Every year the club v country row reignites, particularly when there are international friendlies as England had the other week. Fans and members of the press regularly sympathise with managers having to loan out their top players for five days, for what is essentially a learning expedition.
Increasingly we are seeing more and more Premier League players dropping out of squads with minor illnesses and injuries. Only to play for their club days later.
It is obvious an international manager would want access to that country’s best players but injuries sustained on international duty are so often the cause of bigger issues to their club. So are managers such as Arsene Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson and Roberto Mancini wrong to forge a sick note in order to safeguard their star men? And what exactly can be done to halt this increasing trend?
Stuart Pearce’s England Under-21s were badly affected with 11 players being withdrawn from their squad to face Italy. Although the former England defender put this down to the number of games played in the Premier League stating: “The amount of games in England is a problem to us.” Concluding that: “We have to get a balance between club and country.”
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He has a point; with last season’s top four teams playing an average of six games each in all competitions during the month of February. Each club plays four games in the tightest Premier League race in years, so is it any wonder these clubs want to protect their first team players? Not forgetting that Arsenal have the Carling Cup final against Birmingham City four days after their league match against Stoke City.
Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie of Arsenal; Peter Crouch of Tottenham Hotspur; Gabriel Agbonlahor of Aston Villa and Ben Foster of Birmingham City were all players unavailable for their countries but able to play for their club within the next seven days. They are merely a few of many.
In England these withdrawals are sometimes cited as the reason for the country’s lack of international success with many England managers over the years complaining about the lack of understanding and support from club bosses. But it is hard to feel sorry for the FA when it is the clubs that are paying these stars’ wages and often end up with injuries to key players, with many spending months in recovery before making another appearance for their club.
It is natural that managers may fret about the number of injuries players collect while on international duty; in the four years following 2002, 5 different players broke bones in their feet while playing for England. This is nothing new, Bryan Robson was a big miss for England in the 1986 World Cup after dislocating his shoulder in a warm up game. The most recent and notable injury to an Englishman sustained while away with his country would be Dean Ashton; after breaking his ankle in 2006 he missed the whole of the season for his club West Ham United. And although he did return for his club a year and a half later, he was never the same player and retired at the age of 26. As it stands West Ham are still awaiting their financial compensation from the FA regarding the incident.
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This is not a sequence of events confined to England; Djibril Cisse of France, Phillipe Senderos of Switzerland, Thomas Vermaelen of Belgium and Stuart Holden of the USA have all returned to their clubs will long-term injuries following international duty.
Of course you cannot wrap the players in cotton wool but when it comes to a choice between club and country, a way needs to be found for the two to work in unison. Otherwise one will have to come first and who knows which one that will be?
England captain Rio Ferdinand has been ruled out of the World Cup finals after sustaining a knee injury in training on Friday.
The Manchester United defender was taken to a local hospital for medical tests after sustaining the knock and left the establishment on crutches.
National team coach Fabio Capello was coy over Ferdinand's chances of making the Group C opener against USA on Saturday June 12 in his daily press conference but this was before the results of the scan and the outcome has since determined the extent of the problem.
With the experienced 31-year-old now out of the picture, the captain's armband will be handed to Liverpool talisman Steven Gerrard while Tottenham Hotspur's Michael Dawson will step into the 23-man squad in Ferdinand's place after he was placed on standby when the news broke.
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Dawson, who excelled during Spurs' fourth-placed Premier League finish last term, was initially cut from Capello's initial 30-man squad but has earned an instant recall.Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Roy Hodgson has named his England squad for their friendly with Italy next week and it seems he is more than willing at giving the youngsters an opportunity to show their worth.
Hodgson, naming his first squad since England’s European Championships campaign, has decided the trip to Switzerland is the perfect opportunity to give the next generation of England squads a chance with Tottenham duo Steven Caulker and Jake Livermore joined in the squad by Jack Rodwell, Jack Butland, Ryan Bertrand, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Daniel Sturridge.
Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick is also recalled to the international stage after rejecting the chance to be on the standby list for this summer Euros, a list that included Adam Johnson who has also made the squad.
Very much an experimental squad, Frank Lampard is given a chance to show Hodgson that he still has a lot to offer after missing the bulk of the Euros with injury along with Kyle Walker and Gary Cahill who are also recalled.
