imagine big sam as england manager. Nolan as captain, Davies up front, no one else under 35 in the team.....
Cant remember exactly, but when i had a look at the draw as a whole, so long as we win our group (and theres no huge upsets elsewhere that effects our fixtures )we've got a nice draw to the QF, even semi's..... Of course thats relying on us not messing up as per usual.
As for the team, so long as robinson doesnt get crocked we've a decent keeper, and a solid backup keeper in John Terry (anyone who saw his diving 'it was ball to hand, honest guv' against fulham a few weeks back will agree).
Defence wise were pretty good, now that rio's remembered what to do.
Upfront we've got owen, the guy who can do nothing for 90 minutes, have 3 decent touches and walk away with a hattrick, and crouch, who's now showing that he's quite good with the ball at his feet (he's still absolute pish in the air, but hey, he's not hesky, so wont complain), with handy backup in defoe. Oh and that little guy they call Rooney (forgot about him, oops)
Its just the midfield that worrys me.
Sure lampards done well for england. But gerarrd, great player he is, just doesnt perform that well at international level. Beckham, great player he is, is absolute tosh for england, and we've no genuine left winger (as a utd fan even i know richardson is very much scraping the barrel).
Then theres the players we have as backup, a million handymen and not enough men who are handy. Smith, P Neville, Hargreaves, Richardson. All will probably go because they can cover many roles. None of them are really effective in any of those role though. Given that the subs bench in the world cup stretches to as many people as you can find (tea lady included), surely replacing the mass of these sorts of players with a specialist in each position would make sense.
Also our couch is pants. A great coach can influence a game from the sidelines (see mourinho's scraps of paper telling his team how to play, or the number of times man utd have got out of jail late on through a good substitution).... Has anyone ever been convinced that once the whistle goes, eriksson has any control? also his substitutions never seem to be aimed to changing a game, never a change in tactics/formation. Its stick to our guns and hope we break through (actually, how very british!)
Like i said, QF should be a certainty (if not then its axe time for sven, not literally, shame), semis should be within our reach. If we manage that its a case of hope we can win the 3rd place playoff, because we cant reasonably expect to compete with Brazil, France or the perennial world cup flukists, germany (on home turf n all)
