On Wednesday the new England manager will name his 23-man squad for Euro 2012. He has to get it right first time
Roy Hodgson will find himself in an unusual situation this week. It is not quite the case that his first England squad could be his last, but he has to get his selection right first go – because there is no time left for error or experiment. Not for Hodgson the luxury of bringing in fringe players to see how they link up, or even the opportunity of naming an oversized party then paring it down after a couple of friendlies.
On Wednesday the new England manager will name the squad of 23 he intends to take to the European Championship, perhaps with the addition of a few standbys as injury cover, and there will be no opportunity for drastic revision once Hodgson sees his choices in action for the first time. What you get when you parachute in a manager on the eve of a tournament is a leap into the unknown without the months of training.
Perhaps it is just as well that with fairly limited choice of English players in the Premier League, people have been saying for years that the England squad more or less picks itself. Hodgson's party is unlikely to be massively different from the one Fabio Capello would have picked, though there are several areas where the new manager might impose his personality on the group by holding a different opinion to his predecessor.
Micah Richards, say, never got a look-in under Capello but has been one of the successes of the season at right-back for Manchester City. Most people believe he is good enough to play for England, yet with the emergence of Kyle Walker at Tottenham there are now three credible choices for two squad positions. With Walker probably first choice, Hodgson must choose between Richards and Glen Johnson as backup, with the former's versatility possibly counting in his favour.
But that assumes Hodgson sees Richards as England material, just as the tiresome speculation over whether John Terry and Rio Ferdinand can spend a month in each other's company assumes the new manager will want to take two elderly centre-backs who have plenty of experience but no longer as much pace as they would wish. One of the two would surely be enough, and if Hodgson watched Terry's extreme discomfort in Chelsea's 4-1 defeat by Liverpool last week the thought must have occurred to him that he could solve several of his problems at a stroke by leaving the former captain at home to concentrate on his upcoming court case.
It is not as if England are short of alternatives at centre-back, even now Chris Smalling has been ruled out through injury. Gary Cahill has already proved himself and should recover from injury in time, Joleon Lescott has been dependable all season for Manchester City, and in addition to Ferdinand is his Manchester United team-mate Phil Jones, who like Richards can operate at full-back or centre-half.
So there is no pressing reason to include Terry if his form does not demand it. While Capello seemed to value him as a leader, which does not say a great deal for all the other captains within the England squad, Hodgson may take a completely different view. Terry cannot be captain any more, and that in itself could create friction if a player is selected primarily for his leadership qualities, though the bottom line is that Terry's leadership qualities have never seemed to galvanise England in the way they continue to inspire Chelsea. Terry played in every game of England's woeful World Cup campaign in South Africa, for instance, and far from marshalling his defence so well that his selection would continue to be automatic two years down the line, he was given such a runaround in the 4-1 defeat by Germany that most people thought he might take the hint and retire.
Up front, the main problem for Hodgson is how to deal with Wayne Rooney's two-match suspension. In the Ukraine, England will need their Plan B for games one and two, and if it fails to work any better than previous Plan Bs it may be too late by the time game three comes around. Darren Bent is injured, Jermain Defoe has been sidelined at Tottenham and Chelsea seem to have lost confidence in Daniel Sturridge, so it is not a straightforward case of sending for the usual deputies. Danny Welbeck is expected to make the trip, or so Sir Alex Ferguson would have everyone believe, but Hodgson is still likely to want a solid No9, not necessarily an old-fashioned centre-forward but a line-leader with physical presence. His options boil down to Peter Crouch, useful but unexciting, Andy Carroll, coming good at the right time but hardly making up for a dismal season with two eye-catching performances in a row for Liverpool, or Grant Holt, uncapped and largely unsung but actually the leading English goalscorer in the Premier League who doesn't happen to be banned for the first two games of Euro 12.
A tough choice, but someone's got to make it, and soon. Crouch has his admirers but Hodgson would be judged conservative, if not boring, by turning to the Stoke player. Choose Carroll and there would be jeers from up and down the country, but at least Hodgson would be taking a risk for the right reasons on a player at last finding form and confidence. Holt would be the biggest risk of all, and Hodgson probably will not take it, though it makes a lot more sense than, say, taking Theo Walcott to the World Cup in 2006. This time next week we will not know how well England will fare at the Euros, but we will know much more about what kind of a manager Hodgson intends to be. As long as he does not open his press conference with news that he has persuaded Jamie Carragher out of retirement but failed with Paul Scholes, he should have a better tournament than the last one.
PAUL WILSON'S SQUAD OF 23 Goalkeepers: Hart, Foster, Ruddy. Defenders: Walker, Richards, Ferdinand, Lescott, Cahill, Jones, Baines, Cole; Midfielders: Gerrard, Lampard, Parker, Milner, Barry, Downing, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Forwards: Rooney, Welbeck, Carroll, Young, Sturridge. Read More
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