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Posts Tagged ‘England’

• Manchester United manager recalls similar case at Old Trafford
• ‘I would be concerned about it. You have to be’

Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted news that the England squad’s hotel was bugged last week is a concern.

Although the precise details have not been revealed, it is thought the meeting room at their Watford hotel base for the friendly with Egypt were bugged ahead of the 3‑1 win for Fabio Capello’s team.

Ferguson and Manchester United were at the centre of a similar controversy in 2005, when listening devices were found in the home dressing room at Old Trafford after an encounter with Chelsea.

“It happened to us once before,” the Scot said. “I would be concerned about it. You have to be. Preparation involves discretion and secrecy. I haven’t revealed one bit of my tactics ahead of the [Milan] match tomorrow. I haven’t been asked. And do you know why? Because I wouldn’t tell anyone. Why should I tell anyone?

“Capello may have been discussing some important issues about his team. All of a sudden someone else has got it. It is a concern.”

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• Capello conversations secretly recorded before Egypt game
• Football Association warns media not to make them public

The Football Association has moved to stop the contents of bugged conversations between players and coaching staff becoming public after a recording was offered to media outlets.

Conversations between the England coach, Fabio Capello, and the squad are understood to have been secretly recorded ahead of last week’s friendly against Egypt. The FA has launched an investigation into how they were made and warned newspapers and broadcasters not to make them public.

The incident is the latest blow to hit Capello’s World Cup build up, in the wake of the media frenzy that surrounded John Terry’s alleged affair with the ex-girlfriend of his international team-mate Wayne Bridge.

The recording, believed to be several hours long, is alleged to contain conversations between coaching staff and players at the Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire ahead of the 3-1 victory over Egypt at Wembley last Wednesday.

Although they have not officially commented, the FA’s lawyers have contacted media organisations warning that publication of the contents of the recording would be illegal and a breach of the Data Protection Act and Press Complaints Commission rules.

Section 10 of the PCC code states: “The press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices; or by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails; or by the unauthorised removal of documents or photographs; or by accessing digitally held private information without consent.”

It is understood that the FA’s lawyers have also been in touch with the Daily Star, which hinted at the content of the conversations but did not reproduce them, in order to try to ascertain who was offering the recordings for sale and how they were made.

It has been suggested that the content of the tapes could give away Capello’s tactical secrets but it is likely that whoever is responsible was hoping for more blockbuster revelations about the England players’ private lives or evidence of the effect of the Terry story on the mood within the camp.

It is understood that the recordings were offered to several Sunday newspapers, which turned them down. Capello is believed to be concerned about the breach but the FA is confident that tight security around the England team at their remote Rustenburg training camp at this summer’s World Cup will prevent a repeat.

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• Defender suffered suspected metatarsal fracture at Wolves
• Injury adds to Sir Alex Ferguson’s selection problems

Wes Brown is expected to be available for England’s World Cup campaign this summer despite increasing Fabio Capello’s defensive problems with a suspected metatarsal fracture sustained against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Manchester United are due to confirm the scan results on Brown’s injury today, although it is believed the 30-year-old, who left Molineux wearing a protective boot on his foot following a challenge with Matt Jarvis on Saturday, will be sidelined for six weeks with the problem. Brown’s absence is another setback for Sir Alex Ferguson, who has lost Michael Owen, Anderson, Ryan Giggs and John O’Shea to long-term injuries in recent weeks, but the timeframe would at least allow the defender to return to action before Capello finalises his World Cup squad.

Brown started at right-back for England against Egypt last week in the absence of Liverpool’s Glen Johnson, who has only just recovered from the knee ligament injury he suffered at Aston Villa on 29 December. With his left-back options thrown into turmoil by Ashley Cole’s broken ankle plus Wayne Bridge’s retirement from international football, and Rio Ferdinand restricted by injury this term, Capello can ill-afford further disruption to England’s defence before South Africa. Should Brown recover in six weeks, for the Manchester derby at Eastlands on 17 April, he would have just four league games to prove his fitness before the World Cup.

United’s selection problems for the Champions League return with Milan tomorrow also include Wayne Rooney, who missed the 1-0 win at Wolves with a knee problem aggravated against Egypt at Wembley. The leading scorer is still rated as doubtful for the Italians’ visit to Old Trafford.

