Author Archives: Mike

Who Will Be England’s Player Of The Year?

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Thomas Rooney takes us through some of the candidates – and they’re not necessarily the ones you’d expect.

The FA have begun their annual search to find out who England fans rate as their player of the year for 2011. With the disappointment of 2010 well behind us, 2011 has certainly been a much brighter year for the national team, with renewed optimism about their hopes for Euro 2012.

Indeed, 2011 has been an unbeaten year for England – a year when they played the likes of Spain, among other tricky opponents, it has been the year that they scored their 2000th goal, and above all, it was the year that they qualified for the European Championships. But who has been the star player among all that?

Surprisingly, the top scorer is not Rooney, Bent or indeed any striker, but rather Ashley Young, a midfielder. For him it has been a memorable year, for both club and country. Aside from getting his big move to Manchester United in the summer, he has notched four times for the national team, and has become one of the stars of Fabio Capello’s side.

Frank Lampard is another player who has been in amongst the England goals. He has three for the year – two of which were from the penalty spot – but has played an important role for the national team. There is no writing him off just yet.

Joe Hart has now established himself as England’s first choice goalkeeper, and has put in a number of impressive displays, including keeping a clean sheet against World Champions, Spain. He will certainly consider himself a contender.

Another player to consider would be Phil Jones. The youngster has made his international breakthrough, and looks likely to be one of the stars of the future for his country. In the games he has played, he has shown great composure for a man of his experience, and is certainly showing all the signs of potential that England fans like to see.

In total, however, there are 32 candidates running for the award, and it would be impossible to make a case for all of them. For me however, the honour surely has to go to Young. Not only has he outscored all the strikers, but has been an essential cog in the works of the England midfield.

He is a player who is confident of his own abilities, and absolutely appears to have it all. He can shoot, he can pass, he can beat a man. He can play down the right, down the left, or in behind the strikers. Add to that a fantastic work rate, and you have a top player.

So take your time, play poker games and make your decision on England’s player of the year!

Are you looking to find out all of the latest football odds? Make sure you come and check out the latest odds at bwinbetting.com today and maybe even place a bet that takes your fancy!

Gary Speed 1969-2011

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If you’re reading this, you’ll be familiar with the story that broke yesterday morning.

This is one of those posts I’d have preferred not have written: it’s an unfathomable tragedy that any 42 year old family man should apparently chose to end his life in such a devastating manner. I didn’t know Gary Speed, but I knew about him: he was one of the best Welsh players of his generation and looked as if he was about to oversee a long overdue revival of the fortunes of the Welsh national team.

The strange thing about Speed’s death is that it comes within two weeks of German referee Babak Rafati attempting to commit suicide before the game between Mainz and Koln in the Bundesliga; last weekend Belgian linesman Chris Schelstraete apparently tried to emulate Herr Rafati. It’s also just over two years since I wrote about German goalkeeper Robert Enke: this article – written by the Daily Telegraph’s Sarah Crompton at the end of September is almost uncannily prescient about what happened this weekend and deserves to be read by a wider audience.

No doubt in the weeks and months to come we may find out more about the inner turmoil that Gary Speed went through on Saturday evening: but at the moment it’s a sad ending to a life that was far too short. Our thoughts and sympathies are with his family and friends: he will be missed.

Gorwedd Mewn Hedd, Gary Speed.

Results Show England Can Become European Champions – Even Without Rooney!

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Well, I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t expecting England to beat Spain – earlier on today my brother in law sent me a text saying ‘Xabi Alonso 132 passes, Scott Parker 37 passes’ which made me laugh but before I replied with ‘Frank Lampard 1, Spain 0’ I decided to be a bit more magnanimous.

The Spanish press seemed to think we’d turned into the Italians (if that’s the case, it’s taken Fab nearly four years to complete his mission) which considering the Italian record over the last four decades isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Although the win came in a friendly, it’s the first time that we’ve beaten Spain at Wembley for years and is definitely a morale booster even though it’s hard to assess what victory might mean in the long term.

