An England manager with guts - whatever next !

[JohnG]

Well it appears Mr McClaren has had the guts to drop David Beckham from the squad, things may be looking up ! He also mentioned the word "passion" at least half a dozen times in his press conference

[pixelpixel]

well done its about time.

[mjn]

Yeah, and given us Wes Brown, Phil Neville and Ben Foster? Who?

[smashed]

Whether you like him or not... Becks set pieces etc did a lot for England. Ye, consider a different team, but he would surely be a valuable player, even off the bench.

Phil Neville back.. great... thats guts for you. I know which midfielder I would pick.

[LFC_SL]

I think with Phillip (if I may be so casual) is that he has been working hard at Everton (it is all about opinion in this sport )

Taylor wanted Carson for the U21 game so I suppose Foster was the only one left...logical since apart from Grandad James there are no decent goalkeepers out of 5 names - but that's enough....it is only goal...how many injuries can you get?

Thank god David 'the-legs-left-him-long-time-ago' Beckham has gone

[CFC1]

Originally Posted by smashed

...Whether you like him or not... Becks set pieces etc did a lot for England.

Agreed, but I think Gerrard, Lamps & even Rooney can also give you that now, in addition to their value in open play!

[Dubster]

All i can say im very disappointed but i guess we still have frank 'who cant hit the goal from 6 yards' lampard and steven 'im not the invisible man' geraaaaaard.

[CFC1]

Hey, but it's OK 'cos we also have Dean Ashton

[Istanbul_Kop]

It was obvious something like this was going to happen.

Mclaren is a small time manager who has no name in European football, nevermind International football.

He has purposely dropped Beckham to raise his own profile and create power over the team.

I for one, disagree with his decision. Let's hope this isn't the start of another Taylor like era.

[thfccambs]

The only reason i believe Becks was dropped is he might have a bigger input then Mclaren would like.I do think Becks had a large input in team choice in the Sven era.

[Istanbul_Kop]

I'd rather have an intefeering Becks than Phil Neville...and Kieran Richardson.

Hell, I'd rather have my mate with one leg than Phil neville.

Strong United youngster bias int he squad don't you think? (apart from Becks like).

[JohnG]

Beckham was fairly poor in Germany and very very poor in Portugal so I would maybe have picked him in the squad but not had him in the team. I wonder if Beckham causes friction with the other players due to the fact in certain matches Sven tried to make everything revolve around him ? As someone else has pointed out, Gerrard and Rooney are more than capable of taking over the free kick roll.
I never thought I'd say this but I would have picked Phil neville rather than Jenas. Unfortunately for me, Jenas has gone a few steps back since leaving Forest and probably believes all the hype surrounding him.
We are struggling for good goalkeepers at the moment so we have to think long term.

[thfccambs]

Originally Posted by Istanbul_Kop

I'd rather have an intefeering Becks than Phil Neville...and Kieran Richardson.

Hell, I'd rather have my mate with one leg than Phil neville.

Strong United youngster bias int he squad don't you think? (apart from Becks like).

Must admit the Phillip neville one has me a bit confused as well.

[Istanbul_Kop]

Gary probably wanted him in because no-one else likes him.

[JohnG]

I forgot to say in my post above that I was also baffled about the Phil Neville inclusion, as I thought we were now building for the future, but for me, Jenas is nowhere good enough to play for England and should not have been taken to Germany.