NEIL MOXLEY Strictly NO talent!
Sam will struggle to turn this lot into winners
Fwolwloww. Tew. eurk: @peoplesport THIS is the poorest set of England players in my lifetime. There, said it. Never mind, the group that failed to qualify for the World Cup in ’74, the hapless bunch under Graham Taylor two decades later or Steve McClaren’s class of ’08 – in terms of international pedigree this lot are even worse.
If new boss Sam Allardyce has been appointed to the job he has craved, then he could hardly have wished to have done it with these tools.
For, if we are talking about turning water into wine, the big man – famed for liking the odd tipple – is being asked to create a vintage claret with a DIY kit.
Fresh off the back of the country’s greatest humiliation in living memory, Allardyce should have a statue erected 100ft tall to stand alongside Duncan Edwards’s in the centre of Dudley if he makes a success of this over-hyped crew.
Because when you actually pull apart the squad he has named, the lack of quality slams you in the face like an Anthony Joshua right-hook.
Yes, what happened this summer could be just the tip of the Iceland. Sorry, iceberg. Never mind the fantastic, frantic happenings in our domestic market last week in which Newcastle United brilliantly cashed in on £70million worth of players who got them relegated, West Brom paid £13m (yes, 13 million English pounds) for a Spurs reserve and Jack Wilshere turned down AC Milan to further his career at Bournemouth, where is the stardust as far as England are concerned?
There isn’t any. And, do you know what, I reckon Allardyce knows it, too.
Like Old Mother Hubbard, he’s gone to the cupboard – and found it bare.
Why else would he consider a recall for John Terry, Chelsea’s stalwart who is still the best England- qualified centre-half we possess?
After all, Gary Cahill and Manchester United’s Chris Smalling played throughout the shambles in France. Terry wouldn’t have been returning to sit on the bench.
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has just spent £50m on John Stones, who, by common consent, isn’t yet “the finished article”.
Yet, England’s boss wanted Terry back and has also included in his first squad 33-year-old Phil Jagielka who struggled through last season at Everton with a succession of injuries.
Look at the rest of our so- called “stars” in France.
Players such as Wilshere, Ross Barkley, Daniel Sturridge and Joe Hart. Arsene Wenger is so brassed off waiting around for Wilshere to be fit, he’s allowed Eddie Howe’s patience to be worn just as thin on the south coast.
There were howls that Barkley wasn’t included after a couple of promising early-season displays. Takes more than a decent show against Stoke City to win an England shirt, surely?
Jurgen Klopp has rightly called out Daniel Sturridge at Liverpool amid reports that the striker wanted to mug off Wenger at the Emirates to add to the collection of top- six clubs he’s strangely failed to settle at.
And Joe Hart wasn’t rated enough for Ronald Koeman to confirm any supposed interest at Everton. Thirty- three- year- old Claudio Bravo now stands head and shoulders above him at the Etihad.
The only interest in England’s premier keeper came from Torino – which sounds exotic, but they are the second club in Italy’s fourth-largest city. It’s a bit like Sheffield United throwing their hat in the ring for him.
Wayne Rooney has graciously decided when he wants to retire from England duty – presupposing that he’ll be good enough for the next two years – and, as for the rest of them, big wages do not equal big talent.
Allardyce does have real quality at full-back. On both sides. The pity is that few players in either of those positions really make a difference where it matters.
Which leaves us with Dele Alli. Raw and hugely promising. But no Gazza.
So, there you have it.