Euro 2016 is almost upon us, and Roy Hodgson has some big calls to make about who to bring to France this summer.
The emergence of young talents such as Marcus Rashford have put pressure on the England boss to be included, while injuries have also thrown up some selection dilemmas ahead of the official announcement of England’s 23-man squad on May 12.
Fans are desperately awaiting any news on the men they’ll be cheering on come June, so when details of the squad appeared to be leaked on Twitter on Monday afternoon, it raised a few eyebrows.
Looks like somebody at The @FA is in trouble, accidentally publishing the England squad.
Wilshere IN, Welbeck OUT. pic.twitter.com/eRmvjNdPUl
— Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) May 9, 2016
Too late @FA, some of us screengrabbed it. pic.twitter.com/kNlQzIaGkx
— Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) May 9, 2016
The so-called leaked squad featured some interesting calls – such as injured Manchester United fullback Luke Shaw getting the nod over Spurs defender Danny Rose – but, alas, it’s not real.
We got in touch with the Twitter user – @JonnyGabriel – who posted the squad, who confirmed to us that it was simply a joke, inspired by nothing more than a stint of boredom.
“I have no real reason as to why I decided to put together the squad and put it on Twitter, I suppose boredom would perhaps be the main reason,” he said.
“I wish I could put forward some grand claim that I was experimenting to see who would be gullible or desperate enough to run a story on the assumption it’s real (and plenty did) but at the end of the day it was genuinely for no reason other than my own procrastination.”
Still, Jonny says that the squad was largely comprised of who he expects to see this summer:
“Roy has three days to take inspiration from the players I named and amend his squad selection,” he said. “I have a hunch he’ll take Wilshere especially after he played against Manchester City whereas including Luke Shaw was more a case of seeing if anybody would spot it. Plenty of people, mainly Tottenham fans, did spot it.”
While the fake press release looks convincing at first, Jonny admits he is surprised it fooled so many people considering some pretty basic errors:
“I think the misspelling of Nathaniel Clyne’s name and the awful grammar in the top paragraph should have been the main give away…Â I’ve got some grief for it, some people have tweeted me to say it’s clearly fake and nobody would fall for it but…a few others have all run with it. Seemingly Luke Shaw’s odds of making the squad have dropped on Paddy Power as well.”
But at the end of the day, even the FA could see the funny side.
@JonnyGabriel pic.twitter.com/rhMFuaXQ1Q
— England (@England) May 9, 2016
Remember kids, don’t believe everything you see online.
Unless it’s from us, obviously.
