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sustained against Jamaica isnt bad, scan showed no damaged to the muscle so along with Terry will be fit for the Paraguay game  :D

thank fuck for that. i was shitting myself when everyone started looking like they were injured

I thought it was all precautionary stuff anyway? Good news though, i'd rather have Ash at LB than Wayne Bridge and definately Terry > Sol Man

Terry was never a problem but Cole they was worried about as he needed a scan, if we can keep the back 4 (Neville Cole Rio Terry) and Robinson fit, i dont know another nation with a better defence

its gerrard and lampard im worried about

what who sits and who attacks??

yes! it's worrying me because they both look a shadow of themselves for England

i agree that they havent performed for england as they have for their club teams but im confident they can do the business in Germany, as for a holding midfielder, if he was fit Ledley King hands down for me, was immense in Portugal '04

We won't be playing a holding midfielder, Crouch will be starting all the games until/unless Rooney is fit. 4-4-2 all the way from Sven now

yeah i agree with that! carrick could do a job though! thing is the holding midfield option would be used as crouch is actually playing well

i think Sven believes we need the holding midfielder against the brazils and argentinas hence why he keeps testing it, trinidad and paraguay games will be def 4-4-2

Unlikely we'd drop a fully-fit Rooney or Owen though, no matter who the opposition are.

he'd have to leave out Gerrard or Lampard

you still need a holding midfielder in a 4-4-2 though

against the better teams we do, not trinidad and paraguay

I still think you need a holding player for balance, Steven Gerrard very rarely plays as well as we know he can, for England because he has to adapt his game to hold more allowing Lampard to go forward.

Even today Gerrard wasnt up to much, and Jamica arent exaclty a brilliant side either.

and we still won 6-0, Trinidad and Paraguay will just go 10 men behind the ball, need to attack them

Gerrard can play the holding role, but the downside to that is you thwart his attacking threat.

I thought Gerrard was anonymous today. I'm a big fan of his, and I'm hopeful he'll rise to the occasion when its needed.

Don't under estimate Paraguay. They have a solid defence (the best record during the South America qualifiers) and a reasonable attacking threat in Santa Cruz. We'll need to play well to beat them, which I'm sure we can. But this is England in a World Cup, so nurture your fingernails for a week before chewing them off next weekend.

its trinidad and tobago. silly boy.

Am I the only one who thinks the need for a holding player is a bit of a bandwagon idea?

Lampard and Gerrard are good enough and cover enough ground to counter this, Carrick hasn't impressed me in the warm up games, King's injured and Owen Hargreaves is shite.

I just think a holding player allows Gerard and Lamps to shine more.