How I Would Like It Wide - Euro 2012

Many of you will now be aware that Hodgson has decided to include some of our poorest wingers in our Euro 2012 squad, the first of them being Theodor Walcott who decides to fall over whenever an opposing player enters within a 5 metre radius of him, and Stewart Downing who has failed to do anything positive this season.

Theodor is a nice chap, but to say that I am displeased with his footballing contribution for England is an understatement. I was thrilled along with everyone else when he scored his famous hat-trick against Croatia in September 2008 and become the youngest player ever to score a hat-trick for England. The world assured us that this young talent would spark a new era for England; sadly I don’t think this has been the case. Adam Johnson is a player that I would like to highlight who I think has undeservedly lost out on a place in the England squad, and when you compare the stats my reasoning is justified. This season Theodor has netted just 8 goals in 35 appearances, giving him a record of a goal every 341 minutes. Alternatively Johnson who has missed out on the squad has managed 6 goals in 26 appearances, only 10 of them were starts, this gives Johnson a record of a goal every 191 minutes which is far superior that of Theodor’s. It’s not just goal scoring where Johnson appears to have the edge over his right sided alternative, both players managed to create the same amount of chances that they managed to put away themselves so you could further argue that the likes of Rooney, Defoe and Welbeck would much prefer to have Johnson crossing the ball in opposed to Walcott. I’m not even going to bother mentioning Carroll.

Now onto the subject of the inclusion of Stewart Downing, he was a relatively consistent performer at Villa; he scored goals and chipped in with a fair amount of assists. However since his £20million move to Liverpool he has failed to kick a football with any amount of class or composure, and for these types of performances to be rewarded by a place in the Euro 2012 squad is absolute twoddle. Yes twoddle. This “player” has achieved a dazzling 0 goals and an even more impressive 0 assists this season. A friend of mine, Tong Tu, had this to say about him “He’s s**t”, which I think sums it all up. I can think of a limitless amount of players that would be more useful than Downing at this year’s Euro Championships, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, I would even go as far as the underrated Matt Jarvis of Wolves who I believe would do more of a job than Downing.

By Ryan Pantrey

The statistics from this extract are sourced from whoscored.com and fantasy.premierleague.com