talkSPORT Opinion: Roy Hodgson must put his trust in likes of Luke Shaw and Ross Barkley
This feature appears in the current edition of Sport magazine. , and
On Monday, England head coach Roy Hodgson is set to name his provisional squad for the World Cup. He has already suggested that he has known the vast majority of his chosen few for some time, adding that he has judged players over the course of the past two years, not two weeks.
I understand the point he is trying to make, of course. He needs to know that he can trust every single player he finally settles on for Brazil to work hard and give their best under the intense pressure (and immense heat) of a World Cup furnace. This is something you learn about a player over time, watching them in different moments, games, stadiums. It is not a process to be taken lightly.
Hodgson is not a man to take any task lightly. He is an experienced, pragmatic coach who is not afraid to make tough decisions - ask Rio Ferdinand - but who equally veers towards the conservative. In that regard, he is not unlike a good number of the pundits currently plying their trade on television. Only a couple of weeks ago, before his late-season renaissance at Stamford Bridge, Ashley Cole was getting the retiring Alan Hansen’s vote to go to Brazil ahead of Southampton wunderkind Luke Shaw.
Even now, I utterly disagree with that view. Cole was for no little time the best left-back in the world - a master at shackling Cristiano Ronaldo, and one of the few full-backs of the recent era who was as comfortable going forward as he was defending. But that was then, and this is now - and for all his international and Champions League experience, Cole has not played or shown enough this season to suggest he is a better option than Shaw right now. The latter is a sensational athlete, imposing in attack and no mean defender - if anything happens to Leighton Baines before or during the World Cup, I wouldn’t see any problem in throwing him into the fray. At all.
With all the goodwill in the world, England are not going to win this World Cup. That doesn’t mean Hodgson needs to go crazy and pick an entire squad of kids - and nor will he, with Joe Hart, Gary Cahill, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney offering an experienced and wily spine - but nor should he play safe with players he has seen disappoint on this stage before. Cole, Lampard, Barry, Carrick, Defoe - thanks for your service, but your time has been. Shaw, Lallana, Barkley, Henderson, Sterling - your time is now. The only question is: does Roy agree?