The Football Association chairman, Lord Triesman, meanwhile, believes the Red Knights’ proposed takeover of United reflects a growing concern among supporters at how their clubs are run and believes a fan-run body could succeed in England. “There are some good fan-run clubs and there have been in England, too – there have been some clubs in difficulties where the fans have been the decisive factor such as York City and Bournemouth,” said Triesman.

The FA chairman refused to condemn the Glazers’ controversial ownership of United but admits supporters are right to respond to concerns over mounting debt. “Being a fan is a mixture of all sorts of things. It’s not a customer going into a shop. You want success on the pitch, there are deep cultural things involved, and most of the time you support the club your dad supported,” said Triesman. “There’s inevitably a sense of community, even if a club is a great international brand as well. It’s a huge mixture of things that fuel the emotion of football. My expectation always is that fans will be interested in the lot.”

He added: “I am really not saying Manchester United cannot deal with its overall financial arrangements but of course fans do take a view about whether their club is all right. If they have been very successful they want them to continue to be very successful so they are interested in where the funds are. As it happens I think United are a huge business capable of generating very, very big resources. It would be disappointing in any club if fans were not interested in the whole thing.”

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• FA wants to prevent any more team meetings being recorded
• Tapes obtained before Egypt game were touted to newspapers

The Football Association is confident that tight security around the England team at this summer’s World Cup will prevent a repeat of an incident in which team meetings were recorded in the run-up to last week’s friendly with Egypt.

The FA is taking the security breach that allowed the illicitly obtained recordings to be made seriously but is confident that the remote location and secure setting of England’s World Cup base in Rustenburg will prevent a repeat.

The recordings, offered to various newspapers, appear to have been made by bugging team meetings and taping private discussions between players.

England are due to play two more friendlies before the World Cup, against Mexico and Japan, and Fabio Capello plans to take the squad to a training camp in Austria.

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Violinist and Polish jazz band to improvise during screening of match as part of Southbank festival of Polish culture

It was one of the most traumatic matches in England’s football history, the one where that “clown” Jan Tomaszewski made save after save ensuring Poland went to the World Cup and – unthinkably – England didn’t. So the decision by the violinist Nigel Kennedy to screen it at the Royal Festival Hall just weeks before this year’s World Cup may, at the very least, raise eyebrows.

The Southbank Centre in London, Europe’s biggest arts centre, has announced it is handing its buildings over to Kennedy to create a “miniature Poland” on the Thames during this year’s late May bank holiday weekend. The maverick violinist, a passionate Aston Villa fan who moved to Krakow several years ago, will curate a weekend of events as the culmination of a year of cultural activities that have taken place under the banner Polska!

His most eye-catching concert will be a screening of the 1973 England v Poland match, albeit without the Barry Davies commentary. Instead it will be accompanied by Kennedy and Polish jazz musicians playing a semi-improvised score.

Kennedy said the match perfectly represented “what the whole festival is about, which is bringing Polish culture into England”.

Those England fans who watched in disbelief 37 years ago might, of course, see it differently. Whichever team won went through to the 1974 world cup finals in West Germany. The papers were full of scorn for Poland and Brian Clough was typically not shy in giving his opinion, calling the goalkeeper Tomaszewski “a clown”.

But it was the clown who effectively put Poland through with a string of impressive saves.The draw meant England were out for the first time. The nation went to work the next day depressed and shocked. Sir Alf Ramsay was, humiliatingly, sacked as manager.

Happy days, then. Kennedy said his decision to screen it was fuelled by his belief in the similarities between football and music. “Football brings a lot of people together and music is obviously designed expressly for that purpose. They’re also both shared things across all nations.”

The weekend will also see the British debut of Kennedy’s Orchestra of Life, an ensemble of young Polish musicians brought together by the violinist who will perform a programme featuring music by Bach and Duke Ellington.

Kennedy said of the orchestra: “I love working with young people who are open-minded and flexible and who have a real energy and vivacity in their approach to music. These young cats show the discipline and spontaneity of Polish culture.”

Other highlights include a celebratory concert by “Nigel Kennedy’s Chopin Super Group” featuring Janusz Olejniczak, who played the piano music in Roman Polanski’s film The Pianist.

