Right Back

Right back

The £18 million man

Barre injury, Glen Johnson will be England's right back in the World Cup. Which is great for us offensively as he's basically a winger, but terrible for us defensively as he's basically a winger. His bombing runs and the ability to shoot with both feet have been invaluable to Liverpool this season and his defensive limitations have been invaluable to the rest of the teams chasing fourth spot.

Against 'lesser' teams in World Cup qualifying it wasn't as much a problem, but against the top sides this will be an area they will target and it could well cost us. Positionally, Johnson is poor (as shown by Birmingham's equaliser just yesterday) and will need a lot of guidance from the centre halves during games. Despite this, he's the best we have.

If the Nevilles play for England so can I

In recent weeks, Gary Neville has become first choice right back for Manchester United, whether he remains there when injuries have cleared up is doubtful but for the moment he's enjoying his longest spell of first team football in years. This has led to a few tentative enquires in the media as to whether he could re enter the England set up. If Johnson is a liability then Neville would be the full on surrender. His complete lack of pace due to age and injuries would be a disaster in such a tournament. Rather than compensate positionally for his shortcomings, fouls and handballs seem to be his defensive weapon of choice against wingers these days. He still has a fantastic cross on him and is solid attacking but he's not an international defender any more, he's barely a premiership defender.

His younger brother on the other hand has had a fantastic season captaining Everton and recently has been playing at right back. We could do a lot worse than re introducing Phil to the England fold, especially with his versatility. An outside bet to make the squad.

Manchester back ups

The rise and fall of Micah Richards has been so swift that it's easy to forget that he's only 21. He's been playing premiership football for 5 years and he's younger than me, that's pretty depressing. With age on his side he has plenty of time to win Capello's favor, but this tournament is probably too soon for him. England's next big hope when he broke through at 17, becoming their youngest ever defender, he still has yet to feature under Fabio Capello. Fantastic under Sven, dire under Hughes and solid under Mancini, it really does appear that Mark Hughes' complete disregard for defensive training and tactics was to blame for Micah and the other City defenders poor form; now he's under Mancini he has been working his way back to his best and it wouldn't suprise me if he's back in the England fold sooner rather than later.

Wes Brown is currently injured and it remains to be seen whether he returns before the end of the season. If he makes it to South Africa he will be back up to Johnson in all likelihood, if he doesn't, it's no great loss. He's a good centre half but at right back he can be a liability against the top teams, as seen in his last England performance against Brazil. If it came down to it, I would rather have Phil Neville or even James Milner ahead of Brown in the pecking order; he has a lot to prove at international level and this is not the time to do it.