Roy Hodgson – England manager cum lost and bewildered owl in the body of a sickly duke – has today announced his provisional 26-man Euro 2016 England squad, and that sound you hear is me shouting "ENGLAND!" as loud as it is possible for a human to make a sound while simultaneously honking a big air horn, in the office, a thing I am doing because we're going to win it, boys! We're going to win the bloody thing! ENGLAND!

Well, mm. Well I mean: maybe we are going to win it, boys. There is always this false and fleeting hope about England, in the weeks before a major tournament, that tiny flutter of, "We can't, can we?" that soon amplifies to "WE BLOODY CAN! WE BLOODY FUCKING CAN!" when Wayne Rooney scores a six-yard tap-in to settle the first group game 1–0, an anxious kind of hope that soon dissipates 120 minutes into the first knockout game when, with the inevitability of the sun following the moon, we are forced to end a dreary 1–1 draw with a penalty shootout, which we lose, and then our Brave English Boys come back dejected, and we all call them shit and/or shits, and so the dance continues.

First glance at this provisional England squad says there is a heady mix of up-for-it youth, raw but in-form strikers, and pedigree squad players with plenty of experience, and that we are going to win it. A closer look reveals Fabian Delph. So truly, the question is: are these Brave English Boys brave and English enough to win it for us? Or are they shit and we're going to be shit? The only way to know is with deep and mostly fact-free analysis.

Joe Hart is being taken because he's an entirely decent if underwhelming goalkeeper. He also has the same sort of sneery face that lads at my school had when they were sporty but also bang into pornography. Joe Hart with a little book he keeps to know who's lended what out. He's tapping Dele Alli on the shoulder and leaning over his chair and asking him where Exxxtreme European MILFs is. Dele Alli knows he left it in Nice and is having a sweat attack. This is the role Joe Hart plays.

Fraser Forster is going because he's an excellent backup goalkeeper but is also a fucking unit, he's ten or 12 metres larger than any player going to the European Championships, his neck is about as thick as Jamie Vardy's entire body, and should the entire England squad get in a street fight – I am imaging a sort of sub-European Championship competition where all of the squads meet after midnight in quiet alleyways to ruck down and have dance-offs – then Fraser Forster is a secret weapon. He can lift up and break Marco Veratti over his leg like a breadstick.

I have no confirmation that Tom Heaton actually exists – I've Googled him and he looks like a police e-fit head Photoshopped onto a wide Burnley goalkeeper's body, like the Burnley first choice goalkeeper inexplicably had to go into witness protection, and this was the way Google dealt with that? – and as such can only assume his inclusion is something untoward, some tax loophole, Tom Heaton somehow ticking the 'from the Championship but also does not exist' box, Tom Heaton a figment of all our imaginations, Tom Heaton technically a collective hallucination, Tom Heaton – or the shape and form we imagine Tom Heaton to be – is proof of the existence of God, because only a true deity could trick an entire nation into thinking a goalkeeper who patently does not exist actually exists, Tom Heaton in an England goalkeeper kit is essentially St. Elmo's fire, and we should fear him.

John Stones has the most English haircut and the most English name possible, there is no more English a name than 'John Stones', there is no more English a haircut than his set-a-clock-by-it short back and sides, if you found a way to airbrush John Stones into photos of the 1966 victory parade then I'm not sure anyone would really notice, John Stones is essentially the village's sweet tall boy who went off to war and never came back, only instead of getting shot to death by Nazis he accidentally warped through a wormhole and ended up playing centre back in an underwhelming Everton 2016 season and now he's going to the Euros. John Stones is the lad in the canteen who loses his shit at a courgette because he's never seen one before. And good on him for making it this far.

Gary Cahill is there to tell all the other boys to stop pissing about and go to bed. That's Gary Cahill's England squad catchphrase. "Stop pissing about and go to bed." Dele Alli's up late playing his handheld Transformers electronic game, and Gary Cahill swings the door in, wearing nothing but a towel, and points a single finger into the air. "Stop pissing about," he says, "and go to bed." Zero appearances.

In an alternative life Chris Smalling is that lad who was so failed by your secondary school that they decided to give him a job there when he finished his GCSEs, just pottering about, Chris Smalling, Chris Smalling getting really good at cleaning the changing rooms, Chris Smalling preternaturally good at getting chewing gum wads out of urinals. Chris Smalling seems like that one lad in your group who you get talking to at the pub one night and realise he has some marvellous and huge gap in his knowledge – Chris Smalling never realised the moon was real, or something, Chris Smalling always thought pirates were a myth – and you have to slowly explain this to him, and he just sips his pint and goes, "Yeah, mad. I never knew that." He is our first choice centre back for the European Championships.

