Strange Decisions

Steve McLaren seems to have brought the English team to good shape by recalling Beckham. Beckham proved his critics wrong and he has raised the question whether he should have been dropped in the first place after the world cup disaster. It's true that football is a team game and victory/loss is a result of collective team effort. But the English football association and the media are very fond of making some of their players scapegoats for the lack of results. The blame for the loss is often taken by an individual and not the team as a whole. However the return of Beckham has it's good and bad. The good : There's no doubt now as to where Gerrard should play - Central Midfield. The combination of Gerrard and Lamps proved great vs Brazil and Estonia. But the problem however is that Beckham doesn't make runs which means the right back should be a good wing back. Gary Neville is decent but England seems to miss someone like Dani Alves or Philip Lahm. Jamie Carragher used to be right back and he replaced the injured Neville vs Brazil but it was clear that he doesn't fit that role anymore having played as a center back for quite a while now. But Rio's injury means Jamie can play as center back. Steve McLaren made the right decision of playing wes brown instead of carra vs estonia but why did he play king and not carra as center back. Is it because he's well built? According to me it's a strange decision since carra has played and shined against the best attackers in europe. The recent show against Ac Milan in the final of the champions league is a good testimonial by itself. I hope McLaren plays Carra against the good teams if Rio doesn't play in the future. England now look good to take on the big sides of europe next year. But elsewhere Germany, Norway and Sweden had thumping wins against San Marino, Hungary and Iceland. Looking forward to Austria-Switzerland!


--Guru