KEITH MENARY assesses the various claims of England’s sudden assortment of defenders

Ashley Cole, Leighton Baines, Luke Shaw

For those of us who cut our football teeth in the pre-Premier League era, the English game was an altogether simpler affair. Centre backs were huge beasts who fed on the blood of skinny forwards with mullets, midfielders roamed muddy wastelands in search of ankles to gnaw and attackers were divided into two clearly defined camps – big ‘uns and little ‘uns. Tactics? They were left to the mathematicians and the likes of Charles Hughe...