It’s been all around success for Liverpool fans during the European qualifiers this past weekend. Not only did we stamp our mark as a country… our knife point got a complimentary sharpening. How was the English force looking? Absolutely stunning.
Jermaine Defoe. One of the players I would start ahead of Rooney in recent months. He’s always been a poacher – turns out that’s exactly what we were missing. He managed to score a hat-trick before limping to the sideline in our recent match up against Bulgaria. He’s exactly the type of player any defender hates to come up against – unrelenting and dangerous.
Wayne Rooney, however, did play a massive part in our success – assisting 3 of our 4 goals and giving us a glimpse of the flair he made his name with. One particular shot was a cocky as it was delightful: lifted gently over the keeper from outside the box it almost crept into the corner. He’s not been scoring goals recently but he’s another huge chunk in the foundation of English footy.
Theo Walcott and Adam Johnson managed to give the Bulgarian defensive line-up horror to tell the grand-kids about with blazing runs on the right hand side and a few firey attempts on goal between them. Johnson managed to squeeze a second shot away in just as many minutes to score as a substitute. It’s players like this that make me wonder exactly what Capello was up too this summer.
Heskey was the man in his way during the World Cup. Not only did Emile fail to put his name on the score sheet throughout the entire tournament (as we have come to expect) he also failed to release Wayne in the way we’d like to think he can – “give it to the big man: he’ll nod it down and we’re quids in”. The biggest error by our national boob was the travesty in training when he dashed our defensive hopes and dreams all over the training ground. Rio Ferdinand.
So what would our team have looked like had we fielded the players we saw last Friday? What difference would it have made if Walcott (who started our campaign with a hat trick, no less) had gotten on the plane?
The European Cup will remedy the curiosity we have as a nation. As the competition becomes more fierce we will get the chance to see some of our young boys given a crack. Lets just hope that Capello can keep his head this time and organise a team worth fielding.
In other games we saw Torres firing in a couple of wonderful goals for his home country. That can mean only good things for the Kop. If we can hang on to the start of the season and Nando can remain fit we may well have a chance at making Champions League football this year. Glen and Steven are both chomping at the bit with the international football keeping them on heat – the next game lines up against Switzerland on Tuesday evening – let’s have us a Red Men tidal wave, eh?
The timing for the match last Friday couldn’t have been better looking at past evidence. The workforce for the London underground went on strike today, so it’s a good job our boys are heading out to Switzerland. Probably best for these boys to have jumped in the car or rent a car, at least. Ah well. 5 minutes of fame.
