bradley headstone
|
Posted: Feb 15th 2010
Click here to feedback
England’s world cup dream that is! Having established my position that England’s slim chance of succeeding at this summer’s World Cup depended on a fully fit and motivated squad being ready in June, the inevitable erosion of the squad has begun.
England has a decent first eleven, able to compete if not dominate the world’s best. They have a pretty ropey second eleven and I fear they are about to be exposed.
I, like many of you am not a fan of Ashley Cole in any way other than his ability as a left back. I don’t want anything he has, especially not his mobile phone. But even though his occasional lack of concentration exposes his colleagues, he is everyone’s first choice.
His fracture or the timing of it is the worst possible because it means that he may still make it and therefore bring back the memory of patently unfit Beckham and Rooney in previous tournaments.
In previous times we’d have said ‘it’s ok, we’ve got Wayne Bridge to fall back on’. Yes, never mind, thanks for that John. Our glorious captain has single-handedly divided the squad and made it harder than it usually is to play alongside him. We should applaud Capello for dumping the thuggish centre back as captain but any hope that the issue will fade was quashed as he told the world he was determined to regain the captaincy before the summer. Thanks again JT.
Cole won’t be the last injury, and there will be much gnashing of teeth and wailing by England supporters before we even arrive on African soil. But are we alone in our woes?
In England’s group Algeria had a very uneven Africa Cup of Nations, getting to the semi final, but ending the tournament in disgrace with only 8 men left on the field at the end of their semi-final. The undoubted star and man to watch this summer is goalkeeper Chaouchi. Having head butted the referee in the first half and only been cautioned the nutter turned an elaborate swing and miss dummy into a knee high assault on a closing Egyptian forward.
Ashley Cole’s troubles are minor compared to the USA forward Charlie Davis. Davis had been expected to go to South Africa, but was involved in a car crash that left him with a broken right tibia and femur, lacerated bladder, broken left elbow and facial fractures. C’mon Ash, you are not trying.
Also of concern to the USA is the state of their players by the time the summer comes around. A large number have followed Becks over to Europe and burn out and injury must be a concern.
Australia seem to be worst hit with the increasingly pointless Harry Kewell spending more time recuperating than vertical and at least half a dozen others struggling with him.
Spain will go into the tournament as kings of Europe and probably joint favourites but if Fernando Torres is anywhere near as key to them as he is to Liverpool then there will be a lot of hombres with everything crossed.
In truth the tournament may well be more a case of where’s who than who’s who as several of the world’s stars are having injury hit seasons, Messi, Ronaldo, Ribery, Van Persie and Essien come straight to mind.
It all puts the skinned knees and elbows suffered by good ol’ JT look a bit soft really.