One of the more positive things that has been overlooked in the aftermath of the win over the reigning world champions is that we seem to have worked out how to keep clean sheets again – both Spain and Gary Speed’s resurgent Wales side failed to score at Wembley (thanks to Rob Earnshaw there) – and it’ll be a positive note to end the year on if we can stop Sweden scoring. It’s unlikely, but I’ll come to why that might be the case in a minute.

Sweden are a different kettle of herrings to Spain: the last time we beat them in England was in May 1968 (a month after we last beat Spain at Wembley and a week before Manchester United beat Benfica in the European Cup Final) and since then we’ve drawn all four games played here. So although it’s probably fair to say that we won’t lose, a win isn’t exactly a foregone conclusion. Our all time home record against Sweden is 2-4-1 which means another stalemate is a real possibility: that outcome looks even more likely when you remember that we’ve not managed to keep three clean sheets at home for four years and tomorrow’s opponents have scored in five of their seven visits to England.

Additionally, it’s not that hard to see why we’ve had so much trouble beating them over the years – Sweden has produced some outstanding players who have had success in the UK over the last two decades, although for every Anders Limpar, Freddy Ljungberg and Henrik Larsson there’s a Thomas Brolin. Four of the current squad are playing in Britain, although only Jonas Olsson of West Brom and Sebastian Larsson of Sunderland played in Friday’s 2-0 defeat in Denmark: Olaf Mellberg and Johan Elmander will also be familiar to most fans. And then there’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic: another reason why a clean sheet might be a challenge.

Sweden’s qualification record for major tournaments is eerily similar to ours – they’ve qualified for five of the last six European Championships and three of the last five World Cups; they’ve also reached the final of the World Cup that they hosted, although they lost to Brazil. Sweden avoided the Euro 2012 playoffs having qualified for the Euros as best ‘runners up’; they also ended the Dutch record of having been unbeaten in 17 qualifiers for both the World Cup and European Championships. However, the overall the impression is that although the Swedes are formidable at home, they aren’t as impressive on the road: having won all their home qualifiers, they were thrashed 4-1 in Holland and were beaten by a last minute goal in Budapest – which also shows how much the Hungarians have improved recently.

On to the first legs of the Euro play offs and barring unprecedented and monumental disasters for Croatia and Ireland then it looks as if they’ll be joining us in Poland and the Ukraine next summer.

Croatia were a goal up within five minutes on Friday night and had beaten Turkey by half time; having suffered World Cup playoff heartache a couple of years ago, things couldn’t have gone any better for Ireland in Tallinn: two red cards for Estonia, four goals for Ireland and one foot in Poland or the Ukraine next summer. Tomas Sivok’s injury time goal for the Czech Republic looks as if it ended any chance of Montenegro qualifying for the finals and although Portugal drew in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cristiano Ronaldo and company are favourites to qualify.

Enjoy The Playoffs, The Friendlies Will Be Painful

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Before we take a look at tomorrow’s friendly against Spain, it’s worth a quick review of tonight’s playoffs for the last four places in Euro 2012.

The first thing that jumps out is the quality of the teams in the playoffs. Since Euro ’96 Croatia, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Turkey have all reached the knockout stages of at least one of the subsequent competitions with Portugal reaching the final in 2004. Or to put it another way: our record in the Euros since 1996 is the same as Croatia’s.

Ireland last qualified for the Euros in 1988 (and possibly the less said about that particular tournament the better) but what really stands out about the playoffs is that Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia and Montenegro deserve a chance to qualify.

This is easily Bosnia and Herzegovina’s best ever team: Edin Dzeko, Stoke goalkeeper Asmir Begovic and Rangers defender Sasa Papac are the players best known to British fans but with only one member of the current squad playing in the local league it’s fair to say that the ‘Dragons’ are a cosmopolitan bunch.

