Gerrard to play as striker

According to the BBC, Sven-Göran Eriksson has mooted the idea of Steven Gerrard playing as a striker for England at the World Cup.

Eriksson said: “Steven Gerrard can play in a lot of positions and one is as a second striker.

“I’m sure he could play as first striker but a lot depends on Rooney.”

With Wayne Rooney crocked and Michael Owen lacking match fitness, Svennis is going to have to experiment, but playing Gerrard out of position like this seems a strange choice. It would certainly ask different questions of the Swedish defence because Gerrard is much harder to read than Owen up front. He is capable of shooting from 35 yards as shown against West Ham on Saturday in the FA Cup Final.

No doubt Lasse Lagerbäck will be scribbling in his notebooks, trying to figure how best to cope with this eventuality. Still, by the time we play England we should already have qualified for the knockout stage of the tournament.