"Johnson has caught my eye," said the Italian. "Now it's important he gets some international experience.
"He has come up from the Championship at Middlesbrough, where he played in a different position, and he has done well with Manchester City."
We can take it from this that he will make the 30 man squad named on 16 May for the Mexico friendly at Wembley (24 May), the Austrian training camp and the Japan friendly in Sturm Graz (30 May). Whether or not he makes the 23 which goes to South Africa probably depends more on those two weeks than anything else but he's got to have a decent shot. We don't have a left-footed wide option aside from Stewart Downing, and given that Johnson and Downing would only go as impact players it probably makes sense to take the less predictable, more audacious option of the two.
It's not great news for Shaun Wright-Phillips, though, who Capello has spoken of using on the left in the past.
4 comments:
Johnson is the only player out of ..SWP, lennon, walcott... who can actually cross, which is now more important with beckham out!
Not convinced by that. I could count the number of good balls AJ has put in this season on the fingers of one hand. If you want someone to put the ball in a dangerous area, pick David Bentley (not saying we should btw).
Also, he's done it all against bad left backs and bad teams. Take the Chelsea game. He had a ppor 60 mins, came off for SWP who was brilliant.
johnson is a far better deliver of the ball than SWP who has vastly underperformed for a large portion of the season, Lennon and walcott are both lacking with their final ball. Considering he's played on the right, cutting in , i think he's done pretty well.
I guess we will see tomorrow if he can cut it. But - unfit lennon, a walcott that hasn't really developed since sven 1st took him to the world cup, or SWP who can't get into the side, and has failed to beat defenders of lesser standards several times this season.
Johnson's crossing has improved massively recently, maybe not in SA, but he really does look like a future England winger. A great move for him to join City.
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