I like Kyle Walker a lot because he is a footballer who runs primarily with his shoulders and an upright spine, and I like that, I like that nobody has ever sat him down and said, "Kyle," explaining slowly, "Kyle: have you tried running with your legs? You might go even faster", Kyle Walker blinking once or twice and trying it, doing little shuttles in the garden, wrapping his arms and shoulders in duct tape to stop them from moving, going, "Yeah!", going, "I do move faster when I run with my legs instead of excessive movement from my shoulders!", and I just like that about him. It's old school, you know? He is my first choice pick for RB for this very reason.

I once watched Nathaniel Clyne silently and banterlessly win a FIFA 16 tournament held at a cinema in Fulham, and when you really zoom out and think about that, we both look quite pathetic – Nathaniel Clyne, face a picture of silent concentration, emotionlessly dispatching John Ruddy from a FIFA tournament, and me, wasting my Monday evening watching him while sat in a cinema chair, drinking a warm beer and listening to Adebayo Akinfenwa do a fake post-match analysis of why he lost the game (which boiled down essentially to him saying "I was too strong!" and flexing his arms a lot, all the while wearing a rhinestone embroidered Akinfenwa-brand hat) all in the vague hope I could blag a free copy of FIFA 16 on PS4. For being responsible for one of my least-treasured ever memories, Nathaniel Clyne, you should be cut from the Euro 2016 26-man squad.

Danny Rose has a sleeve tattoo and occasionally wears coloured football boots despite not being officially recognised as the best player in the world, so he may as well have been custom-raised in a lab to give your dad a heart attack when he makes his 79th minute bow in an underwhelming group game, your dad up and out of his big chair clutching his chest, your dad gasping, "BOBBY… MOORE… DIDN'T… DIE…. FOR THIS!"

Ryan Bertrand is a left back who plays for Southampton FC. There is literally nothing else you can say about him. I think if you asked Ryan Bertrand to add an additional fact about himself to those two previous facts then he would struggle and have to ask his mum for help.

I cannot think of a single reason Fabian Delph is in the England squad unless he is notably bad at FIFA on the PlayStation and is being bought in as some sort of gee-up FIFA ringer for the lads on the edge of the squad, the only way we can build Marcus Rashford's confidence enough is to let him donk Fabian Delph 6–0 on two-player mode, Fabian Delph little more than a sacrificial lamb who exists only to make the other players feel better about themselves.

You know that kid in Breaking Bad who was large and blonde and emotionless and shot that boy in the desert without his heart rate even raising one beat? Well he's playing for Spurs now and he's going with England to the European Championships. And in a way this gives me hope: that if we bring Eric Dier and his 'I killed animals as a boy and I enjoy killing animals now' vibe to the Euros with us, that maybe we are on the cusp of harking it back to the good old days of England, when hardness was a skill coveted above all others, of Paul Ince and Terry Butcher clanging their foreheads into each other like proud bleeding stags, of Dennis Wise celebrating a debilitating two-footed tackle with all the enthusiasm of an actual goal, Martin Keown running through light-footed continental flair players like a hedgehog being gone over by a truck. The only way we're going to win Euro '16 is if we treat it less like a football tournament and more like an alleyway knife fight. And on that basis, Eric Dier should be captain.

Dele Alli is a pesky little lizard and I am a big fan of his. England vice-captain imo.

I don't remember what Raheem Sterling did this season beyond transfer to Man City for £40m+, but I feel like he is capable of wearing more simultaneous pairs of Beats by Dre headphones than anyone else on earth, Sterling somehow wearing three pairs of Beats stacked on top of each other, a couple more pairs around his neck, a Beats Pill in each pocket, Raheem Sterling needing a team intervention to tell him he can't take his swegway onto the pitch with him.

Ross Barkley sells individual tabs for 50p each because his dad's mate brings them over for him from the Costa del Sol every time he visits and he gets them really cheap. Ross Barkley has to borrow socks from one of the other lads because he only bought to pack a big Nike holdall full of cigarettes and the tracksuit he flew in and that's it.

I have figured out what James Milner's role in the England squad is besides corners, and it's this: James Milner is there to tell the lads to be quiet in the canteen when Roy Hodgson doesn't quite dare tell them to be quiet. Dele Alli is getting all wound up by the other lads, and he's showing off, he's being energetic, he's up on a table saying "look at me! Look at me! I'm Dele Alli!", and James Milner – sat on a table with Roy Hodgson and nobody else – walks over there, and says, "Dele: cut it out," and Dele runs off to his room crying, and Jamie Vardy has to go and take him a tray of pudding and make sure he's okay.

