Chelsea captain John Terry has stated that he is glad that fringe players at the club are unhappy at not being selected, as it shows desire to succeed.
Andre Villas Boas has adopted a squad rotation policy since taking up the Stamford Bridge hotseat in the summer, with some of the club’s older players getting frustrated with lack of time on the pitch.
Terry feels this frustration can be turned into a positive, as all the players want to play for the club and do well.
“Unfortunately when people do not play, you get that people write ‘this player is unhappy with the manager’, which I don’t think is the case – they are unhappy they are not playing,” the England international told talkSPORT.
“For me, whether you are young or old, you want to play every single week, regardless of the competition. That desire is what I want to see.
“If there are some players in our squad who are unhappy that they are not playing, I would rather that than players prepared to tick along, collect their wages and not care if they are in the side or not.
“For me, it is a good thing to have, a passion and belief they should be playing.
“People have been making a big thing of certain players not playing, but we have seen that the likes of Frank is still one of our best players and also in the world, not only with his goalscoring but with the balls he puts through.
“Even though players are getting older, they still have a big role to play in this football club,” he concluded.
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Manchester United are odds on favourites to win their 19th league title this May, an achievement that would see the Red Devils create history. They are currently tied with arch rivals Liverpool on 18 league titles each, but would like nothing more than to overtake the Merseysiders. It would take an uncharacteristic collapse from United for them to relinquish their potential crown, but with games against Arsenal and Chelsea still to come they won’t be counting their chickens just yet. In my book United deserve the title this year, as even though they haven’t been at their scintillating best, they have still led the way for the majority of the season. So what has been they recipe to United’s season so far?
The most important quality that Sir Alex Ferguson instils within his team is the winning mentality and never say die attitude. United went from the start of the season all the way through to the 5th of February without losing a Premiership fixture. This led to suggestions they would replicate Arsenal’s unbeaten run from the 2003-04 season. It wasn’t to be though and a 2-1 defeat on a Saturday evening in Wolverhampton ended the dream. Nevertheless, their resilience has been evident on numerous occasions this season and some of their fighting spirit has been the stuff of Champions. The two games in particular that encapsulate this are the 3-2 wins away at Blackpool and West Ham. Both times United went into the dressing room at half time 2-0 down but miraculously turned the result around into victories.
Another key factor is having a squad that is littered with experienced players who have done it all before. When you have Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand to name but a few, the wealth of experience these players bring, give United an unparalleled advantage. Additionally, the strength in depth Man United possess has enabled them to go long periods of time without key players such as Ferdinand, Vidic and Valencia, but the cracks haven’t appeared. In contrast, Arsenal seem to be almost entirely dependent on Nasri, Van Persie and Fabregas, whereas a Man United team with out Rooney, Vidic or Nani is still capable of outclassing 85% of the teams in the league.
When a team boasts the Premiership’s top goal scorer and he is the clubs current third choice striker it carries a certain gravitas. Dimitar Berbatov has hit 21 league goals and still he finds himself restricted to the bench. Wayne Rooney is starting to show his best form as we head towards the climax of the season, but it’s fair to say he has performed well below the bar he set himself last year. Rooney’s form hasn’t effected United though, as Hernandez, Berbatov and Nani have all at some stage this season produced when United have needed it.
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Edwin Van der Sar is the backbone of Manchester United and it’s beyond me how the Dutchman wasn’t among the nominees for the PFA Player of the Year Award. His displays this season have been exemplary and his 15 clean sheets have contributed enormously to United’s pursuit of the title. The Defence has been chopped and changed a lot this season as Rio Ferdinand has missed a lot of football. However, the emergence of Chris Smalling alongside Nemanja Vidic has meant United haven’t missed the England International. The arrival of Chicharito for the bargain price of £7 million has proved to be significant in United’s title push, as his predatory instinct in the box has given United a number of wins when draws looked on the cards. To be likened to Manchester United legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in his first season shows the impact Little Pea has had on United’s season.
This Manchester United team is not the best side Fergie has put together in his time at Old Trafford, and their quality of football has come into question from some quarters. The lack of a goal scoring central midfielder has been an issue that Sir Alex will no doubt address during the summer. Whether or not you agree with the critics who have criticised this current team there is no denying what they have done so far. As well as homing in on their record 19th title, the team have literally booked themselves a place in the Champions League final. So while they may not have played the most eye catching expansive brand of football, at the end of the day it’s a results business and United continue to do what’s required of them, win football matches and trophies.
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Manager David Moyes retains belief in his Everton side, despite seeing them slip to the foot of the Premier League table at the weekend.
