ENGLAND are in an easy group, so they will beat Wales and Northern Ireland.
The dunces of Copenhagen will win in Cardiff because John Hartson will NOT be able to rough up Rio Ferdinand, as he did when Rio was a kid playing against him in training at West Ham.
Hartson is a target man who once told me, in a phone interview, “My strength is my strength.”
But I don’t think he now has the mobility to worry England, and he wont get much service, even if Giggs does well against Luke Young. the 26 year old Charlton right back.
THE 4-5-1 formation that Sven proposes to use is stupid and will have to be changed during the game.
Beckham might play in the middle with Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips breaking to join lone striker Rooney.
Clearly, Sven does not rate Defoe’s talent, or he does not rate his character.
Owen is suspended for one game and Sven will not use Defoe to replace him, as I think he should.
If he started Defoe, Defoe might score two goals against Wales and people would say Defoe should play with Rooney against Northern Ireland.
But Sven is not sure of Defoe’s character, not sure of his work-rate, not sure of his long-term potential as an England superstar, so he refuses to give him a chance to make headlines on Sunday.
Sven’s best team is Beckham & Owen, plus nine.
THIS MUCH IS TRUE : Jermain Defoe did not get a move to a big club from West Ham.
Chelsea passed, Manchester United passed, and Arsenal had to chose between him and Reyes.
So Defoe went to Spurs and he now has to score more goals than Owen scores at Newcastle to be sure of his place on the plane to Germany.
If Defoe scores more goals for Spurs than he has ever done before, he might relax and became the personality that Sven apparently wants him to be.
Or Defoe might become even more cocky. In his own mind, he is good enough, a World Cup player already.
In a striker, that is a positive, I think, at least until the player become a monster, a prima donna, as Ian Wright did in his later years
FOR ME, this selection stinks of 2004, where Sven didnt take SWP or Defoe because if he did he might be under pressure to play them instead of his favourites, Becks and Owen.
IN the right format, Shaun, Rooney and Gerrard would take Wales apart, and they might take them apart anyway at 3 pm tomorrow.
Sven’s team is expected to be (in 4-3-2-1 formation) : Robinson ; Young, Carragher Ferdinand Cole; Gerrard, Beckham Lampard ; Cole SWP ; Rooney.
Since Rooney is a box-to-box player, one of the fittest and most mobile forwards in the world, that wastes his creative talent.
Manchester United have made him fitter than he was at Everton.
But even before that, the Euro 2004 ProZone stats told us that Rooney could run 11.82 km in a match and sprint at 9.7metres per second
The breakdown of his 11.8 km athletic performance in Portugal was : 4,000 metres walking, 4,800 jogging, 1,500 running 1,000 light sprinting and 500 sprinting.
If Wayne Rooney can do all that, why play him up front on his own?
(Note : Sven has seen Defoe’s ProZone stats – we haven’t.)
Rooney is better than Lampard, Beckham or Gerrard ; he can do more things than any of them.
But in this formation Rooney will be standing around waiting for the ball.
As we have seen for years with Sven, it’s about pecking order.
This time, in Cardiff, it’s about Owen, the striker who is not playing.
My first reaction, when I saw 4-5-1, was : Oh, he’s turned England into Lazio.
Most England managers do that. After about 12 games, Graham Taylor had turned England into Watford.
CLEARLY, England need Shevchenko and Makelele to win the World Cup.
Since they don’t have those two, Sven should ALWAYS play a holding player.
To beat Argentina or Germany, England would need to use Ledley King in the Makelele role and line up like this:
Robinson ; Neville Terry Ferdinand Cole; Beckham King Lampard Gerrard; Rooney Defoe.
That team will never play.
And England will never do anything in a tournament while Sven is the coach.
YOU MIGHT THINK I’m being too hard on Owen.
But consider this : Michael Owen has one thing in common with Defoe – Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United all passed on him this week.
And Liverpool also passed.
Think about that.