Harry's Blog

In his previous post Jimbo asked why i'd not posted about the World Cup defeat yet. The reason is simple, it's just been too depressing to mention.

I don't blame the players. I blame Sven. He made such an appalling job of picking he squad, leaving the team awash with midfielders and lacking any bite up front. He also left Rooney isolated, a player that works best with someone to play with.

You can see why he picks teams in this way. He's a man who wants to be popular. So he picks all the players the newspapers want. He thought he could take the best players in the country and that will do. But that's not the way it works.

Success requires building a team. So no Gerrard and Lampard in the same starting eleven. Each needs a team building around them, together they cancel each other out. Peter Crouch tried hard, but he's not international material. Owen Hargreaves was a revelation though. He played like a proper English player, working hard and running at the oppoition, not trying to be a fancy dan. This is the kind of effort we need in an English team, play to our strength's and not trying to be a rainy version of Brazil.

He played Lennon too little despite the player energising the team every time he was allowed to play. And poor Walcott was just there because the papers wanted him. But Sven had no intention of letting him play.

Could I do better? I don't know. But here's the starting 11 I would go for if I had the job.

GK P Robinson

DF G Neville
DF J Terry
DF R Ferdinand
DF A Cole

MF O Hargreaves
MF S Gerrard
MF D Beckham
MF A Lennon

ST W Rooney
ST M Owen

Opinions?