England’s best chance of reaching Euro 2008 is injured

Posted by

When the draw was made for Euro 2008 didn’t Sven make some sort of joke about it being such an easy group he wished he’d stayed, or something like that? Well, we certainly do because while relying on the Swedish lovegod was always a bit dodgy, relying on a Liverpool fringe player is a bit bloody hopeful. Particularly when he is injured.

Last week, in the wake of a hat-trick against Besiktas, Yossi Benyoun was lauded as the great saviour of the England national team, ready to destroy Russia single-handedly and still have time to look spindly and sport a terrible mid-90s haircut. Well, dream’s over on that score (saving England, not the haircut).

The 27-year-old will be out for three weeks with the problem, missing Liverpool’s trip to Newcastle on November 24 and a must-win Champions League fixture at home to Porto four days later. Unlike Liverpool, however, Israel are not blessed with options to compensate for the loss of the in-form midfielder and the repercussions for England are potentially enormous,

write the Guardian. And Steve would probably say that it is just his luck, but we really shouldn’t have let it come to this point, should we? We know who we are blaming and he isn’t a lightweight Israeli midfielder.