Paul Robinson, Kanata, Ontario, Canada, 18 April 2000,
on his predictions:
Here are my predictions for the final 22...any thoughts, additions, deletions, etc.
would be appreciated:
Seaman, Martyn, Wright
Adams, Campbell, Keown, Southgate, G. Neville, P. Neville, R. Ferdinand
Beckham, Scholes, Ince, Wise, Wilcox, Parlour, McManaman, Gerrard
Shearer, Owen, Heskey, Phillips, Cole
In my humble opinion, Shearer should not be a certain starter, due to his attitude (give me the ball, work your socks off to get it to me and I'll slam it in and do my inane celebration), but Keegan seems to love him. Hopefully, Cole will get there and it would be a real victory if he could upstage Shearer, especially after his comments to the press that Keegan should be looking for strikers and not just those that Shearer likes.
PY: On the understanding that you are
predicting who will go--not advocating who should go--this looks pretty
unexceptionable to me, although UEFA would object because you've tried to sneak
in an extra player, naming 23 instead of 22. And it wouldn't surprise
me if Darren Anderton somehow manages
to make his way into the squad yet again. In terms of who should go, I'd
be tempted to toss out all the older players--they've had their chance and
failed--and go with the younger ones. This particularly includes Shearer,
whose sluggishness should long ago have put him where it is suitable--on the
bench. My feeling is we'd gain a great deal at very little, if any,
cost. I doubt very much we'd do much worse than we would with the older
players, and we might do much better. However the youngsters performed, what we'd gain in the long term would make it worthwhile.
England
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