5 England World Cup Decisions That Should Haunt Roy Hodgson

2. The Non-Selection Of John Terry And Ashley Cole

If the Liverpool formation and use of English players was the attacking template England needed to use in Brazil, then the Chelsea€™s English trio of Terry, Gary Cahill and Cole was also the foundation the defence should have been built on. Unfortunately Hodgson never attempted to make this a reality. Firstly, he made the bold decision to leave out Ashley Cole. Both Leighton Baines and Luke Shaw had been pushed heavily for the starting left-back berth by the media, but neither were a better option than Cole, even at his advancing age. Yes, it could be argued that Baines excellent form at Everton and Cole's lack of consistent game time for Chelsea meant that the latter's days as first choice were no longer set in stone, but his 107 cap experience and his status as unquestionably England's best ever left-back were too valuable to leave at home. Even while not playing regularly, Cole produced two fantastic end of season performances versus Atletico Madrid and Liverpool that highlighted his prowess was still elite. Hodgson could and should have rotated Baines and Cole depending on the opposition strengths, because both of them have different positive and negative points. Luke Shaw€™s time could have come during the EURO 2016 qualifiers. The second issue was the touchy topic of trying to bring back Terry. Obviously the Chelsea stopper had retired from national team duties in September 2012, feeling his position was "untenable" after the FA pursued allegations of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand even after the courts cleared him, but his performances for Chelsea were so good, that it was in England€™s interest for Hodgson, Terry and the FA to have a adult discussion to see if a recall was possible. The threat of the Premier League€™s leading scorer, Luis Suarez loomed large and in both Chelsea/Liverpool fixtures, Chelsea won and Suarez didn€™t score, which made the case for the Chelsea trio starting for England compelling. Last month, Martin Samuel of the Daily Mail revealed that FA Chairman, Greg Dyke, told Hodgson if he wanted to persuade Terry out of international retirement, the chairman would make it happen. But Hodgson declined the offer. If this is true and he chose to stick by the Jagielka/Cahill partnership - who to be fair did well in qualifiers - the events of the World Cup sadly exposed Hodgson's flawed judgement. The fact is England€™s defence would have been stronger with Terry in it. Of course there is no guaranteed his presence would have prevented Balotelli and Suarez from scoring, but at least if they had England fans would have accepted they did it against the nation€™s best available defence.