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At 2pm today England manager Roy Hodgson will be announcing his World Cup squad.

But, if you can't wait that long, one company has already picked the starting 11 according to Twitter.

By counting the number popular tweets versus negative a players gets, telecommunications firm WDS has put together their own England squad.

Is this how England will line up against Italy in their first game of the Brazil World Cup? It is according to company WDS, who have compiled a starting England 11 based on player's popularity on Twitter (denoted by number here) ahead of Roy Hodgson's squad announcement today

The company uses something known as Empath, which they say is a 'next-generation listening platform.'

It is used to monitor messages on social media.

In this case it has been used to keep an eye on Twitter ahead of the England Squad announcement.

'Empath collected tweets that mentioned England players and Hodgson,' the company said in an email.

'For the players, it was trained to recognise the syntax relating to wanting a player in the team as positive and out of the team as negative.'

'To build the England XI we used the volume of positive mentions to reveal the top two rated strikers, the top four rated midfielders, the top four rated defenders and the top keeper.'

Looking through the Twitter-picked squad, there are a few surprises.

In goal, as has been throughout England's qualifying campaign and thus expected to start, is Manchester City's Joe Hart.

At the back, while Liverpool's Glen Johnson and Chelsea's Gary Cahill are certainties to be picked, John Terry has long been ruled out of England contention.

Ashley Cole, meanwhile, today announced his international retirement after being informed by Hodgson he would not be in the squad, although clearly the Twitter users were keen for him to go to Brazil.

It's not surprising to see Wayne Rooney (middle) ease his way into the Twitter popularity list, but the omission of Southampton's Luke Shaw (left) and Liverpool's Raheem Sterling (right) is a surprise, although the data was taken a month ago before their late season surges in form

In midfield the Twitter users have picked some sure-fire selections, including Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard and United midfielder Michael Carrick.

Ross Barkley, however, is a youngster that has yet to break into the squad but many are touting as a surprise inclusion.

Perhaps also surprisingly is Tom Cleverley's pick as the number one most popular Twitter player, having been the subject of a fan-led petition to make sure he is not picked for England back in February.

Upfront, meanwhile, Rooney and Sturridge are also certainties to head to Brazil.

WPS says their team is closely aligned with the bookies' picks, aside from Terry and Cole's exclusion.

The company also measured the popularity of Hodgson, and found it to be at a rather favourable 100 per cent positive.

'For Hodgson, Empath was trained to measure positive and negative sentiment,' the company adds.

'We have created the 'Hod-o-meter' feature because this particular figure is changing all the time.

'For instance, after the news that Cole didn't make the team, initial analysis revealed that 61% of fans thought Hodgson made the wrong choice (had negative sentiment toward this decision).

'Within the hour, this dropped to 73 per cent.'

At the last World Cup WPS says a record 143,199 tweets per second were posted.

They also say over 10 million World Cup-related tweets have been posted since the start of the year.