lEverton FC footballer Leighton Baines celebrates scoring a goal
I’VE lost count of the number of people who have come up to me after the England game on Tuesday and asked: “Why didn’t he play Leighton Baines?”
In the past it’s mainly been Evertonians who have griped when England managers have preferred Ashley Cole to Baines, but now it’s fans of plenty of different clubs.
It’s almost a groundswell of footballing opinion in favour of the Everton man, and it seems that Roy Hodgson is in the minority!
We’ve said in the past that maybe the Chelsea man has the edge defensively, and maybe his extra experience is a big selling point.
But that was before.
Now I don’t think any of those things should count against Baines anymore. It’s more important now to be positive.
When you are trying to break down highly organised international teams it’s important to have that quality of delivery into the box, and Baines has absolutely got the edge when it comes to getting forward.
Everton’s left-back did everything he could in the game against San Marino. It seemed clear when Steven Gerrard wasn’t in the team for that game, that Hodgson had a plan for the two fixtures and was going to play his ‘A’ team in the Montenegro tie.
That can be difficult for a player to get his head around, thinking, ‘will whatever I do be good enough?’ but Baines responded very positively.
His outlook was, ‘I’ll show you’ and he was arguably one of England’s best performers albeit against a side which were thrashed convincingly and offered little resistance.
That’s not Baines’ fault. He can only do it when he’s selected. But with every performance he’s making a mockery of his understudy tag.
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