Best players in their best positions in the best team....



Fabio: hasn't cracked the Lampard-Gerrard conundrum

That, to me, is what a football manager should strive to pick. Sounds obvious, doesn't it? But it often doesn't happen, especially with the England team.

Managers, and fans, are often drawn instead to focus on the first bit only: the best players.

So, a whole generation of England bosses have struggled with the Frank Lampard-Steven Gerrard conundrum. They are the two best midfielders in England, and have been for years. So they both have to play, don't they? Except that it has never quite worked, because together they fail the second and third principles: their best positions are the same, so they can't both play there, and playing one of them out of position does not give us our best team. The answer to the conundrum? Leave one of them on the bench.


 Then we come to the Darren Fletcher paradox. He is not one of Manchester United's headline players. He is, arguably, not one of their four best midfielders. Crucially though, the team tend to play better with him than without him. Why? Because he IS the best ball-winner they have. He may not catch the eye with glorious long passes and he does not score many goals, but he does the basics well. He hassles and harries the opposition when they have the ball. He never stops working and he very rarely gives away possession. In midfield, alongside their best play-maker Paul Scholes,Fletcher gives Manchester United their best partnership. He is a pivotal part of their best team, and he is crucial to their success.



The Darren Fletcher Paradox



This is a paradox which has beaten England managers. They cannot, of course, pick Fletcher. He is a bit too, um, Scottish. But there are options.

Currently, Scott Parker is our best ball-winner. He is better at that role than Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard. That they can dovetail and 'share' the ball-winner role is a myth. It is a question of mentality: they measure their own performance by the goals they create and score, Parker measures his by the mark he leaves on the opposition.

Jack Wilshere is Fabio Capello's latest candidate to play in the deep-lying midfield role, but he is another whose mentality is, primarily, focused on attack. He is another world-class play-maker. He is potentially better than Lampard or Gerrard in that role, certainly more cultured than either of them, and less smash-and-grab.

Could Parker and Wilshere be our best central midfield pairing? Could we dream of leaving Gerrard and Lampard both on the bench? Would player-power ever allow it?

Parker: England's best ball-winner

If Capello were as strong-minded as he was built up to be when appointed England manager, he might entertain this sort of not really very radical thinking. Instead, he has tended to simply fall in line with the same misguided selection policy as other England managers before him. Pick the best players, the biggest names, the stars. Pick the side that The Sun could easily pick for you, without charging an exorbitant salary to do so.

Capello has not brought new thinking to England. As I have alluded to in previous posts, he doesn't even seem to care that much. After all, he is retiring next year anyway. You can almost forgive him for just going through the motions until then.

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Jack Wilshere?

He didn't even cross my mind when I thought about how England might line up tomorrow. Then I read the papers, and apparently the team is being built around him. Well, one step at a time Fabio. We're not done with building the team around Wayne Rooney yet. Or Steven Gerrard, it Frank Lampard or even David Beckham.

If the team, built around Wilshere, fails, who do we build it around next?

An idea, radical I know: How about we establish a team ethic, and fit the players in to that, based on the best players playing in the best positions for for the best benefit of the team? How about we forget reputations and preconceptions and just get back to nation v nation, club v club?

What's stopping it?

YOU ARE!

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Dithering over 'Dafi, as governments duck responsibility

Increasingly more so, media coverage of the Libya intervention seems to be focusing more on who is in charge than what it is setting out to achieve.

The USA want to diminish their involvement, worried about upsetting the Arab nations with yet another war. Britain and France are keen to take part but, like a child near a swing-set, they each seem to be waiting for Daddy America's permission to ride.

Despite France's objections, control, it appears, will go to NATO. Not anyone's total obligation, then. Nice.

Diplomacy, I'm sure, can be a good thing at times. But in this case it just looks like everyone passing the buck.

If Gaddafi is as evil as we say he is, and if the fate of mankind rests, as we say it does, on deposing (and possibly killing) him, then why don't we, all us allied forces, just get on and do it. Leave the squabbling side-effects until afterwards. Get the job done.

