Could Tottenham’s Little And Large Become England’s Plan B?

As the World Cup build-up gathers pace and the media take aim at their final squad selections, it seems to me that regardless of our consistent existence outside of ‘the big four’, it is in fact Spurs players who could play the biggest role as England look to finally conquer their second World Cup. If Rooney’s not there, it simply must be ‘Operation Tottenham’ as the offensive alternative.

Following Crouch’s brace against Egypt in the recent friendly victory, the national media are now wrestling with the answer to who should play partner to Rooney, England’s great white hope. Calls for Crouch have obviously become more apparent and justifiable since that game.

Yet, what if England’s Plan A, namely Rooney, gets injured either before or during the campaign? It’s a distinct possibility given his history, his current fitness, his style of play and the number of games he has left to play. If Rooney gets injured the Heskey vs Crouch debate surely disappears, and in fact what then would happen is an all Tottenham front two, Crouch and Defoe.

The two are very much used to each other’s game and do offer the variety required at International level. And even if most of the Spurs supporters (myself included) prefer Pavlyuchenko to Crouch, that’s not to say it’s inconceivable that his contribution could be at the heart of a successful England campaign.

England are rightly one of the favourites for this year’s competition and the prospect of seeing our strikers lead the way in the charge of the white brigade would be an interesting and fulfilling sight for surely any Spurs fan, even an Irish one like myself. As per usual I’ll be stuck with the quandary of supporting Spurs players within the context of an England team, so let’s just say I won’t quite be as fervent as normal in my support of Tottenham.

That said, it would still be great to see our players reaching such great heights and would continue to increase our stock as a top European side with the Spurs attack line bathing in the limelight, even if we as a club still need to do something notable in an actual European competition to confirm this.

As much as I wouldn’t want to see Rooney injured, it would be a proud and fantastic sight to at least see our players make inroads at the ‘business end’ of the national team. Although the top club prizes will once again be contested by the usual Mancunian and West London suspects, Spurs’ strikers could yet have a say in the biggest competition of them all.