The Twelfth Man
Hello all, I'm Stuart Pearce and this will be my weekly magazine with thoughts about Martin O'Neill choices, how the team is performing and what shoud I do in case I was England's manager ! Expectations are high in the relm, to be honest I thought Martin was managing the under 19 with the squad that he picked against Cyprus, a very young, yet very talented squad ! This has to be the youngest squad I have ever seen in terms of England squad, if you ask me, Martin got help from Wenger in this one !
Squad Analysis
I think that Chris Smalling, Kieran Gibbs and Danny Rose shouldn't be in the squad, not so experienced, no doubt their value is unquestionable, I fell that they will crack under pressure when a big game is just around the corner . With that said, Paul Henderson, Junior Stanislas and Mark Beevers should their respective replacements . They will give star quality and more depth to english side in my point of view! Now, the game against the Cyprus ..
It was terrible to watch, Alex Smithies was a shadow of himself, insecure, bad passing, and mostly bad communication with his team-mates! How is it possible to only have 50% possession? against a team like Cyprus? How? Jack and Tom should be in defensive positions, with Tom taking control of the game, leaving Rodwell with the defensive part . As for the front, Gabby wasted crucial opportunities, that would put the game beyond questioning. I think that Theo Walcott would be more suitable to play upfront at the moment, as far as I can see, I finishes better than Gabby!
Measures > Drop Tom & Jack to DMC role / slowing the tempo, try to lure the opponent in to our midfield and then counter attack . Our tempo should only be higher after the defensive transition !
Hope you continue to follow, Thank you and goodnight everyone
I wanna thank Ross for giving me this opportunity to help him, hope you continue to follow, Cheers