Kennedy, the boy prodigy who became the brandy drinking diamond geezer, has lived in Poland for some time. “I’m well into the Polish life,” he said. “Ranging from the music and football through to the brilliant beer and vodka. Poland has an incredibly rich environment for all music. I’m sure I’ve had a much better chance to develop as a musician because all of these live forms of music that are very prevalent in Polish music.

“I wanted to bring some Polish culture over to London and make the Southbank Centre into a miniature Poland for a while.”

Nigel Kennedy’s FA Project: England v Poland 1973 will take place on the evening of Sunday 30 May. The England fans who do put themselves through watching the match afresh will have, of course, some consolation. Poland failed to qualify for this year’s finals in South Africa.

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Clive Tyldesley’s liking for artificial additives can lead to a severe bout of indigestion

I have noticed the phrase “accurately cooked” in a number of restaurant reviews lately, but it is not the damnation with faint praise it sounds like. Today’s restaurant critics like their din-dins to be simple, elegant, and not making too much fuss about being din-dins. The days when if you paid the thick end of 20 quid for a piece of meat or fish – and extra for your chips – you demanded some fancy schmancy sauce sloshed on it (I am not, you should know, a professional food critic) are well and truly over.

Were there a similar movement in television sport, Clive Tyldesley would be the first to be stripped of his Michelin star, as his hyperactive commentaries continue to arrive seriously overcooked, and packed with more artificial additives than Katie Price’s evening gown. Statistics are Clive’s condiment of choice, so naturally he could not quite get over the fact that England’s victory over Egypt on Wednesday was their 500th in all fixtures.

When he was not elaborating on that – victory No1 was at The Oval, I think he said, in the 1890s – he was inviting us to marvel at Peter Crouch’s scoring record: “Thirty-seven caps, 19 goals, do the math,” he swooned.

Do the math? I had to rewind to check that was what he had actually said. The math, I found, was relatively simple. It works out at just slightly more than a goal every two matches, but maybe in Topeka, Kansas, or wherever it is Clive is affecting to come from these days, it is a difficult problem, something to ponder over the biscuits and gravy, before taking the trash out to the dumpster.

Do the math? We might as well all give up and hoist up the Stars and Stripes. And there was I trying to stop my progeny saying “Can I get …” when ordering in restaurants, barring them from watching reruns of Friends. Do not get me wrong. I love American English, the vigour and muscularity of it and all, but on national television in the middle of what Clive would probably call a soccer match, it was undoubtedly de trop (oh, all right, let’s hoist up the Tricolour as well), and besides it left the commentator with nowhere to go when Crouch scored a second goal, and his stats became slightly more than slightly more than a goal in every two internationals.

It should be acknowledged that live commentary on a football match is a very difficult thing to do, but today’s commentators complicate it even more by treating dead air as an enemy – Tyldesley is undoubtedly the worst in this regard – and their propensity for phrase making, which Motty probably started with his Crazy Gang and Culture Club gag when Wimbledon beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final, but which has been rather too enthusiastically embraced by most of his heirs.

The BBC’s Jonathan Pearce, for example, on Match of the Day on Saturday described Burnley’s recent statistics of 13 defeats in 14 away matches, conceding more than one goal in all but one of the matches, as “a shameful record”.

No, it is not. Gary Glitter has a shameful record (not a reference to I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am), although there is a case to be made), John Terry’s recent behaviour is arguably shameful, but there is nothing shameful about losing a series of football matches, unless players have been taking bribes to throw them, and I am sure Pearce was not suggesting that.

There is no need for the embellishment anyway. It is worth remembering the phrase most readily associated with David Coleman, one of the best commentators of all time, is “One–nil.” Where one might perhaps welcome a little more garnish on the pundits’ bench, where ITV’s latest recruit is the former international goalkeeper Paul Robinson, a new addition to the legion of football and ex-football folk skilled in stating the bleedin’ obvious for money.

Among Robinson’s gems on Wednesday was, “The manager likes to win football matches,” which he later clarified by saying, “He [Fabio Capello] always wants to win the game of football.”

I can see the logic in Robinson’s recruitment. England’s goalkeeping problem is well advertised and the subject of much discussion in the four-ale bar, but Robinson, bluff, gruff Yorkshireman though he is, is way too close to his successors to deliver any forthright Boycott-esque assessment of their shortcomings.

Finally, I realise Screen Break has been suffused with negativity this week, so something positive for you to take away.

