The England thread

[Sam]

Yeh this August friendly is not needed at all.

[Lineker]

Saw Caulker, not Livermore! Good for them.

Now don't get crocked.

[Starvinho]

Stupid time for a friendly, but at least Hodgson is taking a sensible approach to it. Hopefully nobody gets injured, which always seems to happen at these games...

[MJB]

Not entirely sure why Joe Hart is in the squad really. Roy may aswell use this game to find out just who his number two is.

However, I can't think of who the third keeper should be though

[Starvinho]

Hart probably won't play. if I were picking the team I'd start Ruddy and then bring on Butland at half-time. Give them both their first caps.

[Jimmy]

Carrick can fuck right off. Fantastic player, but I genuinely wouldn't allow a player who refused to play a bit-part for England back in the set up.

Looks like the defenders will all get playing time, should do a world of good for Bertrand and Caulker.

[Pesci]

I massively approve of this England squad, Carrick and all. Hodgson built one of the oldest teams in the league at Fulham, so it's good to see him taking a slightly more proactive stance to bringing youth through than Capello - though much of me suspects it's only this way because he doesn't want to piss off Prem managers by choosing their top stars so soon to the start of the season. Either way it's a step in the right direction.

[Adam]

Not entirely sure why Joe Hart is in the squad really. Roy may aswell use this game to find out just who his number two is.

However, I can't think of who the third keeper should be though

That's probably it. If he doesn't pick Hart, then he either picks Rob Green or...Jason Steele? Yeah. Our goalkeeper talent pool is pathetically small.

[Lineker]

Frank Fielding!

[MDK]

Jamie Jones!

[Jimmy]

Jimmy Dean!

[Colly]

Alex Smithies!

[Lineker]

Scott Loach!

[Cymbols]

Manuel Almunia?

[Colly]

Young Steve Harper.

[IAceI]

Jake Livermore is a very odd choice.

[Lineker]

Livermore had a great season last year.

[IAceI]

It's a very odd choice. May get a few minutes run out at the least, pointless friendly though.

[Adam]

Livermore had a great season last year.

Did he? How often did he play?

I'm not disputing the claim by the way, just genuinely curious as I didn't notice him standing out too often, just that he had risen to first team level.

[Jimmy]

Yeah, I was a little surprised. I mean, he didn't even get selected for the Olympic team. He's looked decent and I'm sure he'll keep improving, but he's certainly not England quality yet. But I guess that's what these kind of games are for, give some players experience around first team players, see what they can do etc.