The likes of John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney have all been left out along with regulars Ashley Cole and Glen Johnson. It seems Rio Ferdinand’s England career is over after he is once again not included.
Squad for friendly v Italy:
Goalkeepers: Joe Hart (Manchester City), Jack Butland (Birmingham City), John Ruddy (Norwich City).
Defenders: Leighton Baines (Everton), Ryan Bertrand (Chelsea), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Steven Caulker (Tottenham Hotspur), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur).
Midfielders: Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Tom Cleverley (Manchester United), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Adam Johnson (Manchester City), Jake Livermore (Tottenham Hotspur), James Milner (Manchester City), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal), Jack Rodwell (Everton), Ashley Young (Manchester United).
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Forwards: Andy Carroll (Liverpool), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham Hotspur), Daniel Sturridge (Chelsea), Theo Walcott (Arsenal).
You can probably name every manager in the Premier League – but what about their trusty right-hand man who stays in the background despite playing a vital role in the club’s success.
An assistant’s role is a complex and challenging one. He has to be the manager’s right-hand man, and yet he’s got to be the players’ trusted confidante. A good assistant can form the bridge between the team and the manager and they tend to be closer to the players normally after having a successful career in the game.
They tend to be ex pros who performed at the highest level of the game – often in contrast to the manager – for example Pat Rice and Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, Joe Jordan and Harry Redknapp, or the former impressive partnership of José Mourinho and Steve Clarke at Chelsea.
Some of these assistants have had a fling at management but it hasn’t quite worked out. Perhaps they didn’t get along with the intense media scrutiny that being a manager has, or perhaps they weren’t good at making the unpopular decisions. Whatever it is, here is their moment of fame as we show our appreciation for the top henchmen in the Premier League.
Click on Pat Rice to see the selections
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Inter Milan climbed to third place in Serie A on Thursday with a 3-0 win over bottom side Bari at the Stadio San Nicola.
The result makes it six wins from seven league games for Inter under new boss Leonardo, and after an indifferent start to the season the defending champions are now just seven points behind league leaders AC Milan with a game in hand.
Inter would have been expecting a victory against lowly Bari, but had to wait until the 70th minute to break the deadlock, when Moroccan midfielder Houssine Kharja played a neat one-two with Samuel Eto’o before beating Bari goalkeeper Jean Francis Gillet with a low shot from an acute angle.
That was where the scoreline stayed until the fourth minute of injury time when a through ball from Thiago Motta played Giampaolo Pazzini into space and the striker cut inside his marker before firing a low shot past Gillet.
A minute later it was 3-0 when a Javier Zanetti cross was chested down by Thiago Motta into the path of Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder who blasted home from close range with the last kick of the game.
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The loss leaves Bari five points adrift of Brescia – their next opponents – at the bottom of the table, while Inter welcome fifth-placed Roma to the San Siro on Sunday.
Manchester City defender Gael Clichy is thought to have been the subject of racism in a pre-season friendly in Ireland, The Telegraph report.
The Premier League champions were playing against Limerick on Sunday, and the France international has since claimed that he was targeted, with a banana thrown onto the pitch.
“How sad to see bananas thrown on the pitch … knowing people around the world need food,” Clichy commented on his Twitter page.
The Irish authorities have pledged to check CCTV cameras to try and ascertain the identity of the guilty parties.
“The Gardai and stadium officials are reviewing the CCTV recordings to attempt to identify an individual involved in the throwing of an offensive object onto the playing field,” a statement reads.
“Any individual identified as being involved in an incident of this nature will be banned from future attendance and the matter will be handed over to the Gardai. All those involved with the friendly game fully condemn all forms of unacceptable behaviour of this nature.”
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Paul Lake was the biggest “what if” in Manchester City’s recent history. What if he had stayed fit for most of his career? What if he had continued his progress as a player? What if he had become an England regular? What if City could have had him in their defence or midfield for a good ten years? What if? What if? What if?
We will never know. Serious injuries treated badly ensured that. What we fans who prayed for the day he might return did not know was the turmoil that the injuries had caused, and the effects that having your career extinguished can have on a young man’s life.
