Fabio Capello has announced his final squad ahead of the World Cup and it’s been met with a mixed reaction. Harry Redknapp has shown what a loveable, quintessentially English patriot he is by immediately attempting to undermine the manager. On Scott Parker and Michael Dawson’s omissions he said: "They tell me Scott trained fantastically every day in training and could not have done any more...Someone said to me he felt like a ghost on the trip, like Dawson, they were there but not there and they could sense that."

Interestingly Capello recently said this:

 

"When I first got here we had this Croatian ghost...I hope the same thing happens with the ghost of ´66. I like the Ghostbusters idea.”

Clearly Capello has a problem with ghosts. When you look at it like this he appears slightly unhinged but ghosts are essentially needy dead people and he won’t stand for any of that nonsense. Redknapp gives the impression that he forced Parker and Dawson to wear sheets and run around going: “Wooooo!” while they trained. This was probably to motivate the rest of the team in vanquishing the ghosts of the past, so Redknapp is wrong in his criticism as both men have played their parts. It seems Theo Walcott was so scared by this experiment that he lost his nerve completely, showing Capello that he wouldn’t have been able to cope with the pressure. It was clearly a worthwhile exercise.

I for one still think we’re going to win it, I don’t see a squad better than ours. Let’s look at the realistic competition:

Everyone is saying that one of the African teams has a decent shout of winning it but nobody can say which one. OK, Drogba is probably the best player in the world right now but big JT is also probably the best player in the world. It’ll be the unstoppable force against the immovable object, a heroic battle between the two lions. However, Drogba is just one lion, we have 11.

We don’t need to worry about Messi as he regularly bottles it on the big stage. It’s the cheating we need to be wary of. Luckily we have an ace up our sleeveless shirts. England is known throughout the world for upholding truth and virtue, nobody would ever expect an Englishman to dive and win a crucial penalty. Enter Steven Gerrard...

Julio Baptista is in their team.

Not a spelling mistake, I mean France. They have no chance. Because they’re a farce, see?

Fritz has already won Eurovision this year and that’s as good as it’ll get for him. I’d do terrible things to that girl who won though.

The favourites apparently, with their Alice bands, their hairless, laser treated legs, their single dreadlocked mullets and their mincing around, doing all that passing. Let’s see how the bunch of girls react when they see Wayne Rooney bearing down on them, grunting and screaming: “Roooneeeeey!” as he smashes in a goal.

See above.

People are actually tipping them even though they always fail to deliver. Holland? Lolland more like.

OK so they won the last one but that was because Zinedine Zidane momentarily though he was a rutting stag and they probably paid the referee to let them win on penalties anyway. I don’t recall them ever knocking us out of anything so they’ll probably get beaten by someone else along the way. Nothing for us to worry about.

None of these squads frighten me, I don’t even know who a lot of the players are if I’m honest. If they were any good I’d definitely know about them and I’ve heard of every player in the England squad. What does that tell you? I’m off to drape an England flag out of my window...Chelsea, Chelsea!

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