I used to think people were crazy to complain that foreigners in the Premier League were killing the England national team. But now I think they’re right – only it’s not the foreign players, it’s the foreign owners that are to blame. The massive influx in money (highlighted by the recent madness at Manchester City) has created a culture in the Premier League where winning and staying in all competitions is important not just for the fans and players, but also to the long-term financial health of the club. Meaning that trivial things like World Cup qualifiers and even cup games are given second-class status to Premier League weekend games and European competition.
Take the example of Steven Gerrard’s latest injury. It seems that Gerrard has been playing on a groin injury for a while, even after further aggravating it in a midweek Champion’s League qualifier that Liverpool had to win. So what does Manager Rafa Benitez do? Asks him to gut it out for the weekend Premier League game and then schedule surgery for the international break – which, as you can imagine, did not initially sit well with England Manager Fabio Capello.
Rafa Benitez insisted he had made his peace with England coach Fabio Capello yesterday and dismissed claims of a breakdown in communication over Steven Gerrard’s latest injury absence.
Gerrard will have the second of two minor groin operations today and will miss Capello’s first two competitive games in charge, as England begin their World Cup campaign against Andorra next Saturday and Croatia four days later.
Capello was reportedly unhappy at being kept in the dark over Liverpool’s decision to arrange surgery for their skipper in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday night’s Champions League qualifying round win over Standard Liege.
Now it seems that captain John Terry, Frank Lampard, Owen Hargreaves, Wes Brown, and Ashley Cole will also miss one or both international games – which leaves me wondering how England is expected to get a result against Croatia – the team that will most likely be their toughest competition in the group – in a competition where, unlike Euro 2008 qualifying, winning the group is paramount to qualification. I know it happens on-and-off already, but is this going to get to the point where clubs will start to come up with all kinds of excuses to keep their best players out of all international games?
I suppose the good thing is that some non-regulars like Fulham’s Jimmy Bullard will get a chance to impress Capello. But without some kind of continuity in Capello’s system, how can the team be expected to play as a unit? Some would say Capello should drop the overpaid regulars and give the young England stars more consideration. But Capello seems to have a fondness for a more grizzled England team (see:David Beckham) with Michael Owen the only notable exception.
I say instead of picking an England All-Star team, just send Aston Villa. They seem to be the only Premier League team stockpiling young England talent (Ashley Young, Gabby Agbonlahor, Gareth Barry, Steve Sidwell, Luke Young, Curtis Davies, etc.) and there’ll be no worries about not playing together. I suppose they need to find someone to replace Carew, Laursen, Friedel and a few others, but it would certainly have saved them from paying both Shteve McClaren and Fabio Capello all that money when they could get the guy (Martin O’Neill) they probably should have hired after Sven left. Of course we’ll look past the fact that Villa’s owners are American and their manager is Irish!
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