Flipping around late on Friday night in search of material, I happened upon The 40-Year-Old Virgin on ITV2, a film I have enjoyed before and was enjoying again, until it started going all soft-centred as recent Hollywood comedies inevitably do.

So I switched to ITV2 plus 1, where the same film was playing, but delayed by an hour. I was thus able to enjoy the outrageous bad behaviour of Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and their gang of schlubs all over again, and switch off before being forced to suspend disbelief when they mysteriously change into decent, honourable human beings.

In short, the “plus one” channels enable you to enjoy the com without the rom – a treat for those of you who prefer your comedy accurately cooked.

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England boss Fabio Capello will reveal his final squad of 23 for South Africa in a group meeting with his World Cup hopefuls.

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• John Terry: ‘I am pleased with my form this year’
• Chelsea captain maintains scandals have not affected him

John Terry has defended his performances in the wake of the scandal that has engulfed him over the past month.

Many have been critical of the form of the Chelsea captain, who was stripped of the England captaincy following tabloid revelations surrounding him and the former partner of Wayne Bridge.

The pressure on Terry increased after Chelsea lost 2-1 to Everton, but Terry insists that, aside from that game, his form is holding up. He told The People: “There are not many players who come out publicly and hold their hands up like I did after the Everton game.

“I also had an air-kick at Wolves but, apart from that, I am pleased with my form this year.

“In the first half of the season I was in really good form but after a couple of bad results, and what has gone on in recent weeks, the spotlight has been on me. But I feel as though I am playing well.”

Terry was content with his performance in England’s 3-1 win against Egypt in the friendly at Wembley last Wednesday, his first performance for the national team since losing the England captaincy, and felt he continued to play a leadership role.

“I played well against Egypt,” he said. “It was important for me to come through that with a good performance. I think I did carry on as a leader against Egypt. I think anyone who was watching the game could see that.”

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The improvements wrought by Fabio Capello may not be sufficient to overcome the game’s top two superpowers

For England Spain and Brazil are the Scylla and Charybdis of this World Cup. To believe the sick man of Europe can finally put 1966 in a time capsule you have to believe the improvements wrought by Fabio Capello are sufficient to overcome the game’s top two superpowers.

Last week England again reversed Sven-Goran Eriksson’s mantra of first half good, second half not so good, to beat the best team in Africa. That just leaves the top sides in Europe and South America, who have inflicted hurt on Capello’s men in friendly matches. Spain were 2-0 winners in February last year and Brazil prevailed 1-0 in Doha in November, a game that prompted pundits to say England’s back-up boys were not good enough, in contrast to Wednesday’s 3-1 victory over Egypt, after which everyone claimed the bench was bursting with match-winning talent.

We are close to the stage in World Cup build-ups where an amnesiac population start hectoring the players and coach to say yes, strike me dead if England don’t go there and win it this time. Eriksson started out not wanting to go along with this premature triumphalism but succumbed in the end, lobbing the punters the sardine they wanted: “I think we will win it, of course.”

Just as assessments of individual talent are weakened by an unwillingness to consider the quality of the opposition – Tommy Hotshot was a one-man tornado against Stoke but anonymous against Barcelona, strangely – so any appraisal of England’s prospects in South Africa must start with an acknowledgment of how hard Spain and Brazil will be to shift.

Nor is it only those two fine teams but the five others currently ranked higher than Capello’s: Holland, Italy (the world champions), Germany, Portugal and France. Not forgetting Argentina, who are managed by the self-detonating Diego Maradona but beat Germany in Munich in midweek. Spain and Brazil, though, are the Kauto Star of this summer’s tournament. Realistically England jump off in the Gold Cup knowing there’s nothing in the form book to say they should beat silky Spain or a Brazil XI who have dumped big-name narcissism in favour of industry and a lethal counterattacking style.

Spain’s 2-0 win over France last week was their first on Gallic soil since 1968 and extended an already astounding run to 42 wins in 45 outings. Their only defeat in that time was to America at the Confederations Cup. Here our racing experts toss their trilbys. If the US can beat Spain, and England beat the US, who are in their World Cup qualifying group, then surely the form line says …

No it doesn’t. In Spain’s starting line-up in Paris: Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol, Xabi Alonso, David Villa, Cesc Fábregas, Andrés Iniesta, David Silva. Villa scored his 36th international goal in 55 appearances. In nets Casillas collected his 102nd cap, Xavi Hernández, Pepe Reina, Fernando Torres and Marcos Senna warmed the bench before trotting on. Imagine having Casillas and Reina to choose from in goal. Capello, meanwhile, is sweating over whether David James should be replaced by Robert Green.

