As if having the press and general public questioning your every decision wasn’t enough, it appears that Steve McClaren will have to deal with the sort of mind games usually reserved for Premiership bosses.
Croatia boss Aljosa Asanovic had this to say about England experimenting with formations in training,
He said: ‘McClaren won’t be trying 3-5-2, not against us, he wouldn’t dare.
‘We respect England but we are not afraid of them. Our team is good and we can do a great job.’
Some would say that this guarantees McClaren will play 3-5-2 as the former Middlesbrough boss seems intent on proving everyone wrong in this early phase of his regime (see Becks, Downing) – that means doing the opposite of what everyone says you will.
It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out on Wednesday, and even more interesting to see if England won’t be utter toss.