Heskey cannot possibly be allowed to South Africa! Can he?

So, after the Japan - England game, I STILL haven't learned why Fabio Capello thinks that Emile Heskey is worthy to go to South Africa, or even to play up front with Rooney.

Yes, he was only on the field for about 10 minutes, but he had a glorious free header from a few yards out that any goal scoring striker would have scored. I have no doubts that if it was Michael Owen there instead of Heskey, then it would have been 3-1 to England and a relatively comfortable win in the bag. But no, he didn't score. Heskey didn't score. That is becoming a familiar phrase uttered by many disgruntled England fans. Me included.

The ITV commentator informed us that Heskey hasn't score for England for almost a year, and hasn't scored at all for anyone since February. This is a striker we are talking about. People can say how Rooney loves playing with him, and Rooney plays best with him, but I don't understand that either. Rooney seems to play pretty well anyway (understatement) but with Crouch there he doesn't do too badly either. At least Crouch scores!

A few months ago, when England were building up to the World Cup and had a few friendlies, Michael Owen was fit and able to be selected for England. Capello may not like him, but he was there and could have been tested, as an experiment. He has scored 49 goals for his country. He was proving at Manchester United at the time that he could still score vital goals at vital times. But no. Capello chose Heskey instead. Did he score? Figure it out.

I feel that no matter what happens, Capello will unfortunately bring Heskey to South Africa and play him with Rooney. For what reason? I don't know. Defoe, Crouch, Bent - all scored for fun for their clubs this season. All proved that thy can score goals - simple or difficult chances - they proved that they can take them. Heskey didn't.

However, the truth is, if Capello does bring Heskey, we, as England fans will have to support the decision, and support Heskey. The players need the country behind them. They need everyone and everything behind them, especially if they want to see the World Cup in front of them by the end of the summer.

The Walcott Plus Beckham Formula

I really think that Walcott can be a world class winger. At the moment, like I said in my previous post, Walcott runs faster than he can think. He gets into great positions behind the defenders, but he has no idea of what to do from there, and is often wasteful. However, if Beckham, who won't be playing, can influence Walcott with his skill and experience, a lot of goals will be coming from the right-wing in the World Cup.

Beckham has been and is still one of, if not the best crossers of the ball. He knows where to drop the ball in the penalty area and how to do it. Unfortunately he can't play in the World Cup for England, much to the disappointment, I am sure of the England strikers, who wait for the perfect crosses.
However, he can have a lasting influence. Walcott needs to know what to do and how to do it. Beckham can teach him.

England need to step it up.

A 3-1 win over the Mexicans was ever so slightly flattering. They had more shots, on and off target, they had the more possession, and overall played better football than us. One of our goals, scored by Crouch was not only offside but hand ball - lets not use all of our luck up before the World Cup, its not as if we have much to begin with!

We didn't learn much from the game. We knew, for example that Theo Walcott runs way faster than he can think. We knew that Joe Hart is a safe bet, and England's best bet in the goal. We knew that Glen Johnson can go forward to great effect. But we did learn that England play better when they press the ball higher up the pitch. It wasn't very comfortable watching us penned back in our own box by the Mexicans, and no doubt that if their quality was higher, we would have been punished more severely.

Capello obviously realised this, as we played much better in the second half, and he apparently told his players to play with more aggression. It worked. But lets hope performances will improve as we go along and into the World Cup.

England's next game is against Japan on Sunday. visit here again to read about it!