I like Andros Townsend because his career is a monument to It Going Wrong – he spent seven years at Tottenham and managed about 50 appearances, and then finally – when Tottenham were doing the best they've done in years, when young British talent was forming the core of a title-challenging team – he left, and instead went to Newcastle and was unleashed, finally owning the wing like he was supposed to, making forward passes to literally nobody and interconnecting with no one because Newcastle are shit, and then he got relegated, and it's like: Andros Townsend, mate, when are things going to go right for you? He has all the attributes of an elite footballer but it just never quite happens for him. He's absolutely nailed on to miss a crucial penalty in the second-round shoot out.

Adam Lallana is only there to laugh at the bigger boys' jokes. Adam Lallana just sits next to Harry Kane and Eric Dier at lunchtime and giggles nervously whenever they make even a hint of a joke so they don't beat him up. He is deeply in love with Harry Kane's sister and can't do anything about it.

Danny Drinkwater is just happy to be here. He has the most fucked up hairline I have ever seen in my life.

Jordan Henderson got confused at the door to Army Cadets once – the doors were right next to each other, he had to think fast – and then a series of miscommunications and eight years later he became Liverpool captain. He would really rather be out getting his Duke of Edinburgh award than playing for England at the European Championships, but he's here now.

See Vardy, James

I've still seen no evidence that Harry Kane isn't just one of Draco Malfoy's sidekicks off of Harry Potter, even when he's up there playing for Spurs, even when he's rocking a blatantly unmagical name like 'Harry Kane', I just always think he is capable of holding his wand back to front and accidentally turning his own head into a frog and he has to go to the Hogwarts school nurse to fix it.

The boys. The lads. The boy-lads. The blads. The bloys. The vital, essential, banter axis at the core of the England squad. Imagine going out on the shisha with Jack Wilshere. Imagine going to watch some squabbling dogs with Jamie Vardy. These are the beating banter heart, the pulse of the England squad. People say Jack Wilshere shouldn't be included because he's only played three games this season: this is technically a fact. But imagine the Roy Hodgson impression he does. Imagine him chewing on a cigar and pinging free kicks off his hotel balcony into the pool below. Now imagine him with Jamie Vardy, the dream team. Jamie Vardy struggling to navigate his iPhone with his wrist brace on but you watch for two minutes as he tries to find a "really banter" YouTube video. Jamie Vardy's Released A Live Ferret In Dele Alli's Bedroom And Everyone's Crowded Round To Watch And Listen To The Squealing. If we are going to win the European Championship this year, it will be on a bedrock of banter formed by Jamie Vardy and Jack Wilshere. They don't even need to play. They just need to be there.

World's most expensive potato.

Continuing the rich tradition of 'Liverpool strikers who dance when they score for England' after Peter Crouch started it in 2006.

Basically only invited along so Dele Alli has someone to play Pokémon cards with.

If you want banter, these lads will bring you the banter. Andy Carroll turns up with two cases of Carling under each arm. Kevin Nolan doing a chicken dance and aggressively roughing up Dele Alli for his pocket money. Jimmy Bullard, pale and naked, dancing erotically for your approval. And all of them, for six days, are only capable of saying on word, in a low loud hum: "waaaaaaAAAAAAY!" Bring these three to the football – lose Delph, lose Rashford, consider whether or not Adam Lallana has a place here – and a load of big England flags, and we will win the tournament. We will win the tournament.

The most English manager of all time is Big Sam Allardyce, and even if he just does the warm up drills and calls Raheem Sterling "a big fucking flannel" he will buoy the spirits and teach England to donk it up to the big man, and he will improve them immeasurably.

I have a theory that the core reason Wayne Rooney has underperformed for England so consistently is that we make him play within these constraints of being a professional athlete who has to maintain a certain level of weight and fitness, and we feed him pasta and make him go on running machines, essentially treating him like a greyhound confined to a cage, and in fact the best way to get the Real Wayne Rooney, the Rooney he wants to be, is to let him have a load of fry ups and cigarettes, and a hot wet chip butty before the game, and honestly I think that'll cheer him up enough to get a hat trick every single game, especially if we let him have a can at half time. Thus concludes my three-point plan.

Oh, out in the group stage. Won't even beat Wales.

@joelgolby

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