Gunn keeps fingers crossed for Green

DAVID CUFFLEY

City goalkeeping great Bryan Gunn will be keeping his fingers crossed for Robert Green over the weekend as Sven-Goran Eriksson prepares to name England's World Cup squad.

Green will become the third Norwich 'keeper - after Chris Woods in Mexico in 1986 and Gunn in Italy in 1990 – to go to the World Cup finals if, as expected, he is included in the party to be announced on Monday.

Green missed the final four games of the Canaries' Coca-Cola Championship season after injuring his ankle in the pre-match warm-up at Sheffield Wednesday three weeks ago.

But Gunn, capped six times by Scotland, reckons the rest will have done the 26-year-old City No 1 the power of good.

He said: "You can't take anything for granted but it would be a major surprise if Robert was not included.

"He's done well and the fact that no real pressure has been put on him to play in the last few games of the season means he should be well ahead in his recovery from his ankle injury. When he joins up with the training camp, he should be 100 per cent fit.

"England have a couple of games before the tournament and hopefully he will get a bit of action as they will want to try out all the goalkeepers.

"He did extremely well last summer on his debut against Colombia and it's a shame he hasn't played more games."

Gunn, 42, City's new community ambassador, reckons Green's almost unbroken run in the England squad points to him taking one of the three goalkeeping berths.

He said: "Back in 1990 we had a similar scenario. Jim Leighton, Andy Goram and me had been in the Scotland squad together all season. It was very much the same 1-2-3 situation as Robert has been in with Paul Robinson and David James.

"I made my debut against Egypt at Aberdeen in May and although we lost 3-1, it didn't affect my selection, and we went to Malta before the tournament for acclimatisation."