In his new autobiography, I’m Not Really Here: A Life of Two Halves, written with his wide Joanne, Lake describes the enormous highs and lows of playing for his beloved club.
Lake was born in 1968, just after Manchester City’s last league title. His love of Manchester City was almost instant, and he grew up obsessed with football. At a young age, he realised he had a natural talent for football – he didn’t know why, but things came easily. He made his way from the Denton Youth U12 side (aged just 8), through City’s youth sides, under the tutelage of the legendary Tony Book, to a YTS traineeship in 1985, and glory with the youth team, winning the FA Youth Cup against Manchester United in 1986. Inevitably, he was soon in the senior squad, making his first team debut in January 1987. This being City, relegation followed soon after, and Lake was to experience the first of many bitter disappointments. The versatile Lake was soon holding down a permanent 1st team place though, his proficiency across the pitch seeing him wear 8 different shirt numbers in one season.
Soon, Malcolm Allison was calling him “the big talent at Maine Road”. And later after a call up to an England training session, Bobby Robson reported back to Lake’s favourite manager Howard Kendall that he had earmarked Lake as a future England captain. Naturally fans love a home-grown player, a local lad, and Lake was no different, idolised by all City supporters.
But having missed out on the Italia ‘90 England squad, it wasn’t long into his career the following season as City captain that it all started to go wrong, against Aston Villa. One false move, and his cruciate ligament had snapped.
Not that he knew for some time. City’s treatment involved an ice pack for days until the swelling reduced, an X-ray, and running up and down the concrete steps of the Kippax stand. Only when he collapsed in his first proper training session did he see a specialist and learn the truth. The damage had been done.
The following years were painful on many levels, a depressing cycle of rehabilitation, hope, and false dawns as he went on to rupture the ligament a further two times as soon as he returned to competitive football. He spent more time recuperating at Lilleshall than any other player in history. All this changed Lake as a man – the young lively, eager player that lived life to the full spiralled into depression, and withdrew from public life, going to extreme lengths to shun contact with others. As Daniel Taylor’s review in the Guardian described it, he was a tormented soul.
It is commendable that Lake came out the other side intact, and rebuilt his life. It is even more commendable that he retained the love for his football club despite the way some at the club treated him – mostly Peter Swales, the only person Lake shows bitterness towards in the book, after he shunned him throughout his fight for fitness and fought sending Lake to America for superior treatment.
That treatment was too late, and at the age of 27, Lake was forced to accept that there was no way back, and retired.
For City fans the book is an eye opener, shedding light on the way the club was run under Peter Swales’ stewardship. This was a club that allowed drunks to shout abuse from behind a wire fence during training every morning. That had players doing comedy routines at Junior Blues meetings, and had Eddie Large delivering half-time team talks using a variety of celebrity impressions when City were on the cusp of promotion.
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This is not just a book for City fans though. Whilst it also beautifully illustrates the life of a footballer, and such things growing up as Manchester ruled the music world, it is less about playing in football matches and more about what the game means to us all, and the despair and multiple lows when your dreams are snatched from your grasp. It also provides an insight into many other people in the game at that time, such as Bobby Robson, John Barnes, Paul Gascoigne and others.
Paul Lake is 42 now. After retirement he studied physiotherapy and worked on the medical staff of various clubs, even running his own practice too, until in March 2010, when he was appointed Ambassador for Manchester City in the Community.
There will always be curiosity over what could have been, what Lake could have achieved if he had avoided injury, and Lake had plenty of time to mull such things over during those fraught years on the treatment table. He came out the other side, and his account is one of the great sporting books of recent years. The final word can go to The Metro newspaper, who said: “The greatest football autobiography ever written? Unquestionably.”
Roberto Martinez believes young striker Callum McManaman can help Wigan Athletic away from the English Premier League danger zone.
The Latics manager has resisted the temptation to spend out big money in the transfer market for a new forward, despite off-loading six-million-pound man Mauro Boselli to Genoa at the start of January.
That was partly because of the emergence of McManaman, who was again excellent at Bolton in the FA Cup on Saturday and is a player Martinez believes has a huge future at the club.
“He’s ready,” Martinez said.
