There are have been a number of injury concerns for Roy Hodgson in the last week, but the England manager has confirmed his final 23-man party for the European Championship which includes Danny Welbeck, Glen Johnson and Scott Parker.
Both Johnson and Welbeck sat out England’s friendly win in Norway on Saturday having struggled with injuries since joining up with the squad two weeks ago. There were also question marks over the fitness of Scott Parker who apparently needed a number of injections on his Achilles injury.
This is good news for Hodgson who has already had to call up Phil Jagielka to replace Gareth Barry who was rules out of England’s Euro 2012 campaign with a groin strain. You would expect all three players to be in the starting line up when England face France in their opening match on the 11th June.
Johnson has been a regular feature at right back over the last couple of years and has more experience than Phil Jones who is the other right back in contention. Scott Parker has been awesome for Spurs last season and even captained England a few months ago, and with Barry out of the squad, Parker will probably be one of the first names on the team sheet. Then we have Welbeck who has made a real mark in the Manchester United team this season and you would think that he would be the man to replace Rooney in attack for the first two games. However, Hodgson has also confirmed the squad numbers for the tournament in Poland and Ukraine, and if you want to read into things, it is interesting to see that Andy Carroll will be England’s number 9 while Danny Welbeck wear the number 22 shirt. Is this any sign of Hodgsons starting line up? Maybe not, as Scott Parker doesn’t have a 1-11 number, but it will be interesting to see who lines up against France in the first game of the tournament.
Some other notable squad numbers include Leighton Baines who will wear no 12, Alex Oxlade Chamberain who will wear the no 20 jersey and the young goalkeeper Jack Butalnd, who has been at the center of a number of transfer rumours, will wear the no 23 shirt.
The Squad numbers are:
1 JOE HART
2 GLEN JOHNSON
3 ASHLEY COLE
4 STEVEN GERRARD
5 GARY CAHILL
6 JOHN TERRY
7 THEO WALCOTT
8 FRANK LAMPARD
9 ANDY CARROLL
10 WAYNE ROONEY
11 ASHLEY YOUNG
12 LEIGHTON BAINES
13 ROBERT GREEN
14 PHIL JONES
15 JOLEON LESCOTT
16 JAMES MILNER
17 SCOTT PARKER
18 PHIL JAGIELKA
19 STEWART DOWNING
20 ALEX OXLADE CHAMBERLAIN
21 JERMAIN DEFOE
22 DANNY WELBECK
23 JACK BUTLAND