mkjones

Two must-win games without Rooney, Lampard, Hargreaves, Beckham and Neville have given England an excellent insight into how team play and passion is far more important than individual skill and ego.

The on pitch partnerships of Cole and Cole, Richards and Wright-Phillips, Barry and Gerrard and most important of all Heskey and Owen have proved to be a decisive in the recent results.

McLucky

Some may call McLarren lucky. If the aforementioned 5 players were fully fit he would most certainly have left Heskey in the wilderness and allowed Rooney to partner Owen at the front.

The middle of the field would have been even more of an upheaval with Wright-Phillips and Barry almost probably losing out to Lampard and Beckham.

Both of these choices would of course layout an excellent England team blueprint. But as previous games have proved the so called ’starting’ team has major compatibility problems which go far beyond the much touted Lampard-Gerrard fiasco.

The glow of optimism being given off by the 11 players who started the Israel and Russia game must be harnessed for at least the rest of the qualifying campaign.

Well done to this England side, they have re-ignited passion in the national side after what was a disappointing World Cup.

As for McLarren, lets hope he has insight and the guts to see this team for what it is. A winning side.