Well, not bad…
England’s 3-0 victory against a pretty lame Estonia side was the minimum expectation. I said we should have scored six and we could have. Joe Cole’s opener was a goal to grace any international stage. And there was plenty of promise too but what must be worrying is that much of it was provided by David Beckham. I’m delighted to see him back in the England side. He should never have been dropped in the first place. But he cannot go on forever. His move to LA Galaxy might take the edge off certain of his abilities. Pace at a higher level might start to surprise him for instance. But his crossing, surely peerless in the world game to date, is something that comes from innate talent and perfected on a training ground. He will never lose it until he retires.
Beckham is so dangerous for any opposition because he is so unfailingly accurate. And from any distance you care to name. Sad to note that we would not be worried about Euro qualification had he remained in the team. Sadder that altrhough we have some fine potential in Lennon and Wright-Phillips, we do not have anyone who can hold a candle to DB in terms of accuracy and sheer reliability. It’s all very well running past defenders but if your crosses end up in Row H, you aren’t a whole lot of use. Beckham never bothered going past people. Why, when you can land the ball at your striker’s feet from fifty yards away?
Long may he play. But what will we do when he hangs up his boots?
Disagree slightly mate… I think MacLaren was right to give Terry a couple of Beckham-less games at the start in order to settle in to the captaincy without undue comparisons being drawn, but then after that, once we struggled to beat Macedonia 1-0, and then drew 0-0 away the alarm bells should have rung loud and long, and Beckham should have been brought back for Croatia onwards…
OK, well let’s agree that he shouldn’t have been dropped from the squad. I think Terry’s a big enough personality not to be undermined by DB. And I think England could/can ill-afford to worry about such things anyway given we actually don’t have a replacement in terms of ability, only in potential.
Hear, hear – stripped of captaincy (well, he’d already stepped down) but he should have remained in the squad, not necessarily playing every game, to give the youngsters a run around but as soon as the alarm bells started ringing (or the fans started booing), then ole Golden Balls should started warming up on the sidelines.
When he retires, England will really struggle until someone even close to his ability can be discovered.
Or they sort out the Stevie G / Fat Frank dilemma!