Where are we going under Capello?

What a depressing squad announcement.

The return of Carson, Upson, Lescott, Jagielka and Carrick are what we get when we are promised a 'new era' after our shambolic World Cup campaign. Claims that David Stockdale was set to earn a call-up are all well and good and it would have been deserved following his start to the season but we could call me up to be 3rd choice keeper. It wouldn't make much difference. This squad demonstrates that when it comes to competitive games, Capello still cannot help but play safe and go with solid, middle-of-the-road performers instead of blooding exciting youngsters.

Those nasty rumours going around that Capello still hadn't closed the door on international returns for Beckham and Scholes sums this up for me. England's qualifying group is not exactly terrifying. We should qualify without the need for the experience of Beckham and Scholes. The European Championships are two years away, by which time the two of them will be far too old to make any sort of significant contribution. Why then do we not bring in the likes Huddlestone, Lennon, Rodwell and blood them now, meaning that by the time the European Championship comes around, players such as this will be settled within the squad and have two years international experience behind them.

The inclusion of the likes of Gibbs and Wilshere in these squads seem more like a pointless token gesture, similar to how Eriksson took Walcott to the World Cup in 2006. Neither player has made any sort of contribution to Arsenal yet and Capello knows by calling them up, he will look as if he is fulfilling his promise to blood young talent, whilst actually leaving them on the bench to play behind the likes Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips.

Maybe a part of me is a bitter Spurs fan, angry that Huddlestone and Lennon have missed out. But I'm sure not many people could argue that Huddlestone has been a better and more effective player than Carrick over the last 18 months, and the same can be said for Lennon over Walcott and Wright-Phillips. Lescott struggles to make the City team and the last time Jagielka played for England he had to come off with twisted blood after an encounter with David Villa.

With these sorts of players, yes we will qualify for the European Championships. But if we go to the Championships themselves in Poland and Ukraine with players like Carlton Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips, who quite frankly are not international quality, then it will all end in tears again.

In Joe Hart we have a new and very good goalkeeper. But so far that's it. Nothing has changed from the team that flopped so miserably in South Africa (aside from Heskey's retirement). Unfortunately I don't see this changing. Upson & co won't concede many goals against Bulgaria, Montenegro, Wales et al. Carlton Cole may even score a few goals. Capello will therefore see no reason to drop them and as soon as we come up against a decent team at Euro 2012 we will be humbled again.

Sorry if this seems overly cynical. But as Baddiel and Skinner said, 'We've seen it all before'.