On How Our Squad is as Deep as a Kiddie Pool

November 13th, 2009 | by: Matilda | View Comments

Bad news. Our list of the fallen is now about as long as Peter Crouch’s leg. The BBC so kindly tells us that we’re missing Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard, Ashley Cole, David James, Theo Walcott, Emile Heskey, David Beckham, Aaron Lennon, Carlton Cole, John Terry, Frank Lampard, and Glen Johnson. That’s 12 of our first teamers down for the count. Fortunately for England, as Daryl pointed out in his match preview, Brazil are missing quite a few of their best players as well. Be that as it may this is still a huge problem, because, as you may have heard, we will be participating in a rather large tournament this summer.

There are several spots where England is quite obviously weak: right back, and goal keeper. However there are a lot of question marks and men that need to prove themselves in that starting XI. We have two quality central defenders, but we don’t seem to have any reliable substitutes for them. We have several promising youngsters donning the England shirt (Milner comes to mind) in midfield, but our number of tried and true is basically down to Frank Lampard and David Beckham at a stretch. Hell, Rooney doesn’t even have a consistent strike partner (Crouch or Defoe?).

This game against Brazil, even though it doesn’t really matter, may crush our World Cup hopes and dreams 7 months before the tournament even begins. Well obviously it won’t literally prove the downfall of our run, but it is definitely showing our many weaknesses. Players get injured in tournaments, playing so many games so close together is hard on the body. Most clubs pitch a fit if they have to play 2 games in 4 days (looking at you Sir Alex). There’s a good chance that we could see many of those players who are sitting on the sidelines now will be right where they are this June. Our little Lions have a lot of growing up to do, because they may just find themselves out on the pitch world’s biggest tournament comes round.