Hard choices

There's a lot of focus, naturally, on the unveiling of Steve McClaren's first squad. Personally, I think Terry is an excellent choice of captain, and his astute decision to drop Becks altogether will pay dividend in future, even if he plays for the team again (and I strongly suspect he will!) What has occurred to be after scouring the (admittedly national London based) press is that whilst there is much focus on the fortunes of the next England squad, there is little comment on what other preparations are being made by the other home teams. It occurs to me for the first time how under-prepared I am in terms of resource/knowledge on how to deal with actually either learning anything or finding out news from the other home nation's teams? (Short of the links I've got attached to this blog).

My second dilemma is fixtures and TV coverage. Not sure what my plans are for Wednesday's England game, but if I'm going to give this mission a fair crack, I need to be if not watching then at least monitoring the "other" friendlies this week. Where we live, Sky just isn't an option right now (although I am open to investigating the alternatives). Admittedly, I'm helped on this occasion by Wales playing Tuesday, Northern Ireland at 5pm Wednesday and England 8pm - but it won't always be this easy... The internet is great for filling the gaps, but TV coverage, particularly friendly matches for the other nations, is not great...

Cannot fall at the first hurdle!