They say Brazil have “problems”. But these seem entirely political, as they often are with the five-times World Cup winners. The dilettante Ronaldinho has woken up under Leonardo’s management at Milan, so now Dunga is under pressure to restore the slimmed-down shimmy-star. The coach, though, has his core of humble patriots and his pattern of play, which is to absorb attacks with the help of two screening midfielders (Gilberto Silva and Felipe Melo), then dispatch overlapping full-backs on their merry way while Kaká probes in the No10 position and Luís Fabiano scores the goals at centre-forward.

England’s strengths and weaknesses are a whole other seminar. They cannot be examined in isolation, though, because the road to the final runs through countries demonstrably better equipped to win this World Cup and because England display specific historical failings that Capello will need to cure if they are to play the same possession game as the nations who have won World Cups since 1966.

The bad news is that this requires a profound cultural shift, even if most of Capello’s starting XI are Champions League regulars. Gary Neville, who has played at five international tournaments, and is interviewed on pages 10-11, confirmed this theory while discounting the argument that England could be sunk without a Gilberto or a Melo. Or an Owen Hargreaves.

“I’ve always found in the World Cup that we can burn ourselves out because we’re playing every four days and we’re all running round like mad men when we need people to control the ball,” Neville said. “Carrick and Gerrard and Lampard and Barry – people who’ve played at clubs who control the tempo of the game – are a better bet than putting a destroyer in there.”

Capello has accentuated England’s virtues and concealed their flaws. His management will bestow on a sprinkling of world-class players their best hope since France 98 of putting 1966 in a box with 1066 and all that. But let’s see them sail through the Strait of Messina.

Administrators behaving like messiahs

The age of the celebrity administrator is here. It may be a trick of the memory but the people sent in to sort out ruined football clubs used to be like civil servants, seen but not heard. These days they behave like messiahs, sitting beside newly appointed managers at press conferences and promising to “save” the patient from extinction.

This thought occurred when Neil Warnock, who fled Crystal Palace for Queens Park Rangers, said of Brendan Guilfoyle of the P & A Partnership: “Another blow was when I was told by the administrator’s agent that I could bring in players if I got the squad down to 19.” They have agents now? Guilfoyle sat next to Paul Hart when he was unveiled as Warnock’s successor.

Down at Portsmouth, meanwhile, another insolvency specialist, Andrew Andronikou, is seldom off the television, despite Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs questioning the validity of his appointment and a high court judge saying there was “a shadow” over his nomination.

“I promise we will save your club and take you forward,” Andronikou told Pompey’s supporters. This is not the language of accountancy and cost-cutting, but then football has this narcotic effect. It makes balance-sheet jugglers think they are gods.

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Michael Owen has been ruled out but it is the presence of another veteran which must now be questioned

The fence-sitting prize for caution this season goes to Sky Sports News, who were reporting on Friday that the injury that had curtailed Michael Owen’s season had all but ended his lingering hopes of going to the World Cup.

All but? This is a player who has not featured at all in England’s qualification for South Africa, and who will not now be playing any more matches for Manchester United until the World Cup is over. If Fabio Capello was impervious to Owen’s appeal when he was struggling with Newcastle and playing second fiddle to Wayne Rooney at Old Trafford, why on earth do Sky imagine the coach might have a sudden change of heart and offer a place to a man on crutches? Even in the unlikely event of Owen making it back to play a few games for United’s reserves before the end of the season, even if he borrowed a script from Roy of the Rovers and popped up with the winning goal in the Champions League final, Capello would hesitate to include him at the last minute because of what happened at the last World Cup.

Owen is probably worried right now that his entire international career might be over, and that is desperately sad for someone who started so brightly and until last week still looked capable of at least giving Capello something to think about, but clearly it is going to take something a good deal more serious than surgery to reattach muscle to bone before Sky give up on his World Cup hopes.

