Thinking Of England

 With it being quiet at Liverpool this week I thought I’d share a couple of observations about Euro 2012 and the general reaction to some recent England events.

 I’ve just read on the BBC Sport website the views of sixteen pundits on who will win the tournament and how England will fare. Of the sixteen people asked ten of them said they thought Germany would win, and the reason they gave? Simple, the progression of the players from the under 21 set up into the full squad to give a mix of young, hungry players with the experienced core of the squad. Now I could be wrong but I believe that England recently drafted in a few players from the under 21 squad into their party of twenty three for the forthcoming tournament, those players being Jack Butland, Jordan Henderson and Martin Kelly. Was the reaction ‘well done Roy Hodgson, you’re incorporating youth into a fairly experienced squad and benefitting the future of the national team’ or was it ‘what are you doing, you should have included Scott Carson (rubbish), Michael Carrick (asked not to be included), Micah Richards (turned down the chance to be on standby) and Rio Ferdinand (33 and injury prone) instead’? It seems we praise other nations for being forward thinking and taking risks but we are the first to criticise our own when we don’t take the obvious, safe straightforward option.

 And the other thing I have noticed is that one person seems to have escaped criticism when he could have prevented a lot of the recent controversies. Roy Hodgson has had his judgement questioned over his standby call ups but in one case a replacement shouldn’t have needed to be called up. Frank Lampard has dropped out with injury but from what I understand it’s nothing serious but he would probably miss all three group games so it was decided to draft in someone else instead. Lampard is an experienced player who does well for England and could be useful if we progress into the knockout stages and he could have remained in the squad but for one reason, Wayne Rooney’s stupid red card in the final qualifying game. The fact that England are carrying one passenger through the group, effectively reducing the squad to 22 players, entirely through a problem of his own making, means that someone unfortunate such as Frank Lampard has to miss out. I feel with all of the blame and criticism for the make up of the final squad being thrown around Mr Rooney can count himself lucky to have escaped unscathed when a lot of the issues have arisen from his daft moment back in October.


 I also feel the need to add a quick comment on something I've heard on a radio phone in this afternoon. There is a certain host who has been saying for the last month that Liverpool fans need to get real, we haven't won the title in decades and we're not as successful as we were, we're not top level anymore and there are other teams above us. I'm not disagreeing with the bulk of what he's been saying, some of it is pretty harsh but nevertheless based in truth. But to hear the same host now saying he considers anything less than England winning Euro 2012 a failure is more than a little annoying. Statements like this are so inconsistent with what has gone before. I have no problem with being patriotic but you can't say Liverpool have to accept being below where we were and then say England should win the European Championships, doesn't make sense and undermines any credibility you have as a broadcaster.