Montenegro are a team we’ve covered in the past so we’ll leave them alone for the time except to mention that their progress since 2007 has been frankly astonishing – according to the latest FIFA rankings there’s nothing between them and the Czechs.

As well as being arguably the weakest team currently left in the tournament, the Estonians are probably the least well known – Middlesbrough striker Tarmo Kink is hardly a household name outside Teeside – and although I’ve come across midfielder Sander Puri and striker Jarmo Ahjupera in my parallel career as a football punter, we’re generally looking at the obscure end of anyone’s knowledge of European football.

Good luck to Ireland, although you just know what’s going to happen if they qualify.

On to our game against Spain tomorrow, which has been dominated by alleged racial abuse by John Terry, the usual cretinous behaviour in Zurich (by both FIFA and the EDL) and the usual pointless speculation about Capello’s successor.

I’m not in the mood to dwell on the off field issues, especially as there are so many reasons to be pessimistic about our chances tomorrow.

We’ve lost three of our last four home games against Spain (the only win since April 1968 was in a friendly at Villa Park in February 2001) and we haven’t beaten the reigning World Cup winners at home since a 3-1 win over Argentina in May 1980. The last time we faced a team that had won the World Cup at Wembley was in February 1999 and we lost 2-0 to France: I watched the game in a pub in central Bristol in front a table full of French students who enjoyed it immensely.

Looking back at our last win over Spain, it’s interesting to see how the career paths of the players from both sides have developed. Five of the starting England XI are still playing (David James, Rio Ferdinand, David Beckham, Michael Owen and Nicky Barmby), one of the subs (Frank Lampard) will be captain tomorrow and Chris Powell will be taking charge of Charlton Athletic in their FA Cup game at FC Halifax on Sunday lunchtime.

On the other hand, only Iker Casillas remains a Spanish international, even though Manuel Pablo and Raul are still playing. Three starters in the Spanish XI that lost at Villa Park are now managers: Abelardo manages CD Tullia in the fourth tier of Spanish football, Luis Enrique is in charge of Roma and Pep Guardiola…well, if you don’t know what he’s up to these days then you probably shouldn’t be reading this.

All being well, I’ll be back either tomorrow night or on Sunday with a look at what happened this wekeend.

The Gnomes Of Zurich Are At It Again

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I can actually understand why FIFA might be a bit touchy about emblems on shirts.

They’ve got it wrong before.

For example, in the 1934 FIFA World Cup tournament the Italian team (who won both that competition and went on to win in France in 1938) wore the Fascist symbol on their shirts: it’s clearly visible on the official tournament poster and TOFFS are still making and selling that particular shirt. Quite what FIFA thought about the Italian side giving the Fascist salute throughout the tournament isn’t clear, although this newsreel clip shows that players that featured in the infamous ‘Battle Of Highbury’ six months later weren’t shy about giving the glad hand during a wreath laying ceremony at the Cenotaph.

Here’s a picture of future manager of West Germany Helmut Schoen playing for the famous ‘Breslau Elf’ before the war. Have a close look at the badge. Presumably FIFA didn’t think that was ‘political’ either.

After World War II, I don’t recall FIFA being too bothered about the communist countries who wore the red star on their shirts even though that’s an overtly political symbol. Similarly, political considerations seem to have been absent from the 1978 FIFA World Cup: a tournament that was cynically exploited for propaganda purposes by the brutal military junta in Argentina.

In the past couple of decades the political geography of Europe has changed a lot: for example, despite not being a monarchy since the Romanov dynasty was overthrown in the November revolution almost a century ago, the double headed eagle that was a symbol of that regime has now reappeared on the Russian football shirt.

Additionally, if national team shirts are not supposed to have any political, religious or commercial messages, then surely that also applies to the kit manufacturer logos.

But ultimately, FIFA couldn’t give a **** about anything other than FIFA.

That’s also worth remembering this weekend. We’ll be back before the end of the week with a look at the Euro 2012 playoffs and England’s friendly with Spain.