The Toffees have gathered just three points from six games and have yet to taste victory, having been tipped to start the campaign strongly after ending last season in fine form.
Following the 0-0 weekend draw at Fulham, Moyes told the Liverpool Echo:"It's one way up now. Someone has to be bottom and it's us at this present time.
"I don't think we look like a bottom-of-the-league team, but we are, so we have to get out of it.
"It's up to us to put it right. We just have to keep doing what we're doing. We'll keep playing.
"There was no lack of confidence from us against Fulham. We tried to do the right things.
"The spirit's good. The players are all together and are all working for the cause to get a result.
"My belief is that we have a really good team. That's never changed.
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"We had lots of possession and we created more chances than Fulham. I can't come away saying we played badly, though maybe we didn't create enough chances.
"We're lacking in real firepower. There's a lack of belief in front of goal. Nothing's going in and we can't even deflect one in at the moment."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Chelsea manager Andre Villas Boas has confirmed that skipper John Terry will not be available for Tuesday night’s trip to take on Swansea, but hopes to have him back in contention for this weekend’s game against Manchester United.
The England defender is suffering from a recurring knee injury, and the Portuguese coach has admitted that Terry will not play against the Welsh outfit at the Liberty Stadium.
“It’s just a bone oedema that he has been carrying for some time since he collided with a post, if I am not wrong against Portsmouth, and this stops him a little bit,” Villas-Boas told Chelsea TV.
“It’s nothing serious, but something to keep an eye on. He has had an MRI before and he should be okay for Man United.
“We have a lot of positions covered of course, because of our squad, we have Gary [Cahill] and David [Luiz] available and competing and hopefully we can make the right decision,” he stated.
The Blues have problems in midfield also, with Ramires picking up a knock, joining Frank Lampard and Jon Obi Mikel on the sidelines.
“It’s unfortunate for the team, Rami is one of the most used players of the team with excellent individual performance and always helping the team to get results,” Villas Boas continued.
“With what could have happened, it’s just good news that he will be out for a short amount of time. Hopefully he will be available for the Napoli game, and hopefully before.
“On another front, Mikel will be out of the game and Lamps still out of the game.
“Frank’s rehabilitation is going well, we are trying to reintroduce him gradually to the first-team activities.
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“Frank felt that it was still a little bit soon to come back and went on to work with the physios, so hopefully after Swansea we will get him ready for the Man United game,” the tactician concluded.
SerieA front runners AC Milan are lining up a double swoop this summer for Porto’s Brazilian duo, Fernando and Hulk.
The reports in Italian paper Corriere dello Sport suggest AC Milan chief Ariedo Braida has outlined the Porto pair as his main transfer targets for the summer.Milan’s aging squad is in need of an injection of fresh talent if they want to make an assault on The Champions League next season. Luring Fernando and Hulk away from the Estadio do Dragao over the summer would certainly augment the Rossonari’s credentials
Fernando would be seen as a long term replacement for Andrea Pirlo, while Hulk’s physical presence and fierce shooting ability would add power to Milan’s attack.
Porto’s resistance will be tested if the Milanese giants come in with hefty concrete offers for their two star performers. The temptation of playing in front of 80,000 supporters in the San Siro in a top league may prove sufficient to unsettle the players.
It was only last week AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi reportedly wanted to sign Cristiano Ronaldo. The link to Hulk and Fernando seems a much more realistic prospect.
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Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp hopes the Premier League will ratify the £8million transfer of Netherlands international midfielder Rafael Van der Vaart to White Hart Lane.
Redknapp made a late move for the Real Madrid star on transfer deadline day after hearing that the 27-year-old's proposed transfer to Bayern Munich had fallen through.
However, the Premier League have as yet refused to sanction the transfer and are examining the circumstances of the switch.
"He's a great passer of the ball, he's a top footballer, he will join in here and be a big plus," said Redknapp.
"It was a last-minute job. When I came in on Tuesday morning it wasn't something I was looking to do.
"I think he was going to Bayern Munich on Monday for £18million and suddenly he became much cheaper.
"They let me know around 1600 BST that he was available for £8million and, for that money, he is a top player who will definitely improve us. The fee has come crashing down because the deadline is so close."
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Van der Vaart moved to Real from Hamburg two years ago and went on to score 11 goals in 68 appearances for the La Liga giants.
He helped his country reach the World Cup final in July and came on as a substitute in the Final defeat to Spain.Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
The debate about which league is the best in the world is boring, but that doesn’t mean that the arguments for the Premier League are irrelevant. The major draw of the Premier League over other leagues such as La Liga has been that, over the last decade, in England the league has been more competitive. And it’s true; in comparison to the duopoly in Spain our league is competitive. The recent influx of foreign money to has made the title race and competition for Champions League places a tighter affair and the same can be said of clubs further down the table too such as Queens Park Rangers. However, despite this perceived increased competitive edge certain facts suggest that this isn’t true.
