Sam Allardyce has named his first starting line-up as England manager, and plenty of fans are less than thrilled by the lack of change from the European Championships.
Michail Antonio and Danny Drinkwater, two of the new faces who didn’t feature in France, are only on the bench, while the starting XI is full of familiar faces.
📋 The #ThreeLions teamsheet is in! pic.twitter.com/c1tmpAYxNa
— England (@England) September 4, 2016
In fact, there have been complaints about more or less every player on the teamsheet.
Joe Hart was always likely to start with Fraser Forster injured, but the outfielders aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.
From right-back Kyle Walker…
https://twitter.com/Prendx/status/772450400356139008
To the centre-back choices
https://twitter.com/Wolf_Stack/status/772449050956271616
The midfield’s not too popular either…
https://twitter.com/EthanBlakeman/status/772443155631341568
where's Ox
— Azam Abdul Rahman (@AzamAbdulRahma1) September 4, 2016
And, of course, Wayne Rooney’s selection hasn’t won everyone over.
kane and rooney can't play together!! We're shit!
— Jamie Dutton (@JamieDutton3) September 4, 2016
If the team selection wasn’t enough, there were even complaints about the colour scheme. We’re not sure how much control Allardyce had over that, though.
https://twitter.com/swinefever/status/772450977458913280
There’s only one way for Allardyce to silence the pessimists, though, and that’s to win in Trnava.
Considering England’s last meeting with the World Cup qualifying rivals ended in a drab goalless draw at Euro 2016, even a scrappy 1-0 win could be seen as an improvement.
If he can sort out the red text/red background after that, we might be able to start hailing Big Sam as the real deal.
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