Les Ferdinand / Les Ferdinand / 31 March 2009 / Leave a comment

Les Ferdinand talks us through his preferred England XI from the players available and his ideal England XI, which includes the name of Ledley King. Plus the best bets from England's match against the Ukraine and why the Rep of Ireland won't be getting much change out of Italy.

England played well on Saturday afternoon and will be on a high in terms of confidence after putting four past Slovakia. But rather like a batsman resuming an innings the next day or a pro golfer commencing his fourth round, they'll have to start from scratch again on Wednesday and the performance and the goals from Saturday will mean nothing once the whistle goes.

The first thing they need to get right is team selection and formation, a task made more difficult by the injuries sustained on Saturday to Emile Heskey and Carlton Cole, who would both have been in contention to start Wednesday's match if fit. Not to mention Joe Cole and Owen Hargreaves who are long-term absentees and key members of the squad. If I were in Fabio Capello's shoes I'd go with a 4-4-1-1 that would allow England to boss the midfield and have a player "in-the-hole" linking the play and making it difficult for Ukraine's defenders to pick him up but I'll come to that in a minute.

As far as I'm concerned, the back five pick themselves with James in goal, Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole at full-back with Terry and Ferdinand in the heart of the defence. I say they pick themselves because I'm not including Ledley King in the equation, after he was sent back to his club by the England medical staff last week. I played with Ledley at White Hart Lane and I still do some work with Spurs' strikers so I'm well aware of what the guy can do. To my mind, if he didn't have all those injury problems he'd be the best defender we've got by some distance and I'd start him for England any day, with John Terry making way.

It's a tough and frustration situation for everyone concerned. Ledley would love to play for England but knows that he can't play on a Wednesday for his country and then again on a Saturday for his club. Capello rates him as highly as I do by the sound of it (or else he wouldn't have called him up) but he'll be wondering if it's worth including him in any future squads now that he knows that he can't train every day, much less play three matches in the space of 10 days which is what you do at the World Cup. As for Spurs, on the one hand it's always good to have your players turning out for the national team but on the other hand they're the ones paying his wages and they wouldn't be too pleased if he had to miss the weekend league game because he'd played on Wednesday, or worse still, aggravated his long-term injury problems. Despite this, I'd still take him to the World Cup and have him fill in for Rio or Terry if one of them had to miss a match through suspension or needed a rest. He's also someone good to have around in the squad, he's an inspirational character and that improves the morale in the camp.

Moving on to the midfield and I'd have Barry, Lampard, Carrick and Aaron Lennon on the right; Gerrard would play just behind the striker in the role I was talking about earlier and Rooney would obviously be the player furthest forward. If everyone was available, I'd make Heskey my target man, play Rooney as the second striker and put Gerrard on the right side of midfield with Lennon missing out. A lot of people out there feel Gerrard and Lampard can't play together or that Gerrard should play as the second striker which is the role he's playing for Liverpool where he's getting all those goals. But these days players need to be flexible to different systems and that may mean playing in somewhat different positions from one match to the next or even in the same match. Gerard has played multiple roles for both club and country and even though I suspect his favoured position is a roaming attacking midfielder, he knows that he needs to just get on with it and play where he's asked to.

I'd confidently back England to win the match at 1.4 but I'd happily lay them to keep a clean sheet at 1.9. We all know that it didn't really work out for either of the Andryis in the Premier League - Shevchenko or Voronin - but that doesn't make them bad players and they have the ability to cause England serious problems, specially an England defence that looks a little vulnerable at the moment. It's one thing keeping a clean sheet against Slovakia but the Ukraine are a different kettle of fish. In terms of a correct score I'd be interested in 3-1 at 15.0 given that the likes of Rooney and Gerrard appear to have their shooting boots on more often than not recently.

Over in Italy, the Republic of Ireland will have their hands full trying to contain the likes of Pazzini, Pirlo and De Rossi. Despite the setback of giving away a lead at home to Bulgaria, Trapattoni has done a great job with them and their two senior players, Robbie Keane and Shay Given, have put in some really good performances of late. But this is the World Champions we're talking about and fresh from a convincing 2-0 win away to Montenegro, I can't see anything other than another win for Italy. At 1.46 your money should be safe.