England Under 21s Demolish Azerbaijan to Warm Up for U-21 Euros

With several first team players missing Stuart Pearce’s England Under-21s team of boy-men thrashed Azerbaijan’s youngsters 7-0 at MK Don’s stadium (the rather unhelpfully titled stadium:mk) on Monday.

Apparently it was a bit of a stroll, with Peterborough keeper Joe Lewis even getting a runout up front, although Pearce claims he wasn’t taking the pea-eye-double-ess:

“That was forced on us,” said the manager, “because Lee Cattermole had a tight calf and we had used our outfield substitutes. The last thing we wanted to do was appear disrespectful. I just hope the opposition didn’t realise Joe was a goalkeeper.”

Hmm.

Lineup and scorers (via the BBC) as follows:

England U21: Hart (Loach 82), Cranie, Tomkins, Mancienne, Gibbs, Muamba (Taylor 46), Gardner (Rodwell 46), Noble (Rose 55), Cattermole (Lewis 75), Johnson, Campbell (Stearman 63).

Goals: Mancienne 1, Sadiqov 26 og, Gardner 31, Elvin Mammadov 55 og, Gibbs 64, 70, Rodwell 90.

The U-21s get serious next week when the Under 21 European Championship kicks off in Sweden. We’ve got Spain, Germany and Finland in our group, and kick off against Finland on the 15th.

Here’s the England Under-21 squad for the UEFA European Under-21 Championship:

(image borrowed from Wiki, but comfirmed by the FA’s website)

Big controversy is obviously the inclusion of Walcott. Will it burn him out to go? Doesn’t he deserve a rest? Arsene Wenger thinks so. But there’s an argument that Walcott took the winter off with his shoulder injury, so maybe he doesn’t need a summer rest.

Personally, I’d argue that he’s a regular in the senior side and so shouldn’t really be playing U-21 football. I know that’s not the law or anything, but it makes sense to me.

Ultimately, it’s the young lad’s choice to make. Clearly he wants to go and play in Sweden (take note David Bentley) and with a tough group ahead of us, I’m not going to complain.