Injury List Lengthens Ahead of Montenegro

October 11th, 2010 | by: Rob | View Comments

Neither Darren Bent or John Terry will play against Montenegro for England tomorrow, both have joined the England Injury List Peter Crouch will start up front with Wayne Rooney with Lescott and Rio Ferdinand (Who has regained the captaincy on his return to England duty from Steven Gerrard) in the centre of defence.

I’m okay with both. Terry’s England form over the last 12 months has been a way off his best, and Lescott has been a fine understudy. It would have been nice to see Jagielka, but he alas, is already injured.

It is great to see Rio back in the centre of defence too, after a bitty injury-plagued period. Hopefully he can put in a good reminder of what we’ve been missing in the centre of defence recently.

Up front, I feel a bit for Bent, who has been in great form for his club lately. Crouch’s record for his country however is exceptional, and hopefully he can add to that tomorrow. Rooney will be hoping to be in amongst the goals as well, coming back off an injury himself, he really needs to get some form back, and banging in a couple for England would be most welcome indeed.

Montenegro have had a good start to their qualifying run, with three 1-0 wins against the Swiss, Romania and Bulgaria and are one of the tricky games in the group, but even with injuries and question marks around the form (Rooney) and fitness (Rio) of key players, we should come through it okay. We seem to be good qualifiers under Capello, if nothing else.

They’ve played a game more than us and sit top of the group with Nine points, so a win would be a very useful indeed (as it’d put us joint top, having played a game less) and set us in good stead for the rest of quali. A draw would be far from a bad result either – three points behind Monty with a game in hand and a better goal difference, we’d still be way on track to win the group.