Strikers
Like the Terry debacle, the main story relating to England’s strikers has been the injury suffered to Wayne Rooney. Rooney suffered a gashed leg for Manchester United in Saturday’s 3-2 win over Fulham and is out of action for around a month.
Thus far in his England career, Hodgson has decided to mix and match his striker partnership. Danny Welbeck, Andy Carroll and Jermaine Defoe are the main three (excluding Rooney) to undergo Hodgson’s experimental tactics so far.
All three will surely be in the squad but despite being selected for their country, they are not first-choice for their respective clubs. Carroll certainly seems out of favour at Liverpool, who are reportedly looking to offload him while Welbeck is under a rotation regime at Manchester United. Meanwhile, Jermaine Defoe’s Tottenham future looms with uncertainty despite Spurs’ lack of attacking depth and the fact that he is starting games and looking sharp.
Hodgson has indeed though came out and said – “If they are not playing for their club team that will be a disadvantage but it won’t necessarily preclude them from playing.”
I think all three will draw confidence from this as well as Daniel Sturridge, who may also be considered for a call-up despite dropping down the pecking order at Chelsea.
However, I believe that the breath of fresh air that is Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be used in some form of attacking vicinity. ‘The Ox’ would be very unfortunate to miss out on the squad considering his involvement at Euro 2012, despite only just returning from injury.
Overview
Despite the core of the team remaining the same from Euro 2012, I believe there will be six, maybe seven different faces from that of Poland and Ukraine.
Over 90 minutes, Hodgson has not lost a game in charge of England and this squad certainly should get the optimum results needed.
Thus far, Hodgson has overseen victories against Norway, Belgium, Sweden and Ukraine – and no disrespect to them but sides England should be beating. And to be fair to him, he has got the results required in these matches (despite a hint of lady luck on more than one occasion) but you only have to look as far as the quarter-final performance and defeat to Italy to ask whether this defensive approach is good enough when it comes down to big matches or international tournaments.
Hodgson has been looking at ways to vary England’s style and despite it only being a friendly, the 2-1 win over the Italians was very encouraging with Hodgson switching from a 4-4-2 to a more versatile 4-2-3-1, which we could certainly see implemented further not only in these games but in the more distant future.
Considering we are ranked the third best team in the world, you’d like to think we’ve got a couple of different tricks up our sleeves wouldn’t you?