if they had a manager whose morés derived from somewhere past the 1980s (as much as i like hodgson personally, he is an old 66 year old compared to wenger, lucescu, del bosque, van gaal and other surviving contemporaries) then things could be different

they would probably be best served recognizing that twp without speed is not really worth building a team around and playing a proper 4-3-3 with a midfield of gerrard wilshere and carrick or henderson, sturridge as first choice #9, then either play twp or welbeck as inside left and sterling or chamberlain as a right winger

with twp as support striker or '#10' as he is sometimes risibly categorized, england have so little useful possession that they can barely even play a counterattacking game let alone an expansive one, it will just be two deep midfielders desperately trying to clear the lines every time they regain the ball

tenacious, aggressive high energy midfield with good long passing ability and at least one runner (maybe barkley if wilshere can't play) to break the lines and plenty of speed in attack is probably the best combination they have

not sure i believe in wilshere any more

TWP - Studge - Sterling
Henderson
Carrick - Gerrard
Baines - Cahill - Fuck Knows - Johnson
Hart I suppose

Assuming Wilshere isn't going to make it but that actually wouldn't be bad. Although even the good England players will get sucked down into the general torpor when the actual tournament comes round.

(Xpost - hah)

the backlash against him is a bit over the top

he wouldn't get near the midfield of the best teams but as england's only midfielder with close control and dribbling ability, he has to play if he is fit

I'm assuming that Wilshere isn't going to be fit. He should go if he is.

he will be fit but probably not in form

----Ox---------Studge---------Raheem
--------------Lallana---------------
----------Gerrard--Delph------------
-Baines---Cahill--Jagielka----Johnson
--------------Hart------------------

that midfield would get exposed so badly vs anyone? delph and lallana have never played in europe or done anything outside of midtable epl

Carrick might be suffering from a Moyes-induced malaise but he's been pretty awful this season

how about old gareth barry instead?

any of our experienced midfielders can't run. Carrick/Gerrard axis too slow. Ox badly found out when playing centrally. Wilshere prob won't be in peak condition. Henderson can run but likes to go forward too much for an Eng CM.

counter attack with speed and hope for the best

England aren't getting out of that group whoever they play in CM.

gerrard isn't really slow, he has slowed but that is from being a player whose sprint times were better than michael owen, as a deep lying midfielder he's fine

barry lampard or carrick provide different varieties of slowness from geological time to the merely arthritic but the options are just so limited

delph lallana etc are just nowhere near good enough, even henderson can look very lightweight at times, but he is the only =< 25 y/o midfield runner who has experience of playing in a champions league level team

choice of naivete or immobility

Sturridge - Rooney
Oxlade-Chamberlain - Lampard - Gerrard - Townsend

God, imagine that.

could see that lineup being fielded this summer, give or take a james milner

Stick Carroll in there for Studge.

=<

Roy Hodgson has likened the pressure Wayne Rooney faces at the World Cup to the expectation on Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson to churn out Oscar-winning performances.

"You can only hope your attention to prepare him falls on soil which will enable the plant to grow and that when he gets on the field he will feel 'right, I am Wayne Rooney, I feel good, I am going to play, I am going to do all things that built me up to what I am'.

"I am sure it must be the same for Hollywood film stars. When you start off, you make your first film and no-one knows much about you. You might get a few good reviews, but one day you're going to be Al Pacino or be Jack Nicholson, and then suddenly you better make a f***ing good film.''

in the same way that Pacino and Nicholson's best work is a long way behind them maybe

its actually quite an apt comparison the way he says it. if you are treated as the best thing going, then you best back it up. if yr not going to live up to the hype, then buck the fuck up or be seen as a failure. as much shit as we give the white pele, we have all seen him be a world beater at times but its way more anne hathaway 'i loved this one film they were in so fuck the romcoms they do' and less matthew mcconghey 'hey every film this guy is in actually lives up to the hype these days' sorta shit.

was rather just expecting some crap movie puns tbh guys

Gerrard just quit as captain, apparently.

he's retired

quite clearly a red and a lengthy ban

Andy Townsend is confident that Wayne Rooney (29 next month) will improve

he might be really good at Crown Green Bowls

didn't watch this even though i could of

you have will not have missed much

bonzer

deeply tedious, wish i'd seen germany 2 - argentina 4 instead

makes u wonder what it was all about, really

loving hodgson for all this hilariously deflating media kerfuffle tbh

“Switzerland will need to beat us, if anything we might be Norway on Monday. We might be pushed back and can’t attack and dominate for long periods, as we did tonight."

"Although I risk being in a group of one, I have been watching football for a long time and nothing you say will change what I see.”

https://twitter.com/squires_david/status/508162250008326144

that is so shit

Iain Macintosh ‏@iainmacintosh 6h

@squires_david That's absolutely sensational.

^ this is the guardian writer who made a '99 problems' joke on twitter with reference to 50 cent

seems to have deleted that tweet though