and been injured himself of course.

But I think that is where the case for Townsend comes in...

You said this the other day on a different thread and I responded yet surprisingly considering the amount you post I didn't get a reply.

You are joking, right?

I am terribly sorry, what was it that you asked of me, I must have missed it, I do apologise, please ask it again, and I will get back to you.

No, Townsend has been in by far the better form of the two players, I would start him over Sterling, if that would have been the choice on the wings, or wide areas, sadly that choice is no longer there to be had.

The problem is all of these people complaining that he is playing players out of position are by definition insisting that either Vardy or Kane do not start. So which one of the two do you leave out?

It might not be his position but I would still rather Vardy start on the right of an attacking front three than Sterling, Townsend, Barkley, Lallana or Milner or whoever else can slot in there as he is better than any of them in that role from his little time so far.

I don't want to just talk stats but Sterling has been more productive this season and missed a fair chuck due to injury.

3 assists out of the last 4 England goals and actually playing quite well, but because of the way he engineered his move from Liverpool to City plus the fee of the transfer he gets little credit. BTW compare the way the Lovren transfer was portrayed in the media to Sterlings, one was wanting his dream move to Liverpool and the other was a moneygrabbing mercenary who didn't care about football.

Gone off one a bit of a tangent there.

Anyway I'm not saying he's been great this season but no where near as bad as pundits/media would tell you.

Forgot to add that Sterling was included in the best 11 of the Champions League group stages so he's hardly been a disaster.

Townsend showed enough recently to suggest he'd make for a dynamic option from the bench, but not as a starter.

Sterling had an average season but is twice the player Townsend will ever be.

Trouble is that leicester are a little team who has just happened to have won the premier league title.

Vardy has been rewarded by being on the plane to euro2016. Drinkwater has had an oustanding season and should have been the opportunity to shine at euro 2016. But roy knows best and so do some others as well. We dont pick the team. Is this team going to win euro2016. Dont know

Rooney will still be in the side if we qualify for world cup 2018. The FA havent the desire to have a completely new team

Why would they? Players don't all get replaced en masse. Not sure why you're talking about Leicester, Drinkwater isn't in because he didn't do much with his chance this time but is in good stead to work towards 2018.

Only recently has Townsend been in any sort of form at all. I would have liked to see him go mind, but not at the expense of Sterling who is a better player and I think will come good at the Euro's. And if we're talking form, what the heck is Barkely doing in the squad? And while I see the need for that little extra Sturridge can give, even if not fully fit, don't get me started on Wiltshere or Henderson.... I would have taken Drinkwater over either of those two.

Overall though, I'm happy with the line up. Rooney has played his way back to being picked on merit, Milner has quietly had one of his best seasons and can do a back-up job as a defensive CM where we might be a little light, the forward line is one of the best we've had in ages (and I think we all know that we are going to have to play Vindaloo football to get anywhere because our defence is naff at actually defending) and best of all IMO, even this close to kick-off, there's been next to no hype.

Not really sure where to put this but England Scotland euro 96 on live video on bbc1 red button.

Worth a watch.

Yeah, got it on my laptop right now. G Nev having a super game.

That goal.

Did nothing bar that mind.

Scotland were unlucky really. On top for most of that half, miss a pen and then get hit with that moment of brilliance, ha.

Blame Uri for that missed pen!

The more you look at Wilshire's inclusion, the more crazy it looks. He hasn't completed a full game since September 2014. The only way to get fully match fit is to play 90 mins in a number of successive games and that is not going to happen now as we have only one friendly before the tournament starts. So if Roy uses Wilshire even in a subs role, he will not be able to play at his optimal level and in that case we have players in the squad who are fully fit and can therefore do a better job. Its not like he is some sort of talisman for the team!

When you watch the Dutch game back too it wasn't quite the hammering the score suggested, they missed a number of chances whereas we put the game to bed after half-time after being a little fortunate to go in ahead. I'm never watching the 5-1 Germany game again in case that changes my mind too.

This.

On the same merit, he could have taken Shaw

Yeh there's definitely a hint of rose tinted glasses when we look back at games like them. I'd not seen the full 90 minutes of the Scotland game before and bar about a 15 minute period when we scored our first we were pretty terrible.

Don't know why but I was expecting Gazza to be all over the pitch bossing it but he was very poor, bar THAT goal obviously. I'm assuming the BBC will show the Dutch game so I'll see how we actually played in that.

I'm pretty sure Deisler and Jancker both missed sitters at 1-1.

Also the Dutch were in crisis at the time. Infighting galore.


Same goes for England over the whole tournament. People like to think it was some terrific side who were desperately unlucky and Venables proved he was the answer.

The Swizz game was poor, Scotland deserved a draw, cant argue with a 5-1 v Holland. Spain deserved to beat England.

If anything it was the same old England just in 96 they seemed to get the rub of the green even though they didn't really play that well.

Spain had 2 goals given offside which were pretty harshly ruled out.

By some way our best performance (probably as in 1990) was against the Germans in the semi.

We also won that penalty shootout against Spain, so it was a bizarro summer all round.