Roy Hodgson faced up to the media with a smile and the odd joke as he faced a barrage of questions over his selections and perhaps more importantly omissions from his England Squad for Euro 2012.
Most notably and most controversially is the omission of Rio Ferdinand. It was thought that Ferdinand and John Terry could not be picked in the same squad, due to the latter facing a court case for allegedly racially abusing Rio’s brother Anton. Hodgson yesterday insisted that his decision not to include Ferdinand was based on his lack of games for England over the last year. That is a claim that is hard to swallow. Ferdinand had played regularly for Manchester United this season and is every inch a better defender than Terry and some others in the squad. It would seem that Hodgson has picked the man who has twice been stripped of the England captaincy and has caused nothing but trouble and misery for the national side throughout his career. This seems like a poor, poor decision, especially given the fact that Terry is now a major weak link in the England side due to his lack of pace.
There were other surprising omissions. Micah Richards has been left out as Hodgson felt “It came down to a decision between Phil Jones and Micah Richards and I went for Jones.” This is an extraordinary statement. Firstly, Richards has been immense for Manchester City this season while Jones has shown very little quality for United at any point this season. Also, Hodgson has selected Glen Johnson, a man who has never grasped the art of defending and will be easy pickings for the likes of Nasri in the first game of the group.
Along with Richards, no place for Peter Crouch while including the woeful Andy Carroll is one that is hard to grasp. Carroll has been without question one of the worst players in the Premier League this season and has only in the last few weeks looked anything better than a conference striker. Crouch has been a solid performer for Stoke and has a marvellous record at international level. Get the right service to Crouch and he is ten times more likely to hit the net that Carroll.
Talking of service, we move on to without question the most incredible selection of all. Stewart Downing has made the 23 man squad. This is a man who has failed to score or make an assist in the whole of the Premier League for Liverpool this season. In fact Evertons keeper Tim Howard beats him in these stats. When we consider that Adam Johnson is only on the reserve list and has scored more than Carroll and Downing combined that looks to be a stunning decision.
Talking of that reserve list, there is no place for Manchester United’s Michael Carrick, who topped the stats for the most successful passes by an Englishmen in the Premier League this season and was third overall. Jordan Henderson however, does make that list. Henderson has had by all accounts a shocker of a first season at Liverpool and his selection even on the reserves list is truly a head scratcher.
One of the major questions Hodgson had to answer was who would captain the side in the Euro 2012 tournament. Hodgson has chosen to go with Steven Gerrard as his skipper. Gerrard does not seem to have to have played recently for England, as Ferdinand seems to need to have done, as Gerrard has only played 33 minutes for England in the last 19 months. This does seem to be an appointment with no vision, no ambition. Gerrard has been around a failing England set-up for far too long and his performances for England have been nothing short of abysmal. A captaincy choice such as Scott Parker or a long term vision appointment such as Joe Hart would be a far better way to go.
This England team had absolutely no chance of success at Euro 2012 before the announcement of this squad and it is fair to sat that not many people will feel those chances have improved today. There are many selections that look decidedly dubious, many with a leaning towards Liverpool. After such an appalling season for Liverpool football club, that seems a strange direction to go. The omissions of Ferdinand, Adam Johnson, Micah Richards and Peter Crouch are ones that Roy Hodgson will really struggle to justify over the next few weeks, and ones that ultimately could prevent England from even getting through the group this summer.
This post HUGE QUESTION MARKS OVER HODGSONS SQUAD – Any Sport in a Storm was a good read so I posted it on my Facebook to hopefully give you more readers.