For example at Christmas last year Wolves were only a point away from their current total yet they were bottom of the league. This year they sit in seventeenth , two points ahead of the drop zone and five clear of last year’s position. Obviously this alone is not the be all and end all but there are other issues too. You can look at the league and see very little between the teams but it was like that last year and what we can take from this is that all of the teams who were in the relegation zone last year would currently sit above it this year. The difference is that teams from both the upper and lower halves of the table have been performing worse.
We also have to consider what it is to be ‘competitive’. Is competition within our own league enough to make the fact that the league is competitive a positive attribute? Or has the demise of both of the Manchester club’s European campaigns helped to emphasise the demise of the strength of quality in English football?
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When a small team beats a top club we all like to say that our league is so exciting and anyone can beat anyone, and this is true, but when you have the top clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal all conceding five or more goals against their rivals in a single game you have to come to the conclusion that it is less a case of the bottom teams getting better and more a case of the top teams getting worse.
Yes, Manchester City’s rise has made the top of the table more competitive, as has Spurs’, but does that sentiment ring true if the clubs who were previously thought of as ‘top’ clubs appear to be in some sort of demise? And what sort of statement do we as a country send out to the continent if our top two clubs can’t even make it out of the group stages of the Champions League.
If our league was, as everyone seems to suggest, becoming more of a tightly run contest then why do the bottom clubs have fewer points than they did at this stage last year and the top clubs have more? In fact, after the Boxing Day games last year Manchester United topped the table with 37 points. This year Manchester City are top with 45 points. Moreover, the top five teams all have more points than the same stage last year and the bottom five teams all have fewer points. Therefore you can only come to the conclusion that the league is less competitive than it was last year, and all this in despite of the fact that teams like Arsenal and Chelsea are performing far worse than they were twelve months ago.
Believing they hype from fans and watching the build up to games on Sky Sports might have you in some sort of montage induced frenzy thinking that this is the year that your team can scale new heights, but when you look at the facts it appears that our league is more dominated by the few than ever, it is just that those teams are not the same ones as last year.
Follow me on Twitter @H_Mackay
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Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has revealed he tried to sign Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand prior to the season.Redknapp gave Ferdinand his English Premier League debut at West Ham in 1996 and admitted he made an approach for the former England captain before the 2010/11 campaign began.
But last season’s Premier League runners-up rejected the audacious bid, as the Spurs boss told The Observer.
“I can’t ever see us getting Rio now,” Redknapp said.
“I was interested. Last year, I tried. I tried at the start of the season.”
Redknapp believes Manchester United are a much stronger team when Ferdinand is playing and admitted he wanted to sign another leader in defence, after his bid to lure Everton’s Phil Neville to White Hart Lane in January failed.
“When he was on the team-sheet against Chelsea in the Champions League, I thought Man United had got a much, much better chance of getting a result and it proved that way,” he said.
“I’ve said many times to the chairman, it’s not always about the best players, it’s about getting characters in your football club.”
“William (Gallas) has come in and given us experience and we’ve got Michael (Dawson) at the back but in the long term I still feel that you need to find another one or two if you’re going to keep progressing, that type of real character, who has opinions and that will to win around the dressing room – a few leaders.”
“You can’t have too many at your club. That’s why I tried to take Phil Neville from Everton in January.”
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Redknapp also said he has next season on his mind and would be after additions to his squad in the transfer window at the end of the season to ensure Tottenham do not stagnate.
“You’ve got to add to the squad. The chairman knows … if we can’t move on, then you have to accept trying to get into the Europa League every year and trying to finish sixth or seventh,” he said.
“But if you want to try to make the Champions League, you have to keep improving.”
There is a midfielder blessed with special talent whom can play for England but has so far been overlooked, his name is Mikel Arteta. Although he has played for the Spanish under 21’s, he has never been capped by the senior Spain side. Under residency rules, Arteta is eligible to play for England after living in the country for 5 years. Had he been born in here, there is no doubt at all that Mikel Arteta would have been capped for England. Arteta possesses the skills not many other English players have, he is technically excellent and his passing is masterful, assets that were so sorely missed in England’s World Cup bid. The problem is that although Arteta can play for England, he is not really English, and many fans baulk at the idea of fielding a foreign player in the England jersey. Perhaps though, pragmatism rather than pride should be taken into consideration after another English failure.
