Boggs would like to punch Sven square in the mouth.
As I sat watching the final few seconds of England vs Sweden, it hit me that ‘Arry Redknapp may have recently made the first insightful footballing comments of his career regarding Arsenal missing child Theo Walcott. Let’s review, shall we?
4th minute: Michael Owen suffers what looks to be a bad injury and must come off. England have already qualified so surely it is time to give Walcott a run out in case Mickey’s a doubt for future matches.
WRONG. Apparently Sven decides it’s time to bring on the yellow card-carrying Peter Crouch who has been fundamental to England’s tactics/long balls thus far. If Crouch picks up a booking, it leaves unfit Rooney and untried Walcott for the second round. Brilliant.
69th minute: Wayne Rooney has had his run out and is coming off, it’s 1-1 and England still top the group – surely we will see Walcott get 20 minutes now with the match winding down and a good chance of securing top spot
WRONG. Sven reckons it’s time for the yellow card-carrying Steven Gerrard instead, after all why not risk losing a key midfielder? Maybe Eriksson didn’t want to deal with trying to decide whether to play Lampard and Gerrard together next match.
As far as I can tell from the 3 friendlies leading into the World Cup, and the first 3 group matches, Sven’s preferred pairings up front are:
1) Crouch and unfit Rooney
2) Crouch and unfit Owen
3) Crouch and Gerrard
4) Crouch and Joe Cole
7) Crouch and Carragher
8) Tord Grip
9) Walcott (on for Tord Grip after 85 minutes)
Does this make any fecking sense to anyone? Anyone at all? Yes we all figured Walcott was brought as some kind of ‘wildcard’ to come on and change a match, but after drab performances by England in all three group matches surely the opportunity should have come up at least once?
OR…maybe Sven is a total and utter muppet who’d rather listen to his buddies than exhibit any sound footballing judgement. FFS!