Glenn Hoddle is now putting faith to the ultimate test. The England coach believes that Darren Anderton can make the World Cup squad he will be announcing in three weeks, which is not so much a matter of making the lame walk, as trusting that groin strains will not intervene once the running starts in earnest.
Hoddle watched Anderton and Matthew Le Tissier performing on opposite sides when Tottenham met Southampton at White Hart Lane on Sunday, and it was the Spurs man's greater influence over the whole game which kept him in with a chance for France. For Le Tissier, along with Stuart Pearce, Andy Cole, Ray Parlour, Dominic Matteo and Kevin Pressman, that chance has now gone.
Anderton is among the 30 players from whom Hoddle will choose his 22. The squad he announced yesterday will form the basis for England's last three warm-up matches, starting with the visit of Saudi Arabia to Wembley on Saturday week followed by the games against Morocco and Belgium in Casablanca in the Hassan II International Cup.
The fact that Hoddle has included a match-unfit Gascoigne and is also prepared to give both Anderton and Jamie Redknapp opportunities to make the squad is a measure of how thin the England coach's resources are in the creative areas. Redknapp's hopes seemed to have disappeared when he was injured in a tackle with Dion Dublin during Liverpool's match at Coventry three weeks ago but clearly Hoddle has not given up on him.
The presence of a fully-fit, inform Anderton in France would give England considerable encouragement. It would also mean Hoddle being less dependent on David Beckham on the right.
Plagued by injuries since Euro '96, Anderton has only recently returned for Tottenham but impressed Hoddle in the recent England B match against Russia in which Le Tissier scored a memorable hat-trick. It was Anderton's versatility that Hoddle noted and in a squad suffering a surfeit of strikers, Le Tissier was thus ruled surplus to requirements.
"Darren is a very talented player," said Hoddle, "and he has proved that over the last few games.'
"His fitness for Spurs on Sunday was as good as anybody on the pitch. He just needs to get used to a match tempo.
"Matthew can only really play in one position. He was very close to the squad but at the end of the day he has not done enough to force his way in."
Most of England's World Cup places are spoken for. Of the outfield players in the present squad, Rio Ferdinand, Nicky Butt, Robert Lee and Paul Merson look nearest the fringe, while it may yet be touch and go between Ian Wright and Les Ferdinand for the last place among the strikers.
