{"id":312,"date":"2012-05-17T08:48:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T08:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=312"},"modified":"2012-05-17T08:48:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T08:48:00","slug":"a-few-pointless-thoughts-about-hodgsons-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=312","title":{"rendered":"A few pointless thoughts about Hodgson’s squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

– I’m glad he’s not taking Ferdinand; and I’m sure Sir Alex is too.
– I wouldn’t have taken Terry either; it’s been a long time building but this Chelsea fan would actually be quite happy for the club to sell him off to the Middle East in the summer. I deeply hope that CFC will win on Saturday night, but if that happens, the sight of him lifting the cup…
– I would have made Lampard captain – experience and form, proven performer when it counts.
– Not sure about Gerrard being captain – look at stats for his performances for Liverpool, he seems to intimidate the others – but that might not be a factor for England. Depends entirely on what Hodgson’s plan is (see below).
– Downing? I’d rather have taken Joe Cole, who has had a good season playing on the left in France and has tournament experience (or Adam Johnson – presumably this isn’t a first choice pick so we’re looking at an impact player?)
– Forwards, hmm. I was minded not to take Rooney at all<\/a>, but the reduction of the ban to 2 matches did change that calculation. Yes to Carroll, but Defoe? – the thing is, Hodgson clearly has a plan – and we don’t yet know what that is. For what it’s worth (not much) I’m glad Hodgson is the manager and most of the criticism of him is unmerited. Let’s see where we are after Brazil 2014; he’ll have my backing until then. Unless he sets us out in a 4-4-2<\/a>.
– Given the squad, my choice for a starting XI in the first match (4-2-3-1): Hart; Cole, Cahill, Lescott, Johnson; Parker, Lampard; Young, Gerrard, Walcott; Carroll. That would be quite a decent side – but if we get to the quarter finals, I think it’ll count as a successful start for the manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

– I’m glad he’s not taking Ferdinand; and I’m sure Sir Alex is too.– I wouldn’t have taken Terry either; it’s been a long time building but this Chelsea fan would actually be quite happy for the club to sell … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3npsc-52","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}