[funkdoctorspock]

Hilarious. Won't happen.

England is exceptionally strong in midfield. While Scholes would immediately boost England, the reality is... he is retired from International duty.

Furthermore, Scholes gets so much more rest now, that when he plays for United, he's fresher.

Match up playing either Lampard or Gerrard to the opposition. One starts, one comes on later.

Man, being an England NT fan is just depressing at times. The answers seem really simple, but no manager seems to get it right.

Comeback for Paul Scholes high on Fabio Capello's agenda

Fabio Capello, the England manager, plans to name an extended squad of 30 for the spring internationals against the United States and Trinidad & Tobago and is considering one final attempt to coax Paul Scholes out of international retirement.

Still casting around for a way to bring the best out of Wayne Rooney and increasingly worried by the inability of his team to keep possession, Capello is set to appeal to the 33-year-old Manchester United midfield player, who announced in August 2004 that he had finished with international football.

Steve McClaren, the former England head coach, made four unsuccessful attempts to persuade Scholes to change his mind and it is similarly unlikely that Capello will succeed, but he hopes that Scholes could be tempted by one last crack at a leading international tournament, with the prospect of playing an important role in England's 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign. Scholes will be halfway to his 36th birthday when the finals begin, but Capello is more concerned with what his intelligent passing could bring to England's midfield now, particularly his experience in bringing the best out of Rooney at United.

Capello intends to use the international matches in May and June to determine the key personnel who will form the backbone of his team next season and wants to make his approach to Scholes soon. The United playmaker has been an important figure for his club this season, not least during the 2-0 victory away to AS Roma in the Champions League.

Scholes won 66 caps for England, the last in the European Championship quarter-final defeat by Portugal in 2004, but he became increasingly frustrated with Sven-Göran Eriksson's decision to play him on the wide left of midfield rather than in his preferred central role. There would be no such problem with Capello, who has earmarked where he wishes Scholes to play, if he is open to a return.

There will be several player switches during the spring internationals as Capello searches for the right pairings and others who could feature include Dean Ashton, the West Ham United striker. Capello may also give Stewart Downing, the Middlesbrough winger, a chance to impress.

Capello regards the ten days he will spend with the players over this period as significant in assessing how open they are to his ideas and training methods. He has been frustrated by the lack of access to the squad, spending only three days together before the friendly matches against Switzerland and France, and was hampered further last month by the scheduling of big matches involving Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool on the Sunday before the game against France.

Comeback for Paul Scholes high on Fabio Capello's agenda | Football - Times Online

[Dirtycheat]

scholes talked so much about his reasons for retiring and not much has changed since then.

He is still a family man, he has only got older since then and im not sure if he would want to actually put himself through that again.

England had their chance, they played him left mid and made him hate international football after the amount of stick he got too.

England have Hargo, carrick, Barry, Gerrard, Lampard, jenas etc etc to chose from anyway.

[ZEUS]

I don't think he'll return. He will be exhausted after international games.

Plus, if Scholsey returns to England squad, that's more chances to get injured. And we really don't need injured players.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by ZEUS

I don't think he'll return. He will be exhausted after international games.

Plus, if Scholsey returns to England squad, that's more chances to get injured. And we really don't need injured players.

+1 here mate, i think i wont go back to his decision for many reasons, he is older now and he needs more time to recover his fitness after a match and plus of that many guys tried to change up his mind and they couldn't .

[GocartMozart]

Scholesy is going to be part of the blame no matter what happens. It is easy for England fans to say, we failed because Paul Scholes wasn't an option. It's England and no matter what, there will be some turd columnist or mental midget that comes up with this rubbish. The point of it is, that Paul sees more value in him playing for United half the year, staying at home with the family and not being in the added spot light of being in England's midfield.

There will be several player switches during the spring internationals as Capello searches for the right pairings and others who could feature include Dean Ashton, the West Ham United striker. Capello may also give Stewart Downing, the Middlesbrough winger, a chance to impress.

speaking of mental midgets, if he really chooses Downing over cole, England deserve their fate.