Five Youngsters That Give Hope For England At Euro 2012 and Beyond

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Well, despite Wazza losing the plot yet again, England qualified for Euro 2012 last week – guest blogger Richard Smith runs the rule over some of the prospects that could make their international breakthroughs in Poland and the Ukraine next summer…

Having confirmed their place at Euro 2012 next Summer – as any England fan will acknowledge – nothing is straight forward when it comes to the “Three Lions” and tournament football there is plenty of reason to be optimistic about the future of the English National team.

Current England coach, Fabio Capello, is set to step down when his contract is up next year but with that seems to have come a series of risk averse decisions from the Italian who has been happy to call the changes in the England teams and its formation recently. A far cry from the approach to player selection and tactics that saw the side crash out of the World Cup in 2010.

Capello has handed call-ups to a number of young players when naming recent squads and with, England fans have seen some of the older, more established players not featuring, be it forced through injury (Steven Gerrard) or dropped (Lampard in the recent qualifier against Bulgaria), performances have been much better and there’s hope that this approach will continue in the build up to next summer’s European Championships and beyond, laying the solid foundations for whoever becomes the next England manager who will have the task of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup.

Listed below are a number of emerging English players who have either featured in Capello’s recent squads or will no doubt be in contention before the end of the season, the future is certainly a lot brighter for England than it was heading to South Africa!

Phil Jones – Aged 19 (Manchester United)

With the injuries to Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic at Manchester United, 19 year old Phil Jones has been thrust into the side early by manager Sir Alex Ferguson and has played like he has been there for years.

A very promising prospect, Jones not only can he defend like his life depends upon it, he can play football too and is an excellent reader of the game who has great pace and a first rate touch. He is so good in fact that he would not look out of place in midfield and his performances so far this season for United is sure to give Fergie a selection headache when both Ferdinand and Vidic are back fit.

With regards to his England career, he looks a ready made replacement for John Terry who will no doubt hang up his international boots after Euro 2012 but in the mean time, if Jones continues to feature and play so well for United, he’s sure to be in Capello’s plans going forward.

Tom Cleverley – Aged 22 (Manchester United)

it is a shame that Jones’s United team mate got injured so early in the season as at that time, he was playing so well that Capello could not have possibly excluded him from his next squad. It is rare for players to get Sir Alex Ferguson too excited but clearly Cleverley has; his all round ability in midfield particularly his perception has improved enormously since he returned to Old Trafford after a season long loan spell with Wigan and he now looks set for a long term future at both club and international level.

Kyle Walker – Aged 21 (Tottenham Hotspur)

Harry Redknapp has finally bowed to the pressure and has started to include this highly gifted full back in the first team at White Hart Lane. Redknapp has always liked the player but with first team opportunities hard to come by last season, Walker went on a loan spell at Aston Villa and quickly became a big hit. It was thought at one point that Villa would persuade Redknapp to part with him permanently but the Tottenham boss, recognises his profound talent and he has signed him on a long term deal. It will not be long before he gets his chance at International level and he is known to be on Capello’s radar.

Jack Rodwell – Aged 20 (Everton)

Although there is plenty of competition for places in the England midfield line up, there are many urging Capello to include Rodwell who is one of the best defensive midfielders around. There were plenty of clubs expressing interest in him in the recent transfer window but Rodwell seemingly has no intention of leaving his club, Everton. He has represented his country at all levels with the exception of the senior side and if he can earn a regular place in the Everton first team then he is a very lively outside chance to make Capello’s Euro 2012 squad.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – Aged 18 (Arsenal)

Son of former England international, Mark Chamberlain, this young man is one of the most gifted ball players that has been seen for many years. He is so talented that Arsenal boss, Arsene Wenger, signed him from Southampton for an immediate fee of £12m which could rise to £15m with “add-ons”. He made his debut for Southampton last season and played 36 times for them in their promotion campaign, scoring nine goals from midfield. His move to Arsenal follows almost identically in the footsteps of Theo Walcott, who joined the Gunners at 17 and then was included in the England squad that went to Germany for the 2006 World Cup, something his new team will be keen to replicate. Whilst an England call up may not be imminent, Oxlade-Chamberlain is certainly one for the future!

