Solutions to loosing Rooney and Owen

[AndyHarker]

I've been thinking about this all day, and i think i've got the solution, we are missing are main form of attack but we still have a very potent attacking midfield!

How about


Robbo

Cole Terry Rio Nevile

Carrick

Beckham

J Cole Lampard Gerrard

Defoe


This allows Carrick to play his holding role, giving beckham the freedom to find the space to pick his passes without worrying to much about deffensive duties, it also frees up JC, FL and SG to play their normal attacking midfield role, leaving Defoe up front to pounce on any loose balls!

The only down side i can see to this, is our players love of 442.

Losing Rooney is terrible but we now have to play to our strenghts, and this is it!

What do we think???

Is this rubbish or should i be the next England manager???
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[Jol's Yid Army]

Do you know what i didnt think about England playing one up front, thats a great idea. Chelsea play that way where when they attack its a 4-3-3 and when they defend its a 4-5-1. As you say AndyHarker Carrick would be great in the holding role and this would release Lampard and Gerrard to attack more.

[shoot_ffs]

can't see it, our problems are usually offensive, as much because we don't keep the ball as well as other teams. Sitting back will just invite teams onto us. Look what a brave denmark did to us. Mullered lol.

we have enough quality forwards no matter who is injured. If owen is out take darren bent, he plays the same way. For rooney use defoe, crouch/ashton can do the rough stuff and vassell would not let us down.
I think breaking our formation would be a bad move, svens not exactly proved the best tactician and i can still picture frank lampard asking the bench what's going on. I would like them to take aaron lennon tho.

[AndyHarker]

Yeah, i agree breaking formation this late in the day would be a bad idea, but we do have a couple of friendlys left so could be an idea to experiment? it might be nice to have a plan "b" for england!

[SurreySpur]

If both Owen and Rooney fail to make it i'd like to see us give Teddy a last hurrah on the big stage. He could still do a job for england.

[AndyHarker]

he probably still could, but i think we should be looking forward, not backwards! Teddy or Fowler might be an idea for a squad place though, last ten minutes of a tight match, against a flagging defence

[highlander]

yep good solution, i had a similar idea myself and it went something like this;

robbo

cole, terry, rio, neville

cole, lampard, carrick, beckham

gerrard

defoe/beattie/crouch

this would be almost exactly the same as the system we would usually play except gerrard is playing in Rooney's role and linking up the midfield to the loan striker. my only hesitation of the loan striker is; defoe is lazy and not in form, crouch doesnt hold the ball up enough, is beattie international quality?

saying that i think both owen and rooney will make it, owen is only lacking match fitness and is a bit uncomfortable. the reason i think rooney will make it is; Preston's david nugent recovered from the same injury in 7 weeks and Man U & England have better medical staff and rooney is a quick recoverer. so we could take him and he would only miss the group stages. also Maradona was carrying an injury during italia 90' and still played all through the tournament and if he can, rooney definately can.

[AndyHarker]

That's a good point, even without rooney, we can still coast the group stage! leaving him time to recover and i have a feeling lack of match practice won't effect wayne on the world stage!

Owen has still got 6 weeks, 1 or 2 games with newcastle and a couple of friendlys to recover his form!

[Aussiespur]

Well all squads have to be named by May 15th so if Rooney (or even Ledley King) doesn't come up after that you go to the World Cup with 2 less players in your squad.

[Welsh Spur]

King should start in defence ahead of Rio simply coz he's better than him. He's preferred for that holding role though.