Is Fabio right to keep picking form-players?

March 31st, 2009 | by: Rob | View Comments

Gabby Agbonlahor has been drafted into the England squad to face the Ukraine on Wednesday, after Don Fabio sent Darren Bent and Emile Heskey home. Peter Crouch has recovered enough to start on Wednesday.

Agbonlahor has been desperately out of form as of late, the Villa striker not scoring since his last England call up, and hence his lack of place in the current squad. It seems to be Fabio’s way, to just pick whoever is in form at the moment, but I wonder if its the best long term plan, or if we should be looking for a settled squad.

To be fair, Capello geniunely seems to approach things one match at a time, he doesn’t appear, outwardly to be a long term thinker. And I’m not trying to stick the knife in, hell, its working so far.

But looking forward, say England do make the 2010 World Cup. Are we then not going to pick our best 23, but rather the 23 who’ve had the best last ten matches? It seems okay in qualifying, but I worry that we’d get found out against a side of real quality.

A good example is Carlton Cole. He’s had a good run of form this season, but really, I’m still not entirely convinced he’s England quality. A good run of form would give him confidence, sure, but when he’s staring down a Buffon or Iker, surely the fact that he actually isn’t that great would come to the fore?

I don’t want to be a doom merchant, by any means. Indeed, I have to thank Capello for making watching England a joy again rather than a chore.

Sven of course, largely went with trying to build a settled squad. He was unlucky in that players like Gerrard, Beckham, Owen and Rooney were picking up injuries in and around big tournaments. But thats the major flaw with that plan – injuries will always come.

So really I’m just pondering the question, which in the long term is the best option? Having a settled squad that knows each other inside out, but may be lacking in a bit of form, or picking whoever happens to be playing well at the minute?