by Rich » Tue 18 May 2004 15:15 GMT
Can't honestly say there were any surprises whatsoever there. Not what i'd have picked, but from what we've seen of SGE all 23 were easy to predict.
Butt hasn't played much, but is a SGE favourite and hasn't done all that badly for England in he past. And if nothing else, he is naturally a proper holding player, as opposed to somebody who can play there like virtually all the other names mentioned/in squad.
Dyer is more of an interesting one (although he was a banker in the squad) as he's not done much for England for a while and is constantly injured. J Cole is in because he can do something different, but for that to happen Sven has to gamble on him (he went to Japamn because he was the one play who could do somethign different and then didn't even start to warm up against Brazil, let alone get brought on because Sven wasn't prepared to gamble). Also a lack of any left footed midfielders in the squad is dissapointing.
Money's now on - one of the 23 will get injured/banned for drugs/sent to jail/whatever before the tournament starts. Who's it going to be??
The light at the end of the tunnel has been extinguished due to management cutbacks.
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Hmmmm. Needs more rope