Kelvin could plug The Rio void
Brazil says Hodgson is missing out by failing to cap Wilson
“Wilson wouldn’t let Roy Hodgson down”
ENGLAND manager Roy Hodgson was told last night he had missed a trick by failing to call up Celtic’s Kelvin Wilson to help quell his defensive crisis. Former Scotland striker Alan Brazil believes Hodgson should have turned to the 27-year- old centre-half following Rio Ferdinand’s controversial withdrawal on Tuesday from the squad to face San Marino and Montenegro.
The Parkhead defender has played over 40 games for his club this season and starred in Celtic’s stunning 2-1 victory over Barcelona that paved the way for their qualification to the last 16 of the Champions League.
‘Roy Hodgson could have done a lot worse than turn to Wilson,’ the talkSPORT breakfast host (below), who won 13 caps for Scotland, told Sportsmail last night.
‘He was up watching Celtic against Juventus in the Champions League and, while Efe Ambrose had a nightmare, Kelvin Wilson had a great game.
‘He showed a great turn of pace against a top- class pair in Alessando Matri and Mirko Vucinic and proved he could handle the step-up from the SPL.
‘Roy was there to check up on Fraser Forster and Gary Hooper but, by all accounts, he left singing the praises of Kelvin Wilson.
‘I think maybe the fact Wilson plays in Scotland has cost him, just as I think it put Spurs off buying Gary Hooper in January.
‘If Kelvin Wilson played down south, he would have been called up. I’m certain of it.
‘But Roy Hodgson called up Leon Osman of Everton last year for the first time and he didn’t let him down. Kelvin Wilson wouldn’t let him down, either, and I think Roy should have given him that chance after Rio’s call-off.’
Gary Cahill yesterday became the third England centre-half to withdraw from the squad in as many days, a knee injury forcing him to join Michael Dawson and Ferdinand on a casualty list which already included Phil Jagielka and Phil Jones.
With John Terry in selfimposed exile, Hodgson responded with a first senior international call to Newcastle’s Steven Taylor as he rewrote plans for two World Cup qualifiers.
What ought to be a breeze in San Marino, on Friday, will be an altogether different prospect in Montenegro, on Tuesday.
Next week’s game in Podgorica is one of those with potential to tarnish a manager’s tenure. It could determine whether England earn smooth passage to Brazil next year as group winners, or are cast i nto the European play- offs with all the risks they hold.
Fabio Capello’s England faltered there in 2011, drawing 2-2 in a tight stadium on a bumpy pitch against a team successfully blending their smart technique with the fierce spirit of a newly i ndependent nation — and Wayne Rooney was sent off after losing his temper.
It is a place for strong, clear minds and experience of these remote and unfamiliar venues, yet Hodgson will choose his central pairing from four defenders with 15 competitive starts between them in international football. Thirteen of those caps belong to Joleon Lescott, ever-present for England in Euro 2012 yet f ourthchoice centre-half at Manchester City, who has started four Barclays Premier League games since the turn of the year and was left out of the original squad when it was named last week.
Two belong to Chris Smalling, who has started just three times in the Premier League this year for Manchester United, but who has yet to let England down and appears to have an even temperament suited perfectly to such occasions.
Steven Caulker, for his part, can point to the intimidation of a recent trip to the Balkan peninsula when England beat Serbia in an Under-21 play-off game marred by racist abuse from the crowd and which ended in a brawl on the pitch.
Hodgson must also consider whether his chosen defenders for the game i n Montenegro will start in San Marino. Lescott and Smalling, for example, could do with a game, contrary to the idea he might want to keep some legs fresh for Tuesday.
But Lescott, like Jermain Defoe and James Milner, is one booking from a ban. These are Hodgson’s defensive dilemmas, complicated by the fact Cahill could return for the Montenegro game if he recovers quickly and that he considers Michael Carrick an option in central defence.
‘Michael Carrick can always go back there in a game where you’ve got more of the ball than the opposition,’ said the England boss, ahead of the 5-0 win against San Marino in October, when he also found himself trying to make light of a crisis in central defence.
‘Our current plight could change rapidly,’ Hodgson added. ‘ By March, we could be arguing we have a good selection.’ It’s March and they are not.
Back in October, Jagielka and Cahill had started i n central defence against San Marino with Lescott and Ryan Shawcross on the bench.
The candidates now are arguably weaker, certainly less experienced, in a position where everyone agrees know-how counts, offering support to a theory that this stronghold of the English game is under threat from changes in the game at an elite level. A decade ago, Sven Goran Eriksson could hardly go wrong with any two from Sol Campbell, Gareth Southgate, J a mi e Carragher, Ledley King, Jonathan Woodgate, Terry and Ferdinand.
Hodgson does not have such options and t e ams at t he elite European level want more sophistication from their central defenders than the mix of courage, muscle and aerial strength which defines the archetypal English centre-half.
England has produced its own defensive sophisticates, l i ke Ferdinand, but these are often the exception.
Some of t hose considered capable on the ball — like Terry and Lescott, first-choice pairing at Euro 2012 — are among those to be displaced at club level this season by the likes of David Luiz and Matija Nastasic.
When Barcelona regularly played with midfielders Sergio Busquets, Javier Mascherano and Alex Song in central defence earlier this season, Arsene Wenger expressed a view that it was increasingly important in the modern game to have centre-halves who were good on the ball.
It need not mean the end to blood- and- sweat heroics from warriors like Terry Butcher and Tony Adams, but it is a worrying trend for Hodgson i f more of England’s best defenders hit a glass ceiling half- way up the Premier League because those clubs at the top want a different type of centre-half.