“We’ve also got Hugo (Rodallega), Charles (N’Zogbia), Franco (di Santo), Victor (Moses) and Tom (Cleverley) at the club, so the forward line is very good here.”
“But Callum’s ready for whatever role we will give him. It’s not a case of relying on Callum to stay in the Premier League.”
“But rather than bringing in a player without any Premier League experience, to be an extra member of the squad, I feel Callum deserves that role in the squad.”
McManaman is expected to drop to the bench for Tuesday’s clash at West Brom, with both sides in desperate need of the points at the foot of the table.
Only three points separate 18th-placed Wigan and West Brom in 16th, with Latics hoping to complete a league double over the Baggies following the 1-0 victory at the DW Stadium in November.
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Back will come the likes of Rodallega, N’Zogbia and goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi, while James McCarthy and Di Santo will be pushing for starts after recovering from long-term injuries.
Antolin Alcaraz, however, will not be fit, although his soft tissue problem will hopefully have cleared in time to face Blackburn on Saturday.
After a season of disappointment in the league, the boardroom at Anfield was reminiscent of the final scene of The Godfather, where Michael Corleone orders a hit on the heads of each of the Five Families and Moe Green. Each person working at the club that was deemed surplus to requirements was given the boot in a toned-down Merseyside version of The Knight of the Long Knives, only with less, you know, purging and book burning. Prime among was Damien Comolli, the club’s Director of Football, who paid the price for a season of underachivement back in April. However since the unveiling of new manager Brendan Rodgers, an element of confusion still persists about the issue, do the club still want a Director of Football or not?
Comolli became Director of Football in March 2011, effectively taking on many aspects of a chief executive’s role, though focused solely on the business of the football side of the club and was heavily involved in bringing the likes of big-money buys Luis Suarez, Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson to the club.
He was originally brought to the club in November 2012 under the title Director of Football Strategy and was tasked with the recruitment side of the club, before latterly moving into the aforementioned role. Straight away, it appears as if his role was never clearly defined, which points to a lack of clarity and leadership from above on FSG’s part. Rumours persisted after his sacking that FSG felt they had rushed his initial appointment in the first place upon taking control of the club back in October 2010, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for any prospective future employers of the Frenchman.
Liverpool chairman Tom Werner had this to say back in April after Comolli’s sacking: “We’ve had a strategy that we have agreed on. There was some disconnect on the implementation of that. That strategy is a strong one and it will continue. We’re still confident the structure we’ve discussed is the right structure. That doesn’t mean we won’t look at tweaking it, but we feel a collective group of people making football decisions is healthy. The debate is healthy. Part of the reason we made this decision now is because we want to start the process of finding an excellent replacement.”
This would appear to indicate a preference for a Director of Football still at the club, and that the idea hadn’t yet been abandoned entirely, but that they were open to adjusting the parameters of the post. FSG were thought to want to pioneer a new system dividing Comolli’s role into three – one executive to oversee statistics, another whose role would be to conduct negotiations and a third ‘football man’ with contacts within the game, with the new boss also operating under managing director Ian Ayre. It seemed a hugely bloated, contrived and overly fussy system from the ouset.
Txiki Begiristain, formerly Director of Football at Barcelona, is one name that has been linked with a senior role, while Pep Segura, currently technical manager of the club’s academy is widely expected to be promoted, with Louis van Gaal for a time in the frame for a position. FSG clearly want to spread the workload out and implement a new system that allows the manager to focus solely on footballing matters, but whether the manager wants that is another point entirely.
Confusion still reigns and I can’t help but thinking that the issue has been glossed over for the sake of happy families for the time being, like sweeping a fight under the carpet with the missus for the sake of an easy life in the short-term and it has the potential to go seriously wrong further down the road. At Brendan Rodgers unveiling during his first press conference as Liverpool boss, the situation still looked muddled at best.
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Rodgers stated he wouldn’t have taken the role if he had been made to work with a Director of Football: “That was one of the items I brought up when I was speaking with the club, that I wouldn’t work directly with a Director of football. I work best around a group of people. You come to a big club or any club, you can’t do it on your own. There’s not one of us who’s better than all of us. Of course there has to be leadership, but if it was a Sporting Director that was something that I made quite clear that I couldn’t work with. What you need at a football club is an outstanding recruitment team, an outstanding medical team, an outstanding sports science team and player liaison team and these are all people who will come into the group and we will form a little technical board. There will be four or five people around that group who will decide the way forward.”