We’ll be back later in the week with an update on the play offs and our first look at England’s prospects next summer…

Ferdinand and Defoe Omitted From Squad To Face Montenegro

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Pete South reports on a couple of players who will be fans for the evening…

Rio Ferdinand and Jermain Defoe have been left out of Fabio Capello’s England squad for the Euro 2012 qualifier against Montenegro on Friday.

Ferdinand has struggled with injury so far this season and only recently made his comeback for Manchester United against Stoke two weeks ago, and was a substitute in United’s last Premier League encounter against Norwich.

With Gary Cahill and United team-mate Phil Jones in the squad along with Everton’s Phil Jagielka and captain John Terry, there was no room for the former Leeds and West Ham defender who will now target securing regular first team football with his club as he works his way back to full match fitness.

Defoe has begun the season well with Tottenham Hotspur and appears reinvigorated after a poor campaign last time round, but his two goals in five games so far this season were not enough to persuade Capello to select him, with the Italian instead preferring Danny Welbeck and Bobby Zamora to join Darren Bent, Wayne Rooney and Andy Carroll in the striking department.

England are the football betting favourites to top Group G after back to back wins against Bulgaria and Wales last month moved them six points clear of 2nd placed Montenegro.

Elsewhere Steven Gerrard is not risked after he recently made his comeback with Liverpool after a six month lay-off, but Ashley Young is included despite not playing in Manchester United’s 2-0 victory over Norwich because of an ankle knock.

Spurs fullback Kyle Walker rounded off a good week by being called up by Capello hours after he had helped his side claim a memorable win over North London rivals Arsenal with a 25-yard strike while Frank Lampard is also in the mix having responded to being dropped by both club and country in recent games with an emphatic hat-trick against Bolton on Sunday.

England need just one point from their trip to Montenegro to qualify for Euro 2012, however Capello insists his side will go all out for the win.

“If you play for a draw it is a big mistake, you are defending a result and it is easy then to make silly or stupid mistakes,” he told FATV.

“We need to go to win in Montenegro and not to play for a draw.”

England squad: Scott Carson (Bursaspor), Joe Hart (Man City), David Stockdale (Ipswich); Leighton Baines (Everton), Gary Cahill (Bolton), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Phil Jones (Man Utd), Micah Richards (Man City), John Terry (captain, Chelsea), Kyle Walker (Tottenham); Gareth Barry (Man City), Stewart Downing (Liverpool), Adam Johnson (Man City), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), James Milner (Man City), Scott Parker (Tottenham), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Ashley Young (Man Utd); Darren Bent (Aston Villa), Andy Carroll (Liverpool), Wayne Rooney (Man Utd), Danny Welbeck (Man Utd), Bobby Zamora (Fulham)

It’s September, it’s raining and we’re playing Wales…

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You’ve got to hand it to Wales – bottom of the group without any wins or hope of qualification and they beat our nearest rivals on Friday night. We’re now three points clear at the top of the group with a far superior goal difference to Montenegro going into tonight’s game.

We’ve not played Wales at Wembley since February 1983 (the qualifier for the 2006 World Cup was played at Old Trafford) which surprised me a bit because I grew up with the old Home International tournament and we played each other at least once a year until that competition was abandoned almost 30 years ago.

Before anyone gets too carried away, it’s worth pointing out that in the last ten meetings between England and Wales where we’ve been the home team we’ve only lost once (0-1 in May 1977) but we’ve only won four of those games. Five games were drawn, including the match in Janary 1973 that arguably did more damage to England’s chances of qualifying for the 1974 World Cup qualifying competition than both of the disastrous games against with Poland.

