The England thread

[Lineker]

It does say under-21 in bold

[stokeriño]

As ever it's 'under 21 at some date which is probably months ago by now'.

Slightly amused that Jack Cork makes the U21 squad when a certain other Chelsea midfielder is far better than him, despite being 4 years his junior.

[Adam]

Jay Rodriguez? He's fast but I'm not sure if he's good enough to play for the England U21's. Can't hurt I suppose.

When is the senior squad announced for the Denmark game?

[The Future]

McEachran? that kid looks class.

[Starvinho]

Jay Rodriguez? He's fast but I'm not sure if he's good enough to play for the England U21's. Can't hurt I suppose.

When is the senior squad announced for the Denmark game?

I'm guessing Sunday evening after the Super Sunday games.

[stokeriño]

McEachran? that kid looks class.

Aye, quite so.

[therockbox]

Kelly should be in the senior squad.

[stokeriño]

Giving anyone the nod over Wayne Bridge could only be a good thing.

[Starvinho]

There's talk in the press this morning that Fulham 'keeper David Stockdale will get his first senior call for England for the friendly on Wednesday. From what I've read he isn't even first choice at Fulham at the moment after Schwarzer returned from the Asia Cup, but Capello rates him highly. To be honest I only remember seeing him play 3 or 4 times this season and he had a cracking game on one of the appearences. He is also an England C internastional having worked his way up the leagues, including some loan-spells at non-league clubs

Leighton Baines is on the re-call list also, along with Frank Lampard who hasn't played for awhile due to injuries. Josh McEachran has an outside chance of a call, put the press don't think it's his time.

[stokeriño]

It would be rather silly if Josh got a senior England call now. He's only played about 70 mins of Premier League football this season (though has had a bit more in the Champions League etc.). He'd certainly not get off the bench.

[Colly]

I always tend to avoid this one because he's waited too long, but if David Stockdale is being considered after about 6 weeks of first team football this season has Capello even looked at Steve Harper? He's clearly not the future at 35 but he's better than most called up recently, and can certainly be the senior presence in the squad where the likes of Scott Carson have frankly blown it, until a few more youngsters are good enough to compete with Joe Hart.

[Starvinho]

To be fair, if Capello is gonna call up Harper (who I do rate as a 'keeper) just as senior presence in the squad, he might aswell go ahead and call-up David James instead. But the thing is now with England, we need to start blooding these youngsters in as early as we can, else we're just gonna keep on failing on the big stage. Rob Green is experienced enough now to be the senior member of the squad, and it should be Hart and Foster as #1 and #2, and if they make mistakes we need to stick with them else we'll just keep going around in circles. But these friendly games should be about trying out new options, so as far as I'm concerned, give Stockdale 45 minutes and see how he deals with it.

[Pesci]

he might aswell go ahead and call-up David James instead.

Nononononononononono. He's not had a good time at Bristol City at all.

[Starvinho]

I know, but if we're gonna call up someone for experience then I don't think anyone has more. Never been a fan of James myself anyways, always prone to 'those' moments.

[stokeriño]

I just so happened to be in the Chelsea FC shop this morning, and they had the 09/10 season review DVD on the monitors. The two minutes I watched it for included the match against Portsmouth, with David James' atrocious "swing and a miss" attempted clearance which handed Drogba the first goal and, arguably, led to the result which broke Chelsea out of their rut and sent them on their 5-0/6-0/7-0/8-0 title-winning spree.

You know, just in case anyone was in doubt as to how decisive David James' fuck-ups can be.

[Pesci]

Well that's the problem when the two main goalies we've had over the past few years - James and Robinson - have either gone to shit or retired, and 99% of the goalies we try seem to drop a bollock in one of their first few matches. We can only hope Hart turns out to be some sort of Casillas-like ruthless assault of awesome keeping or we're fucked.

[Starvinho]

Hart does look like the 'real deal' at the moment, even though he has had a few moments with City this season. His errors don't seem to dent his confidence though, which is a good trait to have. If he does make one for England though, no doubt the press will slate him for it and it will be interesting to see if that dents his confidence at all.

[Starvinho]

Ferdinand set to miss another England game through a calf injury, the 23-man squad is due to be announced very shortly.

[Starvinho]

Ben Foster (Birmingham), Joe Hart (Man City), David Stockdale (Fulham); Leighton Baines (Everton), Gary Cahill (Bolton), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Michael Dawson (Tottenham), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Joleon Lescott (Man City), John Terry (Chelsea), Kyle Walker (Aston Villa); Gareth Barry (Man City), Stewart Downing (Aston Villa), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), James Milner (Man City), Scott Parker (West Ham), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Jack Wilshere (Arsenal), Ashley Young (Aston Villa); Gabriel Agbonlahor (Aston Villa), Darren Bent (Aston Villa), Peter Crouch (Tottenham), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham), Wayne Rooney (Man Utd)

Kyle Walker is the suprise call-up I guess, otherwise it is a standard England squad. I'm hoping Wilshere starts in center midfield.

[Adam]

Walker's call-up shows just how ridiculously short we are at full back. He's had a good couple of games for Villa and suddenly he's in the national team? Huh?

Stockdale is a surprise too. Doubt he'll get any game time but...yeah. He's not even first choice for Fulham. At least we actually look strong up front for once.