Tuesday 31 March 2015

England stars in the U21 squad? England vs Italy prediction?

Hello and welcome to another of my blogs regarding the England Football team.
With the biggest fixture since the World Cup looming it was announced that Harry Kane will start along side Rooney tonight. Carry on reading for more information about this and a prediction for tonight's game against Italy.

Can England stars play for the U21 squad?

This is the question currently being asked by the manager of the England under 21 team. It has been leaked that some of the Premier League teams are planning on banning their players from attending the Euro's for the under 21 team such as the
Everton midfielder Ross Barkley. I personally am a huge fan of Roberto Martinez but he released a statement saying that Barkley would be needing a 'proper break' over the summer. I'm sorry but to me that sounds just like he doesn't want Barkley to go when I think that anyone who is of the age and ability who is chosen to attend, should attend the game and not attempt to find a way out of it.

The legend, Gary Lineker agrees with this as he tweeted, '  If clubs try to pull their players out, it would be a national disgrace'. If they do it would be a real disappointment because with as solid performance against Germany and a few extra senior players this team would have a really good chance of going to the Czech Republic and winning.

Hodgeson believes that Kane who helped England qualify for these stages should not be part of the senior set up and should help guide the U21 to a hopeful victory. He ended up suggesting that Tottenham would ban him from doing that because of their commercial interests.

The last player that could play for them would be Sterling but the manager of the U21 side has admitted that "Realistically, Raheem has become a very important player for the senior team and for Liverpool," and Southgate said, "I'm not convinced another tournament in the summer would be right for him."  Lineker says he is "baffled" by the stance Premier League clubs have towards the international game and believes a successful national side would have a "massively positive impact" on English football's top flight.

Tonight's predictions

Tonight I am going to predict a 3-1 win to England as I saw the recent result of a hard fought draw of Italy's last game. Kane will score 1, Rooney 1 and Delph 1, if they all start. Good luck to England and I do expect a win from them. Kane should start this game as he wishes to go on in his England career.

Thanks for reading and I will post a review of tonights game soon so remember to subscribe and read that.


Monday 30 March 2015

A round up of England Football so far since the World Cup and England vs Lithuania review

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my first post where I will be addressing the issues and improvements of English football since the unacceptable exit of the 2014 Brazil World Cup. I will write a post every time something significant happens in the world of British Football. I would like to start off by asking you readers to subscribe and show me your support.

World Cup 2014

So what happened at the World Cup? Why did England not win a game? In my opinion it is simple and seems to have shown effect in the way that the squad has changed. I am a great fan of the legends Gerrard and Lampard etc. but I believe that they let the team down at the World Cup. They insisted on playing when it was completely obvious that they were not good enough and the more young energetic players were sat on the bench waiting for a chance to prove themselves on the worlds biggest stage. To be fair you cannot blame the entire World Cup humiliation on the likes of Steven Gerrard but have you not noticed a change since they have left the team? I certainly have. England seem to be playing with so much more pace and aggression which, in my opinion, is the way that suits them and therefore the way that they should do.

Are England actually on the turn around or is it just easy opposition?


That is a good question. It is true that England have only played really quite poor opposition but lets look on the positive side and see how much the team has bounced back and improved since the World Cup. England's only real test (if you can call it that) was playing Switzerland but a double from the ever improving Danny Welbeck easily swept them away.

England vs Lithuania 

So, England grind-ed out a solid 4-0 win against Lithuania last Friday night. Another Welbeck goal took him to be the leading goal scorer so far in the Euros. But Hodgeson will have to make some difficult decisions with the rising star Kane. Would it really be fair to drop Welbeck? Well the answer to that is clearly no. I would be very surprised and disjointed to see him dropped. Yes, Kane has shown some amazing League form but in the wake of loosing Sturrige to injury Welbeck has stepped up and put his heart and soul into that England shirt which quite a few players don't do. Welbeck has been one of the best players for England this year and has really fought for his position in the team and has been more impressive the Rooney. Many people will now call for Welbeck to be dropped for Kane but this should not happen. Welbeck has been excellent for England and actually scored the highest rating in the team for his performance on Friday. To Finnish off with this subject I do think that it would be fair to say Kane's goal was a lucky one and was really poor play from the goal keeper but nevertheless a goal is a goal.

To me it looked like that England were missing some of their creativity of their midfield without the likes of Jack Wilshere. The diamond system of him Henderson and Milner or another midfield player was starting to settle nicely and work well. With Wilshere returning from a horrific injury from yet again Manchester United he will give that creativity back. Yes, Delph played well but I don't think that he is good enough to a regular starter for England.

The future

Were are England going to go from here then? I would like to see very little change from the side as I believe the balance of the team could be upset. Kane should stay on the bench as Welbeck keeps the goals flowing although I would like to see him start to play more for Rooney or even Sterling if one of them becomes ineffective. I would like to see the defence stay as it is and maybe keep swapping Chambers and Clyne around and maybe have Gibbs or Shaw take over from the nervous and under performing Baines at the moment. Obviously I would like to see the creative Wilshere come back into the team and the dynamic Oxlade-Chamberlain once they are both fully fit.
Personally I am proud of the way that the england team has bounced back from the shocking World Cup and would like to see them keep improving. With all the young players in the England squad I think that they could really be a cup challenging team in a few years time. Give Roy his contract!

Thank you for reading this issue of my blog and I hope you found it interesting, remember to subscribe so that I'll see you next time!