New England managers have a habit of springing a few surprises when they name their first squads:

Steve McClaren (friendly v Greece, Aug 2006)
Wanting to be seen as his own man and to signal a fresh start after the failure at the World Cup finals, he included 11 players who had not gone to Germany in his first squad. Two Charlton Athletic players were in the 25 and Kieran Richardson and Jermaine Jenas were in midfield, but not David Beckham.

McClaren picked Luke Young and Darren Bent, who were Charlton players at the time, sent Theo Walcott back to the under21s and included Jermain Defoe, who had been left out of the World Cup party. While Beckham’s omission made the biggest headlines, McClaren excluded David James in favour of Ben Foster and picked Michael Dawson ahead of Sol Campbell. He did recall Phil Neville, though.

Sven-Göran Eriksson (friendly v Spain, Feb 2001)
England’s first foreign coach hedged his bets by naming a 31-man squad. If that gave the impression that he did not know English football well enough to make confident judgments, so did one or two – or three, or four – of his selections. There were six uncapped players: Ashley Cole, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Michael Ball, Gavin McCann and Chris Powell, pictured below, who was 31 at the time and who said he was “stunned”. Dennis Wise and Paul Ince were notable omissions.

Powell would make five appearances, but Ball and McCann were one-cap wonders. Ugo Ehiogu played for the first time in five years.

Kevin Keegan (Euro 2000 qualifier v Poland, March 1999)
Keegan, appointed initially on a temporary basis after Glenn Hoddle’s abrupt departure, had watched only one top-flight match in the flesh because of his commitments to Fulham. His squad of 24 showed six differences from Hoddle’s last selection and underlined Keegan’s bold nature.

He called up Chris Sutton, who had refused to play for the England B team, Ray Parlour, who asked Eileen Drewery for a “short back and sides” when Hoddle’s favourite faith healer offered her help, and Andrew Cole, who fell out with the former manager. He included Robbie Fowler and Graeme Le Saux despite their antipathy. The generosity did not extend to an unfit Paul Gascoigne. Keegan dropped Dion Dublin and Paul Merson but unexpectedly included the 30-year-old Tim Sherwood, who would win the first of his three caps. Two promising youngsters, Steven Gerrard and Jonathan Woodgate, were invited along for experience.

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