Tough luck Becks!

Hello again (WARNING FOOTBALL ORIENTATED BLOG)
Well, the new England manager (Fabio Capello...he aint really that new now) recently unvieled his proposed squad to play Switzerland on February 6th. Now in the media there has been one hell of a build up towards this, with many suggesting that the hero/villian, his lordship himself (not my words by the way) David Beckham, should be in the squad, so to join the hallowed halls of 100caps (man i made that sound greater than it should of been).

He recently claimed, that despite playing zero football matches for a fair while, and when he does, they have been in the great mickey mouse league across the pond, that hes match fit. He also claims that after training with Arsenal for a couple of weeks, he is super sharp and on top of his game. Pah...how on earth does a training situation prepare you for the real thing. At the end of the day, when Beckham was playing in a top class team (Real Madrid), he was dropped by Capello anyway. He then, respect for doing so, fought his way back into the team, and then the (doomed) England side. But he still can't expect to play for LA Galaxy and the same to happen.

Overall, Capello has not shocked me really with any of his choices. The five players picked from Aston Villa are not a surprise as they have all been playing well and have great guidance from Martin O'Neil. Many of the choices all seem fairly standard, and the goal keeping change is welcome.

I was discussing with a friend how he would play the actual team. From what I know of his style of football, it is typical Italian...defence, defence, defence and then a counter attack...Now this aint in no way paticulary attractive football for the most part, and not really how England sides have played before. Now we came up with the conclusion of him picking Carrick, Hargreaves and Barry he may be aiming to simply play a 3/5/2 or a 4/5/1 formation, with two holding midfielders, possibly a left footer (Barry) and a right footer. These could then be used to pass out to the quicker wingers.

The main driving force would be Gerrard in the centre, but the main problem with England at the moment is up front. The last paring that worked was Heskey/Owen, but both of those have been a bit iffy of late. When asked about forwards, I simply didn't know. We must, at the end of the day, judge Capello on the games rather than the squad he picks. He seems to have set his own precedence against the FA as they would of made quite a bit of cash from Beckhams milestone, but we'll wait and see what happens...
Josh