Or is there no political currency in that?

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Nice to see The Alternative View referenced on another website...

Bbc Emails Show Panic Over Countryfile Presenter Miriam Oreillys | Berita Sepak Bola Indonesia

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Purple Politics and the Blank Canvas: A Vision of Change

Since the birth of New Labour in the 90s, UK politics has become so neutral that you can barely tell the difference between a Labour policy and a Conservative one. The only thing you can be sure of is that the Opposition, whichever party may be in opposition, will always oppose. They will oppose policies which they themselves would have championed, had they been in power. In some cases they oppose policies they DID champion, before they were booted out of government. This is the nature of our far-too-narrow politics. And this nature must change.

Do I, the voter, prefer Red or Blue? How can I tell when the whole supposed spectrum appears Purple. Even with a splash of Yellow, our Government and the Opposition are still Purple to the core.

Central. Neutral. Insipid.

We have a Government which will stand until the next major economic downturn and then fall down in flames, only to rise once more, like a phoenix, but under another name.

Labour replace Conservatives, Conservatives replace Labour, and so on and so forth. They each preside over the same ups and the same downs, each blaming the other along the way. Well, two so similar characters are hardly likely to get along, are they?

This is the time for change.

Forget Purple. Let's take a blank, White canvas and start again. Forget party allegiance. What are the best policies for Britain?

Liberate yourself from your preconceptions. Don't think that politics just has to be how it is, and how it has been for a hundred years. A hundred years, in the vast expanse of our nation's history, is a mere blink of an eye.

Change will shape the future. You will shape the future.

Think of the blank canvas. Think of what future you would like to paint upon it, and speak up for that change.

Speak up for change. Make democracy work for you. Make it representative. Make it accessible to the people it is meant to represent.

Speak up for change. Rebuild Britain in your own image. Rebuild the nation through endeavour, growth and determination.

Don't sit idly by and let the leaders lead, just because they're the leaders. Tell them what you think. Make them work for you.

Speak up for change.

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"Lesson learnt" as Capello reinstates Terry as England captain

Fabio Capello confirmed yesterday that John Terry would once more be England captain, stating that the Chelsea defender has learnt his lesson and has been punished enough.

Does that mean that he's no longer the womanising cheat who divided the national squad's loyalties and forced one team-mate in to an early international retirement? No, he is still as reprehensible as ever.

Does it mean that Capello has learnt his lesson and changed his own mind? Maybe. Or maybe it is just the latest example of casual mismanagement in the England manager's rein, which is ever more so resembling precisely what the cynics say it is: a cushy little pre-retirement pay-day.

The Italian has certainly botched his handling of this matter, whichever way you look at it. He either should have stood by Terry and not sacked him in the first place, or he should have stayed true to his original decision. Having done neither, he should have extended Rio Ferdinand the courtesy of not debating the subject in the media before discussing it with him. Some matters should certainly be kept behind closed doors.

The revelation, skirted over, at least in the BBC coverage of story, that Ferdinand refused an invitation to meet with the gaffer on Wednesday night shows that the now former England skipper felt slighted and undermined by the highly public discussion over the previous few days. That it coincided with media reports over the sustainability of the injury-plagued centre-half's career as even a Manchester United player can't have helped.

So Ferdinand is put out. Steven Gerrard is probably a bit put out. John Terry was put out for a year but now he can be smug again. The overall harmony of the England camp, it seems, is a bit all over the place. It is almost as if Capello does not understand the nature of managing Englishmen in the full glare of the English public. But then, not being English and having never played or managed here, how could he? His Italian compatriots, you imagine, would not have made such a fuss of what was an entirely non-football manner.

It is another source of the English football team's disharmony that he is even in the job at all. Post Sven Goran-Eriksson it was decided an Englishman was needed, so we got Steve McClaren. When he was no longer deemed fit, the FA once again lost faith in its indigenous managerial candidates: Sam Allardyce's face didn't fit; neither he nor Harry Redknapp was proven at the very top; who else was there?