In their defence, Sky could point out that David Beckham still appears to be in Capello’s plans, and while he is not actually on crutches his mobility compared to what it used to be is just as seriously impaired. The two positions are quite different, yet it still appears strange that Capello should set his face against Owen while going out of his way to accommodate Beckham with a series of extremely limited cameo appearances. All Beckham is expected to do nowadays, it appears, is come on for the last 20 minutes or so and steady the ship with his experience and dead-ball delivery. That’s fine as far as it goes, especially if you have put money on Beckham gaining enough caps to beat Peter Shilton’s appearance record, yet in a real World Cup situation, if you are a goal down against a good team, for example, and you need to make a change to make something happen, a striker of Owen’s quality or a pacy player such as Shaun Wright-Phillips might be more useful options from the bench.

You would never have believed this at the end of the last World Cup, and it would have made even less sense in Zagreb 18 months ago, but the possibility now exists that Beckham could go to the World Cup while Theo Walcott is left at home. Several pundits have drawn up prospective squads that reflect such an eventuality, trying to second-guess Capello on the basis of his loyalty to Beckham thus far and Walcott’s alarming loss of form. It would be ironic were a player selected for his first World Cup on the basis of no form whatsoever – when Sven-Goran Eriksson called Walcott up in 2006 he had still to play a game for Arsenal – to miss out four years later having proved his worth, yet it could happen. Late into Wednesday night Capello was still being questioned about whether he could find a place in his squad for Wright-Phillips and Aaron Lennon as well as Walcott and Beckham, bearing in mind that he now employs Steven Gerrard as a notional left-winger. Yes, was the answer. And don’t forget there’s Stewart Downing as well.

Actually, there’s Ashley Young and David Bentley to add to that list, and James Milner is only being excluded because he plays in an infield position for Aston Villa. If we stick to out‑and‑out wingers and assume England need four, it follows that for Beckham to go to South Africa, someone of the calibre of Downing, Lennon, Walcott or Wright-Phillips must miss out, and that is before you get further down the list to players such as Young, Bentley and Adam Johnson.

Lennon is injured at the moment, and should he fail to make a full recovery Capello may yet be handed an easy way out, though if everyone is fit on 1 June it would surely be folly to prefer Beckham to any of the younger candidates. To exclude Downing, for example, would be to leave the squad without a true left-footed player, even if Lennon can play on either wing. Lennon himself, when fit, is arguably the best winger available. Wright-Phillips has shown what he can do as an impact sub and, even if he remains in dire form for the rest of the season, Walcott’s pace alone should win any argument with Beckham. Had Frank Lampard put away that early chance against Egypt the case would be closed already.

Much as Capello might like Beckham’s experience in South Africa, the fact is there are at least half a dozen younger, quicker, better alternatives ahead of him, all capable of playing not just a whole game but a series of them. Taking a 34-year-old bit-part player to South Africa no longer seems to make much sense. Beckham is well past the audition stage, but it is hard not to view his return to Old Trafford on Wednesday in that light. He, too, could do with a script from Roy of the Rovers.

Capello learned nothing new by resisting temptation to tinker

If it is the last friendly before a World Cup squad is selected, it must be time to get carried away. Peter Crouch’s two goals against Egypt probably booked his ticket to South Africa, yet he was always likely to make the squad anyway. Those arguing he deserves a place in the starting line-up on the basis of his impact as a substitute in a friendly ought to consider whether Jermain Defoe should now be axed after missing the first-half chances that came his way, and ponder the possibility of the world being wrong about Wayne Rooney, who had his quietest game for weeks and was the least effective forward on display.

While Crouch and Defoe have that effect on England’s most dangerous player it is safe to assume Fabio Capello will continue to file them under Plan B rather than Plan A. It could be argued that Rooney is in no need of a partner, as most of his heroics for Manchester United since the turn of the year have been accomplished as a solo act, yet if Capello has any such scheme in mind then surely Wednesday was the ideal opportunity, in fact the only opportunity, to try it out. By the same reasoning Capello now seems unlikely to promote Steven Gerrard to secondary striker or use quick players such as Theo Walcott and Shaun Wright-Phillips as anything other than conventional wingers.

All of which explains why Emile Ivanhoe Heskey is the bookies’ favourite (7-4) to start alongside Rooney against the US. That’s not a bad price in such a narrow market, though it is nothing like what might have been obtained four years ago, when Crouch was in the starting line-up and Heskey was watching the World Cup on television.

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