Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
And I say that as the proudest Englishman you'll ever meet.
There's plenty of youth and talent, raw talent, but not much guile, not much leadership and the middle of the defence is a disaster waiting to happen.
The biggest problem is the Rooney conundrum. England's best chance is getting their best players on the pitch, as daft as it sounds, and Rooney isn't one of them. He hasn't been for some time either. Unfortunately Hodgson views him as undroppable so he's tried everything to shoe-horn him into the lineup alongside Kane (who is England's best forward and MUST play) and Vardy, who is coming off an incredible season and is the man in form.
Either 4-4-2 of 4-2-3-1 is the way to go for England - Kane and Vardy up front if the first formation; Alli playing as the number 10 behind Kane if the latter. Even if you were planning on playing 4-3-3, then you would find a place for Sturridge ahead of Rooney.
But then not to ignore the defence. Rose is the man in posession at left back and is in great form. I'm a Liverpool fan so I'm always going to say Clyne should be the right back, but even so he's a much better defender than Walker both in terms of position and discipline. The problem is between the fullbacks - Cahill is an automatic pick yet has been struggling at this level for some time. Even worse it looks like a straight fight between John Stones, who should be sat at home watching the tournament and learning how to defend, and Chris Smalling. To be fair to Smalling, he was one of the few United players who was consistent this year and could walk away from the tournament as the main man, but in all honesty it's difficult to look at this crop of centre backs and not yearn for the days of Terry, Ferdinand, Carragher, Campbell etc.
When England go out, it will be down to the same old problems, stuborness, naivety and England's best players not playing well enough.
