Alan Shearer has risked the wrath of West Ham United fans over a glaring omission from his ultimate England XI ahead of the World Cup.
West Ham United fans take great pride in the club’s rich history of producing players for the national team.
Historically the Hammers have been a great conveyor belt of talent providing the England team with countless players over the years.
From the days of World Cup winning trio Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters right through to present day with Aaron Cresswell and Michail Antonio called up under Gareth Southgate.
West Ham have three FA Cups and a European Cup Winners Cup to their name as major honours but are widely considered the biggest club not to have won the league title.
Given the quality players the club has produced over the years West Ham should have achieved more.
So supporters take great pride in – and are often mocked for – laying claim to having played a key part in England’s solitary World Cup win back in 1966.
Led by Hammers legend Bobby Moore and with West Ham’s Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters getting the goals in the 4-2 triumph in the final, England beat Germany to lift the Jules Rimet.
Indeed Hurst remains the only player in history to have ever scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final.
But Premier League and England legend Shearer has somehow deemed Hurst not good enough to make his ultimate England XI which he put together for Coral.
Not only did Shearer name himself in the team ahead of Hurst, he also failed to include the Hammers hero in his squad despite loading it with strikers.
Shearer even failed to mention Hurst when apologising for leaving out the likes of Kevin Keegan and Frank Lampard.
“If I am allowed to pick myself, I will,” Shearer told Coral.
“The reason, I’d absolutely love to play with this team, there’s so much quality they’d create chances galore for a centre forward. And if I don’t play then Gary Lineker would have to, and we can’t have that!
“You can tell I’m a forward as I’ve gone for an extremely attacking bench! (Shilton, Lineker, Rooney, Beardsley). It was a tough call picking this team because I have left out the likes of Kevin Keegan, who was my hero, plus Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, but I simply could not include them all.”
Shearer’s Ultimate England XI in full
Manager: Sir Bobby Robson
GK: Gordon Banks
D: Phil Neal, Ashley Cole, Bobby Moore (Cpt), Tony Adams.
M: Bryan Robson, Paul Gascoigne, Glenn Hoddle, Sir Bobby Charlton.
F: Jimmy Greaves, Alan Shearer.
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