Banged-up England is in serious trouble for Euro '08

Need reason to panic? England is relying on Emile Heskey, who hasn't played for the national team in more than three years. AP

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"He's England's Didier Drogba!" Huh?

If you believe Chris Kirkland, that's reason to watch England's crucial game against Israel on Saturday when his much-maligned, row Z-hitting Wigan teammate Emile Heskey puts on an England jersey for the first time in more than three years.

"He's as powerful, strong and quick as Drogba and he deserves the same respect," Kirkland went on to say. Drogba's 49 goals in the last two seasons compared to Heskey's 12 suggest otherwise.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and with an injury list longer than Heskey's Friday-night curry order, England manager Steve McClaren felt compelled to pull the none-too-prolific striker out from the international wilderness this week.

Heskey has just five goals in 43 national-team games, and his last deed in an England jersey was to clumsily concede the foul that led to Zinédine Zidane scoring in injury time in a crucial Euro 2004 game.

Normally, Heskey's call-up would simply be laughable. But things being as they are, this is approaching national crisis. England currently sits in fourth place in its Euro 2008 qualifying group, four points behind group leader Croatia with five matches to play. With games against the teams in second and third place in the group in the next five days, the England injury crisis has come at exactly the wrong time.

Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Aaron Lennon, Kieron Dyer, Sol Campbell, Ledley King, Gary Neville and Wayne Bridge are all certain to miss both games. Frank Lampard and Peter Crouch (suspended) are certain to miss Saturday's game vs. Israel, and Owen Hargreaves is also doubtful.

On top of all these injuries, McClaren faces the wrath of Liverpool boss Rafael Benítez by risking broken-toe victim Steven Gerrard. With England's qualification for Euro '08 -- and his own job -- on the line, McClaren is willing to take the risk of administering a painkilling injection to allow the star midfielder to play, potentially risking longer-term damage.

It's still not entirely clear whose call it was to give Gerrard the injection. His own? Liverpool's? The English FA? The situation has inevitably stoked the club vs. country debate, and Benítez is obviously dead-set against the idea: "We don't want Steven to play for England with any painkilling injections."

However, the Spaniard was happy for his star to play against Chelsea after getting such an injection: "We did that in the game against Chelsea and it took four days for him to recover enough to be able to return to training," Benítez said.

After witnessing Crouch take Gerrard's place in central midfield in England training on Thursday, Team Limey has wasted no time in donning our surgical mask and loading up the syringe ourselves.

With Group E leader Croatia likely to guarantee qualification with games against whipping boys Estonia and Andorra in the next week, England needs a minimum of four points out of the games against Israel and Russia to realistically maintain any hope of qualification.

But the possibility of missing out on the European Championship for the first time in 24 years is very real, and some of the England players are understandably getting nervous. Rio Ferdinand placed missing out on qualification on a par with world famine and global warming. "I cannot even contemplate not qualifying," the defender said. "If, God forbid, we failed, it would be a catastrophe."

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