Walcott to be named in England squad + Hleb to Inter?
Add comment March 19th, 2008
Stuart Pearce yesterday named his England U-21 squad, with several players surprisingly left out, including Gabriel Agbonlahor, Aaron Lennon, and our very own Theo Walcott. This has led to speculation that Walcott could be on the verge of a return to the full International set-up, with Fabio Capello set to name a provisional 30-man squad on Thursday. Pearce affirmed:
“You never know, there might be one or two names in Fabio’s squad that make you sit up and listen.”
The young winger’s form in recent weeks has taken a real turn for the better, and the confidence boost that a full call-up would give him could be invaluable.
If you read arseblog this morning, you might be in favour of Theo starting ahead of Aleksandr Hleb, who appears to have held a controversial meeting with Inter Milan. The excuse handed out by the agents involved is as follows:
“It’s true that Hleb saw Vigorelli and they went out from the Melia Felix but it’s not true that they went to talk to Inter. They went for an ice-cream. We are sorry that Mr Wenger took it badly and complained because we have a good relationship with him.”
That is pretty much the football equivalent of “I’m sorry Sir, my dog ate it”. I’m sure Arsene will be asked about this on Friday at his weekly press conference, but it sounds like he’s understandably less than delighted. After all the faith he’s shown in Hleb over the past few years, this is no way to be repaid.
Finally, The Sun run a typically intellectual piece on Emmanuel Adebayor’s haircut. No comment.