Michael Kimb Jones

Its England time again! And under my recent title of Kimb Jones - England Fan I feel a great duty to comment on the current issues cropping up in the English national side.

Lets get this straight shall we. Michael Owen and Alan Smith are excellent up-front players. They have both proven in the past that they can score goal after goal and as new Newcastle team members should already have a good idea of how to play together.

It should not and will not be a problem playing these two up front in a 4-4-2 situation no matter what the press are saying.

Both players have been hit with long spells of injury. Smith was out for a year with a horrendous knee and ankle mashing and Owen’s foot and knee problems have been the focus of many England fans woes.

This period of downtime will haunt these five-star players and should force them to push that extra mile while playing for their country in what is the best new stadium in the world.

And if they do well? What should happen? Should Rooney, Crouch, Bent etc be sidelined to leave room for what could an international strike partnership of epic goal scoring proportions!?

Why yes.

The England Quagmire

Its a big problem being England manager at the moment. The players available are just too GOOD.

McLaren has to please not only the team but the nation and the FA in selecting players with hi-profiles and great track records in their domestic guise that may or may not play well together.

The current injury situation will, if handled correctly, bring the English team together and bind them as a real unit.

Players not normally called into action such as Smith and the Premier Leagues new golden boy Micah Richards will have to play exceptionally well to bridge the gaps in the team. They will have to rely on playing as a team and not on the performance of a small set of high-profile-poster-boy-superstars.

And if it works. It should stay that way.

The manager should be bold and in the future drop players who do not fit into this team ethic, regardless of how fit they are.

I have always believed that the current crop of players find it immensely difficult to put away their respective domestic bickering’s when thrown together into the England mix. And for this reason we will always have an atmosphere where the players try to out-do one another in order to prove they are the better player.

With a team of, lets say, ‘miss-fits’ and passionate respective players England will do a lot better.