Not sure why he's even considered Smalling or Jones to be honest they have both been wanting this season there are better defensive options out there. As for defensive midfield, Gerrard has been playing that role more so for Liverpool this year and Carrick has been been way off form this year.
My take is that we should simply go in with the mentality of "we'll score more than you" regardless of how many you score. I would rather see England go all out to win every game and go down fighting rather than the usual rear guard action defending way too deep and then on to a penalty shoot out that we end up losing out to because we're just fucking useless at them.
Bottom line, the usual bravado of we're going to win it this time just isn't there. We're all being realists, we know we're not as good as many teams in the competition so why not give it a shot, who knows, it may turn into something special.
I remember in '86 we lost Robson and Wilkins very early on OMG the world is caving in, we were on the ropes to even get through to the knock out phase and had a must win game against Poland. Up step Lineker and Beardsley and the team looked a very different proposition, we actually looked good. Had Maradona not cheated with his "hand of God" goal and Lineker not missed that header very late on in that match we may well have gone on to the final that year.
I just hope the manager has the balls to make the big decisions and play those that will play well and revel in the experience. I'm thinking Barkley, Shaw, Lallana, Sterling to start........how exciting would a team with those guys playing be to watch. C'mon England, for once prove us all wrong and do something spectacular in a World Cup.