Carroll to start for England

England manager Roy Hodgson has revealed Liverpool duo Andy Carroll and Steven Gerrard will start the friendly against Norway on Saturday.

Gerrard has been selected as captain of the team and will lead the side out in the Hodgson’s first game in charge of England.

His Anfield team-mate, Carroll, had an excellent end to the 2011/12 season, which propelled him into the 23-man Euro 2012 squad ahead of Daniel Sturridge and Peter Crouch.

“Carroll will start,” Hodgson told reporters on Friday.

“He ended the season really well. The back four takes care of itself. Steven Gerrard will start.”

Gerrard also threw his support behind Carroll, and said the striker started to look ‘unplayable’ towards the end of the English Premier League season.

“He looks awesome at the moment. Towards the end of the season, he was getting better and better for Liverpool,” Gerrard said.

“He was becoming unplayable, he is looking sharp and lean and if he can take his form from the end of the season into these England games, he will be a big plus to this team.

“Defences will find it very difficult to play against Andy Carroll in this tournament in that sort of form.”

Another former player of Hodgson’s during his short spell at Liverpool, Glen Johnson, is sidelined for the friendly with a toe injury, while Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck will also miss.

The game is the first of two matches England will play ahead of Euro 2012, with the second against Belgium at Wembley.

When asked how he felt England were shaping up for the tournament, Hodgson said: “I think quite good.

“Certainly I’ve been impressed with the enthusiasm and the energy the players have brought to the training sessions.

“But again we are actually missing probably a third of the squad, and of that third there are quite a few very important players that as yet I haven’t had the chance to work with or see in action.”

Meanwhile, Fulham full-back John Arne Riise said Norway were looking forward to the test of playing against England.

“This is a dream to play against England at home because the Premier League is very famous and it’s a dream for us. It’s going to be a big test,” Riise said.

“We need to work as players and we’ll need to be at our best to have a chance to win.”

Norway defender Brede Hangeland, a team-mate of Riise’s at Craven Cottage, said he was interested to see how England performed under Hodgson.

“I think he (Hodgson) has a very clear philosophy of how we wants his team to play and it takes a lot of work on the training ground so it will be interesting to see how much they’ve done in terms of that,” Hangeland said.

Hangeland also spoke about Carroll, and said the former Newcastle striker was a ‘handful’ to mark.

“He had a very strong finish to the season and hopefully for England he’ll carry that form into the European championships, so that’ll be a tough challenge for us,” he said.

“First and foremost because he’s so big and strong – he’s an old fashioned English target man and very dangerous in the box for crosses. He’s a handful.”