England

Before we start lets get one thing straight, I have never been one of the “we are going to win the world cup” brigade who blindly goes around prophesying that we are going to go all the way.  I don’t harp on about a certain date back in the 60′s as I wasn’t even born.

I have never flown the flag proudly from my car or hung it from the windows for all to see.  the fact is I like to think of myself as a football realist (as a West Ham fan you have to be, it’s ingrained).

I love the world Cup I always have and of course I would absolutely love to see England win it, I will scream from the rooftops if we did go on to win it but lets be honest we are not even favourites, I reckon we are in the second group of “possibles who may sneak up but are really outsiders”

Capello has announced his squad today and here it is for all it’s erm Glory:

Goalkeepers
Robert Green, Joe Hart, David James
Defenders
Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock
Midfielders
Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Shaun Wright-Phillips
Forwards
Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney

I am uninspired and it feels like same old same old England.  Sod the real creativity and the players who have shown promise this season and go for the safe same old faces approach.  I should try and remain positive but I cant when I see the likes of Heskeys name on the sheet. If one more person tries to reason with me that Heskey should be on the plane because “Rooney scores more goals with him” I will go apoplectic with rage.  I don’t care! Rooney will score goals anyway, Heskey just doesn’t as simple as that he falls over and gets injured at the slightest touch (a bit like our Carlton Cole) hes a big lump who goes down far far too easy. Here’s a statistic that popped up on twitter:

Emile Heskey, striker, 58 caps 7 goals; Jose Luis Chilavert, keeper, 74 caps 8 goals….

See what I mean!

Lets look at the rest of it shall we? The keepers are no surprise and think we have the best of what’s on offer.  Ledley King for a start, great player but he is so injury prone with those knees is he really worth the risk? I mean the player can’t even train any more. I have no doubt over his ability but surely we need 100% fit players in the squad, and that brings me onto Barry, Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Lennon, all players who have struggled with injury this season.  I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be going but I really hope we have fantastic medical staff and facilities as I think we are going to need it.

Micheal Carrick is another player who I have always been a fan of but what has he really done this season? and yet our own Scott Parker has been left behind, now thats not favouritism because he is a Hammer but he played out of his skin and showed what a truly great committed player he is this season. Darren Bent had a great season for Sunderland but again they prefer HESKEY, sorry but I just cant get past the fact that he will be there.

Lampard and Gerrard, ah that age old question: can they play together? that question will always pop up and I have to say that I’m still not sure.  Lampard has had a good season with Chelsea and will be on a high but Gerrard this season by Liverpools standards has been woeful, again I’m not saying Gerrard shouldn’t be there but I have to question whether he will really be up for it.

I could go on and on but you get the gist of it.  Westhamprocess made a good quote on twitter:

Let’s be honest – if Liverpool made the Champions League this year, Carragher wouldn’t be bothered about the World Cup.

I now have a few days to try and get my positive head on and throw my full support behind the team, and I will because as fans that is what we do.  I hope that we have a good competition and that all my fears and gripes are proven unfounded as I have no problem being proven wrong but at the moment I just feel a little bit MEH.