Ferdinand out of world cup

[ONEDUNME]

Gutted . Useless bastard Dawson to fly out today

[MickeyPaul]

Past his best. Didn't you mention something the other day about training injuries too, OD?

[Gavster]

Thought you'd be getting your tuppence worth Mickey. I'd say Terry - King partnership is pretty strong. As for Dawson though, I'm slightly worried.

[MickeyPaul]

Thought you'd be getting your tuppence worth Mickey

What do you mean by that?

[Gavster]

You're a north of the border fella aren't you?

[MickeyPaul]

I was only saying, he's not exactly had a storming season has he? No idea how that can be taken as 'getting my tuppence worth'. Every team has to cope with injuries. I'm sure England can manage. They'll still be stuffy as fuck and hard to beat.

[MickeyPaul]

I'm Scottish Gavin, yes but that has nothing to do with my opinion of Rio. Am I not allowed to comment because I'm Scottish then?

[Gavster]

Yeah mickey, you're right about him having a subdued season. I think the omens were there for ferdinand not to be captain for this tournament.

[Chief77]

Provided Ledley can hold his brittle body together for a month England will be fine. King-Terry partnership will work pretty well. Wouldn't fancy Carragher in there though.

[Frodo]

Are we sure he's actually injured and just not being sent home because Heskey skinned him. No great loss IMO.

[Kiko]

I think this is a blessing in disguise for England as I rate King a better centre half than Rio now.

[Betfly]

I'm from North border too but actually think this plays well for England as I think he'd have got injured after first game. He only had 12 starts (i think) this season & whereas I think that's positive in regard to Joe Cole as he'll be better for it (younger)I think rio def past sell by date.

[ONEDUNME]

Originally Posted by Kiko

I think this is a blessing in disguise for England as I rate King a better centre half than Rio now.

There hasn't been any doubt about that for about four years Keeks. The trouble is that the bloke is made out of glass.

[slick]

Ditto what kiko says, this could be a blessing in disguise for England as Ferdinhand looked half the player he used to be on the few occasions he was fit this year, Same to with Terry to be blunt, he's not had the greatest of seasons and I've never rated him truely world class due to the amount of mistakes he makes.

At Chelsea he usually plays with another centre half that has a bit of pace who can cover for Terrys mishaps, which gives England a a big headache now as all the centre halfs we have left are lacking pace, I like King , he's a solid defender and probbaly the best of the rest we have out there and probably the fastest, my fear now is that if he knees pack in were buggered as he'll have a hell of a lot of running to do along side Terry.
Dawson and King would be a nice option but its to late in the day to burden Dawson with the responsibilty of a kingpin in the English defence when he's only just gotten use to having a steady season at Spurs, its not the time to start taking chances.

Carragher is the other option but he's far to slow nowadays, he'll come in handy giving king a rest if ever we find ourselves a couple of goals up with 20 or so mins to go , or coming on to replace Johnson when we need to shore up the defence.

From the off I've seen our defence as being our weakest point, but Ferdinands absence could be doing us a big favour as he was never going to be dropped once Capello made him captain.

[Winrew]

Do some of you actually think England can win the World Cup ?