But Ian Ayre sounded less convinced stating: “The structure is a more continental Director of Football structure where you have got a collaborative group of people working around the football area. We don’t envisage, at this moment in time, having a Director of Football per se, but having a group of people that will work collaboratively with Brendan to deliver the football side of things. It’s not signing by committee, it’s analysis by committee. Certainly not a structure where we would force any player on the manager.”
The key part to take from that was the fact that Ian Ayre refused to rule out moving for or appointing a Director of Football in the future and with Rodgers looking to build a long-term legacy at Anfield, after signing a three-year deal to replace Kenny Dalglish as boss, that could cause problems further down the line.
Since taking over the club, FSG have benefited hugely from lazy comparisons to Tom Hicks and George Gillett simply because of the nature of their passport, with both sets of owners coming from the USA. This in turn has meant that the same in-depth, minute scrutiny that was applied to the previously chaotic and shambolic administration hasn’t yet been applied to the current one. They benefit from a degree of goodwill simply because they are not Hicks and Gillett, quite possibly the worst Premier League owners of all-time.
They clearly didn’t want a hugely hands-on role with the day-to-day running of the club, which has meant that the club has lacked direction at times, none more so than during the whole Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra racism affair, with the now infamously ill-advised t-shirts and cringeworthy press statement after another. FSG only stepped in when rumours of unrest from the club’s commercial sponsors started looking more serious than previously thought, but since then, they should be applauded on how cut-throat they have been, taking decisions without a hint of sentimentality surrounding their thought-proccess.
But as Wolves showed last season with the sacking of Mick McCarthy and subsequent botched appointment of his assistant Terry Connor in his place, it’s not that sacking someone is necessarily always a bad idea, but you have to have an idea of who you want to replace them with, otherwise it was all for nothing and a pointless move. The owners must have felt that in Ian Ayre and Damien Comolli, they had two people they could trust to run the club for them, but Ayre was known to be overawed by Dalglish, unwilling to stand up to him and question his wisdom, while Comolli’s role simply wasn’t clearly defined enough, so things began to slip through the net.
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A management structure is the next logical step in response to the ramshackle set-up that came before, but you still get the feeling that despite their increased involvement, the whole plan still lacks cohesion and clarity.
The lack of an agreed, defined and concrete system still troubles me. If the club underperforms again next season, where is the finger of blame to be pointed to? Is it the collaborative panel that will help Rodgers liable? Is it Rodgers himself? Nobody wants to get into a blame game further down the line as nobody emerges from a round of mud-slinging with a clean shirt, but there still looks to be a lack of accountability and leadership from above. It remains to be seen whether this new, somewhat revolutionary structure can work, for Rodgers sake at least, I hope it does.
Minas Gerais state secretary Sergio Barroso believes England should be invited to play the opening match in the region’s World Cup stadium.Barroso has extended an olive branch to England following Brazilian Football Association President Ricardo Teixeira’s open hostility toward the country.
Teixeira, the subject of bribery and corruption allegations dating back to the 1990s, was named in a UK parliamentary enquiry accused of seeking favours in exchange for supporting England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup.
Last week he launched a scathing attack on the English FA and promised to obstruct the England team, media and fans during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
But Barroso does not share the views of his countryman, and wishes to see England take on Brazil in the US$442 million-dollar Mineirao World Cup Stadium, set to be completed in December 2012 with a capacity of 65,000.
“We want England to play Brazil in a friendly in the opening match of the new stadium on February 8, 2013 on the recognised date for FIFA friendlies,” Barroso told Reuters.
“We know what Ricardo Teixeira has said about the English, but the opening of the new stadium is more than just what he has said and his view of England. I am speaking to him and I am going to ask him to invite England to play here.
“FIFA says it is all about fair play and the good of the game so let’s see what Mr Teixeira will do about it.”
“England was the birthplace of football and Brazil developed the game and there are very strong links between our two footballing countries.”