England: Choose the Squad — Part I 1/2: The Forwards

March 7th, 2006 | by: Shawn | View Comments

In the absence of any news (if only Sven would declare his love for Ashley Cole to an undercover reporter!), let’s have a look back, a week after the friendly, at the selection of forwards for Germany.

We all agree that three spots are taken, I would think: Rooney, Owen (if healthy) and Crouch

So that leaves a spot for one (or two) of Darren Bent, Jermaine Defoe, Darius Vassell and…anyone else?

I can’t see Sven going with Bent *and* Defoe, simply because he’s got so much scoring power in the midfield: Joe Cole, Lampard, Wright-Phillips could all serve as semi-forwards.

Bent didn’t overly impress, but the truth is he only got one or two decent bits of service the whole match. By the time Cole and Wright-Phillips were truly creating havoc on the touchlines, he was cooling off on the bench.

The three — ahem — white boys ahead of him aren’t exactly world-class sprinters. And he has been in better league form than Defoe. So I grudgingly lean toward Bent and hope we don’t need him.

Whattayareckon?

(We’ll do mids and the back line before the end of the week.)