In desperation the FA reached out for Capello, who was as proven as any manager in the game. Well, he was at club level. In international management, he was no more experienced than Allardyce or Redknapp. But, truth be told, no-one going in to the England job can really be qualified by experience. The job is unique: a narrow pool of talent; a domestic league over-ridden with foreign talent; no players with experience of any league other than our blood and thunder Premier League. Too many players of the same quintessentially English mould; too few of any other.

And now the FA have stated, presumably for some of the reasons above, and also just because people think it's the right thing to do, that the next boss should be English. Like Capello's hard and soft handling of John Terry, it seems that the FA is hot-stepping between moral footings. If it was not the right thing to do before, then why is it now?

Regardless, Capello is retiring from the post next year. Who will replace him?

If only a perfect candidate were to arise. Someone with all the relevant experience: success at home, abroad and in Europe. Intimate knowledge of the England set-up and the pressures associated with it.

Steve McClaren anyone?

The FA did not-so-long ago state that they would consider re-appointing McClaren, who at the time was gaining wide repute for his title-winning success at Dutch side FC Twente. He would never be accepted back though, would he? In this age of trial-by-media he would have the noose around his neck before he even had chance to unfurl his brolly.

So who then? There is no perfect candidate, and the best coaches and the best tacticians, even the much-trumpeted Fabio Capello, have failed. So who?

A patriot. A pragmatist. A man who demands respect not for his world renown or for his past successes, but for his passion. Someone who would have either told Terry to shove it or who would have backed him unequivocally. Someone who may not be the best and brightest, but who is honest and true. Someone young, English and driven, who could feasibly lead the team for a generation. Someone we, players and fans alike, can all get behind without any debate or doubt.

My man may also be the FA's man. After all, he is already on the inside. He is Stuart Pearce. Psycho. Could he be the next England manager?

I'm male. I'm white. I'm not yet 30. What happens if I'm the one who is discriminated against?

Let's discuss a hypothetical scenario: I feel that I'm discriminated against at work.

It's not on account of my race, gender, age, religious beliefs or sexuality - none of which could be considered marginal.

I have read the employee handbook, and I have referred the situation to Unite, the union. They both refer to employment law, which prohibits discrimination - but only on specified grounds, such as those listed above.

The truth is, I don't know exactly why I am discriminated against. I just feel, sometimes, that my face doesn't fit. This is not covered in law.

Bullying at work is covered by law, although Unite recognise that, as a form of discrimination, bullying is hard to define and even harder to confront.

Alarmingly I realise that some of the bullying behaviours identified on Unite's website describe ME. Am I a bully? I certainly don't mean to be, but I can be bloody sarcastic sometimes.

I read on, and the website tells me that bullying behaviour is often a reaction to being bullied - of course, this is playground stuff, and it is silly. No one bullies me.

But then I read about institutionalized bullying. Qualified by effect rather than intention, this may make its victims feel hopeless, depressed or worthless. It may involve passing people over for promotion, even if they are better qualified or more experienced. It may involve favouritism towards others, or inequal treatment (better pay, better opportunities, more recognition for the ones whose faces do fit). Institutionalised bullying may occur when you are asked to perform to a higher level than those around you, without the benefits or status which should accompany such responsibility. You may find that you have to pick up the slack for others, including those above you, for little or no extra reward. You may find yourself kept in the dark about your own future - especially where short-term secondments and departmental re-organisations are concerned. You have proven you can do the job, will you be rewarded? There may be little opportunity for progression in your role, particularly if those above you seem to be job-for-lifers. You may feel that you can't complain about these things or that, if you do, your words fall on deaf ears. Worse still, if you speak up you may be resented, or even further victimised, as a result.

This is institutionalised bullying. It is hurtful, and cruel, and it can make your working life a misery. And, looking around, I see others like me who must feel the same - how do they deal with it? Happy pills? Or do they become, eventually, so jaded and worn down by it that they just don't care.

Of course, this is hypothetical - if it were true I wouldn't write about it. I'd be too scared of the consequences.

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