Sven Goran Eriksson has made up his mind about his starting XI at his last tournament as England coach, and only injuries are likely to lead to the Swede reshuffling his pack, despite substitutions against Trinidad that you could describe as being more positive than usual, with Aaron Lennon coming on to make his World Cup debut.
But if England struggle the way they did against Paraguay and Trinidad, Eriksson must be more bold and bring on Carrick, a player who Manchester United have bid £15 million for, in place of Frank Lampard which will allow Steven Gerrard to bomb forward much more.
Alan Smith had a go at filling Roy Keane's boots at Old Trafford last season. Other than the converted striker, no English player has played in midfield for United since David Beckham left for Real Madrid. According to reports in The Guardian, Spurs have already bid for St Etienne's Ivory Coast midfielder Didier Zakora and Blackburn Rovers' Steven Reid.
In contrast Owen Hargreaves is good at what he does but Carrick is capable of much more than that. Red Issue expect United to miss out on signing any of the midfielders the club is targetting this summer – which would be good news for Spurs fans.
Steven Gerrard, England's top performer last Saturday despite a very long season and goalscorer on Thursday, said: "If we'd got a second goal (against Paraguay) we would have been more comfortable, but instead we got more nervous. Trinidad had so many men behind the ball that we ended up trying to force passes instead of being patient and keeping the ball moving. It was frustrating, because we really struggled to break them down until the subs came on." (The Sun)
Former Spurs trainee, Peter Crouch admitted: "We wanted to go on and score more goals against Paraguay but the heat took its toll and we felt drained." (Daily Mirror)
John Lawrence, press secretary for Dulwich Hamlets, who Crouch joined from Spurs on loan before a move to QPR for £60,000 at the age of 19, said: "Never in a million years did we think he would end up playing for England."
Crouch and Gerrard both picked up yellow cards against Paraguay, the 6'7" targetman for using his elbows to gain leverage to get his head to balls pumped up to him. Crouch reckoned that he could get away with it in the Premiership, but Mido will have bad memories of being shown a red card near the start of last season for similar in a league game against Chelsea. Nevertheless against Trinidad, the Liverpool striker got away with a tug at the his opposite number's dreadlocks as he rose highest to head England into the lead.
Eriksson changed things around before the hour mark in both games and Michael Owen who had only returned to action in the build up to the tournament, after a five-month lay off with injury was the player to make way.
Matt Dickinson in The Times wrote: ‘Progress in these World Cup finals will be very difficult unless Owen is scoring, particularly given that Wayne Rooney is still feeling his way back from a fractured foot, and the England coaches will be aware that ill-intentioned opponents may want to test it out.'
Eriksson leaped to Owen's defence after suggestions of a rift. He said: "For me Michael Owen has got better and better. Against Trinidad he was very good. I don't think he was tired but I wanted to change something because we hadn't scored a goal. I could have taken off Crouch but we needed him to mark their centre-back Dennis Lawrence at set-pieces because he was as tall as Crouch."
"Owen last played a competitive match a long time ago. There was just one appearance at the end of the season but the last game before that was December 31. So you couldn't expect him to be 100 per cent. Of course he was not happy. He was disappointed because he wanted to play 90 minutes but in training Owen has been very, very good." (The Sun)
Rick Broadbent in The Times wrote, 'If Crouch's all-round involvement spares him the "wrath" of Eriksson, it is worth remembering that he needs to do more because he is not the finisher that Owen is.'
Eriksson doesn't seem to be very keen on goalscorers, having already left a proven one behind, and taken another he hadn't seen play to the World Cup in his place.
Elsewhere, Young-Pyo Lee played all of South Korea's 2-1 defeat of Togo to top Group G after the first game.
Chun-Soo Lee levelled the score with a free-kick after 54 minutes before Jung-Hwan Ahn scored the winner 18 minutes from time.
Lee told Tottenham's official website: "The heat was tough on all of us but we drank a lot of water to stay hydrated. We were pretty nervous in the first half but that completely went away and we got the result we wanted."