20 QUESTIONS THAT MCCLAREN SHOULD HAVE ANSWERED AND THAT
HE CAN'T POSSIBLY ESCAPE NOW
20 questions Steve McClaren is afraid to answer. We might need a
bit longer than 115 seconds, Steve.
1. Was Frank Lampard fit to play against Andorra on Wednesday
night?
2. Was Lampard dropped?
Advertisement3. If he was dropped, why was McClaren afraid to admit
it?
4. Did the condition of Lampard's wrist injury deteriorate before
or after McClaren had told the players the team?
5. If Lampard had been ruled out by his wrist injury, why did
England doctor Leif Sward tell a reporter from Sky Television he
was fit minutes before Wednesday night's game?
6. If Lampard was fit, why wasn't he sitting on the England
bench?
7. Were England's medical team able to provide a cast for Lampard's
injured arm that would have been acceptable to the match
officials?
8. Did McClaren offer Lampard a place among the England substitutes
and if not, why not?
9. If McClaren was only forced to leave Lampard out because of
injury, was he really going to drop Owen Hargreaves, the man he had
described a couple of weeks earlier as the team's 'glue', if
Lampard had been fit?
10. If Lampard was fit, as Sward said, why did McClaren allow the
FA to release a statement saying he had not picked Lampard because
he was injured?
11. Will Lampard start the match away in Estonia in June?
12. Why did McClaren attend a meeting called by Lampard on
Wednesday afternoon and also attended by an FA official?
13. Was there, in fact, more than one meeting surrounding the issue
of Lampard's absence?
14. Were the FA complicit in a cover-up over Lampard's
position?
15. Why were other England players astonished by McClaren's refusal
to clarify the position over Lampard?
16. Has McClaren's authority over the England team now been fatally
undermined?
17. Do FA board members know about the issues surrounding Lampard's
non-involvement in the match?
18. If they do, will that affect their loyalty towards
McClaren?
19. Is it acceptable to the FA that their manager does not consider
himself accountable to the decent majority of England
supporters?
20. Is McClaren's mismanagement of the whole issue the final
mistake that will force him out of the England job?
