The Weakest Link

Personally I thought England won the World Cup in 1966 'despite' having Jack Charlton in the line-up. I was never a fan of the man. He wouldn't last five minutes in today's game, now that defenders are expected to play football, unlike Charlton who was nothing more than a stopper ... and a very crude one at that.

But, living on past glories, Charlton has made it known that Rio Ferdinand will be targeted as England's weakest link in Germany. Not only that, but 'past-it' Sol Campbell is another who shouldn't get a cal up from Eriksson.

Charlton: 'I'm not sure about Ferdinand. I always suspect defenders who want to play football. John Terry doesn't want to play. If the ball is there to get rid of, he gets rid of it.

'If it is there to win in the air, he will get rid of it. Ferdinand tends to dwell on the ball and knocks balls across the field that I consider to be very dangerous.

'People will have watched England play and watched the centre-backs. If they have seen him doing that then they will anticipate it and get somebody to cut one of them off now and again. That worries me.

'Sol Campbell is past it. When you get past 30 we all start to lose a bit of pace and Sol Campbell has been out of the competition for too long. He has yet to come back into the Arsenal side and that worries me.

'Sol Campbell a year ago I would have picked first time but in this last year something is just not right. I'm not sure I would even take him as there are a couple of Liverpool lads who are good defenders.

'Jamie Carragher, who will go anyway, can play centre-back or left-back.

'David Beckham will have to play better for England than he did last night against Arsenal. He wasn't very impressive at all.

'This will be the best opportunity for a long time. It is in Europe so temperatures won't bother us and we have the best squad we have had for a long time.

'If we don't win it this year we are never going to win it. It's now or never because the players are there. Okay, we haven't got an out-and-out brilliant left-sided player but Joe Cole has shown he can play there.

'The only thing that worries me is that Sven-Goran Eriksson has changed things about too much when the players he already had should have been getting to know how to work together and how to play.

'We have an idea who his two centre-backs will be but we are not sure. We think we know the goalkeeper but we are not sure.

'I always believe that when you come to a World Cup the general public should be able to pick the team at least a month or two before we actually go to it.'

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