It’s worth highlighting our recent home record against the Welsh because we’ve drawn three of our four home games since beating Bulgaria a year ago – our poorest run of home form for about five years. Wales are currently on a four game losing streak away from Cardiff but won’t need any motivating for this game: however, they’ve had a problem scoring away from home recently – one goal in four games going back to before the last World Cup – and it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if England kept a clean sheet.

Regarding team news, Wales have Liverpool’s Craig Bellamy and David Vaughan (Sunderland) suspended but Jack Collison is expected to return even though if he plays tonight FIFA rules means that he’s committed his international future to Wales - the West Ham midfielder has only previously appeared in friendlies, which means he could theoretically still switch to England.

We’re going to be missing Leighton Baines, Darren Bent and Micah Richards but as none of them played any part in the win at the weekend it looks very much as if the same team that won at the weekend will start tonight’s game.

TV coverage is on ITV1 with the waffle and hype part of the show (featuring Frank’s fiancee’s mate Adrian) starting at 7:00pm before the game kicks off 45 minutes later. As usual with ITV’s bizarre football coverage, if you’ve missed the game for some reason there’ll be a break for the news at 10:00pm and then you can watch highlights. I’m sure there must be people who’ll miss the live game for good reasons, but it’s basically saying to the rest of us ‘turn over or go to bed’…

Don’t Panic, It’s Only Bulgaria and Wales…

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Over the next five days England have two very important games that will go a long way to resolving what you’ll be doing and where you’ll be doing it next Summer. The answer we’re all hoping for is ‘watching England playing in Euro 2012’ regardless of whether that’s in the Ukraine and Poland, in an Irish pub somewhere in the Med or (in my case) the biennial ritual hiding behind the sofa with the curtains drawn whilst swearing your head off and trying not to scare the neighbours.

We’re not in a bad position in the Euro 2012 qualifiers – equal top with Montenegro but with a superior goal difference – but Bulgaria will have to beat us tomorrow night to stand any chance of even qualifying for the play offs and that could be where the fun starts.

There are no real outfield surprises in the squad which was announced at the beginning of the week: ten players from the Manchester clubs, seven players from London teams (including Scott Parker, now of Spurs) and two each from Everton and Liverpool. The big issue is the reserve goalkeepers – Frank Fielding of Derby and David Stockdale of Ipswich are both playing in the Championship – but before anyone starts moaning about that, it’s only fair to point out that Birmingham City have reached the group stages of the Europa League. We should be proud of the standard of football in the Championship rather than moaning about the lack of decent goalkeepers in the Premier League, as some ‘journalists’ have been doing.

The good news is that England have never lost in Bulgaria and we’ve won two of the three games we’ve played there – the last victory was a 3-0 win in a qualifier for the 1980 European Championships, goals coming from Kevin Keegan of SV Hamburg and Peter Barnes and Dave Watson of Manchester City. Those of us with long memories will remember that despite Barnes being voted Young Player of The Year in 1979/80, not long after the game he was sold by Malcolm Allison to WBA; it’s hard to imagine Roberto Mancini doing that with either Adam Johnson or James Milner.

Wales can do us a massive favour before our meeting next Tuesday by beating Montenegro but I’ll be surprised if they do – the Red Dragons have only won four of their last ten home games – but it’s important to point out that the Montenegrins have only won once in their last ten away games (the win in Bulgaria last September) and lost in Albania last month. If the bookies are right, there won’t be any changes at the top of the group as England are currently best price 4/7 for the win in Sofia, while Montenegro are 6/4 to win at the Millennium Stadium.

Both our game and Wales v Montenegro are live on Sky Sports, but because of the difference in time zones and kick off times, instead of watching adverts and listening to expert analysis from Bulgaria at half time, you’ll be able to turn over and experience that sinking feeling familiar to football fans on the other side of the Bridge when you see that Wales have conceded an early goal…