Arsenal were not much stronger than they are now. I think you must be confusing time periods if you think that is the case.
GK 1 Jens Lehmann
RB 27 Emmanuel Ebou?®
CB 28 Kolo Tour?®
CB 23 Sol Campbell
LB 3 Ashley Cole
RM 7 Robert Pir?¿s
CM 19 Gilberto Silva
CM 15 Cesc F?ábregas
LM 13 Alexander Hleb
SS 8 Fredrik Ljungberg
CF 14 Thierry Henry (c)
Substitutes:
GK 24 Manuel Almunia
DF 20 Philippe Senderos
DF 22 Ga?½l Clichy
MF 16 Mathieu Flamini
FW 9 Jos?® Antonio Reyes
FW 10 Dennis Bergkamp
FW 11 Robin van Persie
That's their CL final team and bench.
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While we're taking a stroll though memory lane, Harry managed Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Defoe at West Ham...
His 1999-2000 team had: Shaka Hislop, Trevor Sinclair, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Paolo Di Canio, Joe Cole, Neil Ruddock, Paul Kitson, Fr?®d?®ric Kanout?®, Stuart Pearce, Michael Carrick, Ian Wright.
I don't have a point about the second thing, I just found it quite funny and wanted to share.
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Harry IMO could pick his squad tomorrow if he wanted and it wouldn't be any different than if he had 6 months let alone 3 weeks, as would Hodgson.
Yes and no...
I don't think both would have kept tabs on Scott Carson and other players outside the PL. (Although I don't think either would bring back Beckham and I can't think of other players that would be worth keeping an eye on outside of the PL.)
As far as watching your opposition, that's something time would help with.
When it comes to PL players, sure they might know Ruddy, Foster, etc, but picking a 2nd and 3rd choice might not be automatic. Plus Harry might have needed time to talk David James into coming back.
The starting keeper picks himself, the right backs are obvious, the CBs are going to be dodgy. Terry being an accused racist won't help, Ferdinand and Terry have that Wayne Bridge and Terry fibe going... They both know Cahill, Roy might not know the Spurs options, although Dawson is going to be injured and he won't take a punt on King. (After the last half of the season, I'm not sure many of us would take a punt on King, as opposed to before the City game, when a lot of us might have.) Phil Jagielka is another CB option, so they should have preferrences. Left back should be easy, Cole and Baines pick themselves, although Capello preferred Warnock to Baines...
Midfielders, how much are you taking form into this? Sure, DM options are about consistency, but CM and AM might be able goalscoring form, or even taking a close look at Gerrard and comparing him to before his injuries.
Wingers might fall into two classes, goalscoring wingers and playmaker wingers. (For lack of a better term. I probably should have said "the other types" to allow for hardworking Milner types.) The goalscoring ones might depend on form... Especially if you throw people like Sturridge into this, his form in the first half of the season was amazing, in the second half he's been meh.
Strikers might need form looked at too.
Plus, if you take a look at the teams you're playing in your group, you might want players for certain games. I don't know International football very well at all, but I know for club football, it's nice to have an option... In certain games you might want someone to come in like Park does for United, rare appearances for certain types of games... If a team played like Stoke, you might want to have Crouch to defend long throws and stuff. If you play against fast counter-attacking teams, maybe you'd want a fast DM (although Jones as a utility player should get picked and might fill that role.)
I honestly don't know how managers pick international squads.
That said Capello was fudging awful in the World Cup. Joe Cole's specialty is playing against semi-pro footballers, dribbling around two of them by fudging up some tricks and thus creating chances against awful teams.
We didn't play him against weaker teams, we played him against Germany, the worst possible game to play him in.
Heskey was brought on against Germany when we needed to score too... fudge me, I know Shrek and Donkey belong together, but what the fudge was Capello thinking?
Capello's CV is one of the best in the world too, so if he did strange things like that, I've got no hope predicting what Roy will do. (Although Roy isn't stupid. He's usually very very clever with his game plans and substitutes. So I have more faith in that type of situation than I would with Harry throwing Defoe on in place of a midfielder whenever we were chasing a game.)