The fact is that other national sides are doing what England are not. As early as the 1950’s, Argentinian great Alfredo di Stefano turned out for the Spain national team after gaining citizenship in the country. In modern times, Brazilian Marcos Senna has also turned out for Spain, whilst Brazilian born duo Deco and Pepe have both played for Portugal, another Brazilian Eduardo da Silva has played internationally for Croatia. There will be many more examples, and if other countries are doing it, why shouldn’t England? Marcos Senna in particular played a crucial role in the Spanish side that lifted the 2008 European Championship. If Arteta played for England, greater success might be achieved. English fans are very proud of their national team however, and for many picking a foreign-born player is an idea that they instantly dismiss. The choice would be Fabio Capello’s though, and if he wanted to cap Arteta, he could do.
Fabio Capello brings us on to another point, England have already appointed foreign managers, something most other major national teams have not done. If England were willing to make this brave step with Eriksson and Capello, why not do so with players as well? When these managers were hired, many fans and many in the press pilloried the FA for making such a decision, and their lack of success did not help their case. If Arteta was capped for England, a similar reaction might initially be seen, but if it brought success to the team, it would surely die down.
English national teams in other sports have long since fielded foreign born players. The England cricket team contains a number of South Africans, whilst the England Rugby Union side capped Tongan born Lesley Vainikolo. These teams were pragmatic, they brought in players who were eligible in order to give them the best chance of success, and the results of the English cricket team especially since, have been spectacular. As seen with video technology however, football seems to hold itself in higher regard to these sports and the capping of a foreign player for many is simply unacceptable. Perhaps though Capello should brave the backlash that would occur if he picked Arteta, his current stock could probably not fall too much lower anyway. If he did, and Arteta helped drive England to greater success then England fans would surely forgive him. If England do want to win some silverware, it might just be the perfect place to look.
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With the PL season nearly upon us, let’s see the WAGS that will be keeping the players on their toes. Click on image to VIEW gallery
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So many authorities, so many agendas. Football today is at the whim of so many different authoritative bodies that the work they do is arguably conflicting. Just take England for example. The top clubs have to deal with rules from the Premier League, the FA, UEFA and FIFA. It isn’t possible for clubs to adhere with full effect to all of the agendas set out in front of them. Furthermore the actions of some undermine the proposals of others. How can UEFA expect the European clubs to take them seriously on the implication of the financial fair play rules when there are never ending exposures of widespread corruption within FIFA? It may not be UEFA’s fault but ultimately if the top governing football body does not set an example how are people supposed to learn. FIFA has its own agenda, mainly the spread of football to nations that do not currently participate to any high level. However this goes against the idea of a meritocracy that UEFA is trying to introduce. FIFA giving the World Cup to Qatar is like saying that this year’s Champions League Final should be played in someone’s back garden in Luxembourg. The agendas don’t match. But what are we going to do about it?
What this really comes down to is an argument that has plagued politics for years: central vs. local government. Which is the more effective way to govern?
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Centralised Government
So what are the benefits of organizing sport through a more centralised system? Firstly: clearer objectives. Not only that but a clearer prioritisation of objectives that clubs and countries must adhere to. Centralised government provides, in theory, better organisation by using the top minds to set out plans for the whole of football instead of letting lesser minds at lower levels determine how things are run.
If we put this in football terms it would be similar to taking away the powers of the FA and having a FIFA committee determining what the FA should be doing each year. The benefit of this is that, in theory, with more people to choose from FIFA should have more competent people working for it who have better strategies at hand. Certainly the FA is not the best-run organisation in the world and at times it definitely seems as though it could do with some help. Moreover, if the FA is not directly accountable to FIFA or UEFA then the rules they could be imposing might contradict measures imposed by other bodies. Also, with one higher organisation dictating the agenda for our country there wouldn’t be conflict between the FA and the Premier League.
Local Government
The benefits of local government, or localized football authorities, are that it is far easier for them to identify the problems at hand within the areas of governance. They should also, in theory, be more efficient with their resources as the amount of red tape involved is less than it would be if they had to report everything back to, and have their actions approved by, a higher body. Ultimately this is the deciding factor.
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Football as a sport is too large to be governed by one singular institution. But that does not mean that our system does not need to be altered. There needs to be local authorities that are properly represented by both FIFA and UEFA. The local authorities need not be directly accountable to the higher bodies but they should have some input into the agendas of the more international organisations. There is no ‘either or’ argument for this debate in football just as there isn’t in politics. The lack of cohesion in the organisation of football is damaging for the game but inevitably a worldwide body would not have the ability to identify and address the problems that football faces in each country. The representation of each country in FIFA and UEFA is what needs to improve. Only then can we combine the necessary authority of a singular body with the local expertise of national organisations.