We asked a top celebrity, TV presenter Jeremy Kyle, whether Michael Owen should be England’s first-choice striker for Germany 2006.*

Jeremy answered: “No”

Quite simply, football is a team game and Michael Owen is not a team player. Owen has never formed a good partnership with another forward, and does not contribute to the team by holding the ball up and bringing wide-players or the midfield into the game. He is an individualistic goal-poacher, a very good individualistic goal-poacher, but his focused, rather lightweight abilities are surely included to the detriment of the team’s overall cohesion.

This does not mean that a collective outlook must inhibit individual flair. Rooney is the player in the England camp most likely to produce moments of individual brilliance, but as he drops deep to link midfield with attack, this is not at the expense of his contribution to the team. Owen on the other hand may be England’s top goalscorer over recent years, but it is hard to quantify how much his inclusion actually diminishes the potential impact of those around him. For other nations, strikers like Van Nistelrooy and Henry are great goalscorers but they offer more to the team than simply poaching goals - Van Nist sturdily leads the forward line and Henry gets as many assists as he does goals.

World football is all about tactics, strategy and three-tier midfields and that is why poor old predictable 4-4-2 England always end up being outplayed in major tournaments. Otto Rehagel proved with Greece in 2004 how an organised side could compensate for the limitations of its constituent parts. But Englanders seem to treat the team as 11 isolated points on the pitch: this is why we’ve always got in such a wax over lacking a left-footed midfielder, whereas Arsenal managed a huge unflustered unbeaten streak with the right-footed Pires at left-midfield!

England should therefore go for an organic 4-3-3 with Crouch supported by Joe Cole and Rooney, and a midfield of Gerrard, Lampard and Carrick behind them. We need 11 players on the pitch for 90+ minutes. It’s no longer possible in international football to accommodate strikers who are judged to have had a good game when their postive impact lasts a few seconds! The baying hordes won’t approve of Crouch, but he can have far more positive effect than Owen on the attack-minded approaches of Messrs Rooney, Cole, Gerrard and Lampard. Without Owen, England can have five forwards rather than one!

* Completely untrue: Jeremy has not been approached by World Cup Hippo and he does not necessarily endorse the views stated in the above article.

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