WHEN Fabio Capello names his provisional 30-man squad for this summer's World Cup finals on Tuesday, there will be one name on everybody's lips - Jamie Carragher.
The Liverpool defender has endured a torrid time this season with the Merseysiders early exit from the Champions League and failure to qualify for re-entry next season. Despite a terrible start for the 32-year old, who retired from international football at the age of 29, Carragher's form picked up in the second half of the season and this appears to have earned himself a phone call from the England boss.
With injuries to Wes Brown, and doubts over the form of both Glen Johnson and Gary Neville, speculation mounts that his inclusion might be to fill in the right-back slot. There are also injury concerns over the centre-back position with England captain Rio Ferdinand an injury worry and former skipper John Terry is currently suffering from a bad run of form ever since his personal life was pulled into the spotlight. Other potential inclusions Joleon Lescott and Ledley King are both struggling with injury - the latter having been unable to train for two years due to his debilitating knee condition. All this means that the inclusion of Carragher might seem to be a completely reasonable solution.
However, since he retired in 2007, the Liverpool vice-captain has rejected all emergency calls from England managers to try to bring him back into the team. The reasons he gave for retirement were that he was not being played in his favoured position of centre back and therefore decided that retirement was a better option than a tantrum which may have seen him excluded anyway.
In my opinion, if you receive a call up to play for your country, you play wherever you are told and you give 100% without question. Someone who doesn't want to do this and has whinged about selection issues before is likely to do it again and most definitely doesn't deserve another chance. Talksport host Adrian Durham said that the time of his retirement that he had "bottled it" and I have to say - I agree.
Aside from this, Jamie Carragher has endured one of the worst seasons of his career, and even if he was going to give 100% for the cause, I am still not sure this is enough.
England are in danger of going backwards with his selection. I would even go so far as to say that Steven Gerrard does not deserve a starting place at the World Cup. After such a terrible season with Liverpool, who's to say he is going to turn it on for England?
I say, forget about Carragher, bring in Michael Dawson, a player who has made an outstanding contribution to Tottenham's push for a Champions League place, and drop Gerrard in Favour of a proper left winger like Stewart Downing or even Joe Cole. Then again, I'm not the manager.
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