LETS BE RIO-LISTIC

After Japan/Korea world cup in 2002,Rio Ferdinand was bought for 30 million by Manchester United. Since then he has been regarded as one of the best defenders in the world. Severn years at the top of his game. But now after a handful of recent errors it`s not just his England spot going up in smoke, but his club spot too.

This is the man who was in contension to become Englamd captain. A man who captained United to champions league glory in 2008.

After United`s loss to rivals Liverpool at the weekend, Rio Ferdinand once agian had the critics on his back after Torres`s opener."He`s lost a yard of pace" is the new one people are saying. WHY cause he couldn`t out sprint Torres? name me a centre back who can? he sure kept up with im though. The goal was because of a perfectly waited pass from Benayoun and Torres blistering pace and finish.

I`m not defending the errors against Holland and Man City, but how many other defenders errors this year have been mentioned? Jamie Carragher was lucky to stay on the field against United. John Terry moaned about his teams defending aginst Villa. If you watch his marking of John Carew though it was dismal, like the rest of his team. Lescott hasn`t been a saint at the back either this year.

Its not just premiership stars either. Real Madrids best back four conceded four goals to Spanish minows Alcoron.

"He`ll need to get his form right." This was the response given by Alex Ferguson when asked wether Unted defender Rio Ferdinand will be going to South Africa with England.Extremely true. I have always said international players should get picked on form rather than the name on the back of the shirt.

Ferdinand is a top player who will always have class. Form is tempory . Ferdinand said "I take each game as it comes." He`s a confident player who brings composure to players around him. Im sure he will regain form and prove critics wrong for both club and country.

COULD ASH CAP IT?

WELL some players are still trying to impress Fabio Capello, others are already cemented into the Italians plans. Ashley Cole is defiantly one of those players.
Even though there have been a few lapses in concentration recently for England, Cole is still one of the first names on the team sheet.

At 28 years old, the Chelsea full back already has 77 caps under his belt. Now I’ve started thinking how many will he get by the end of his career?

With David Beckham 10 caps off Peter Shiltons impressive record of 125 caps, I think Cole may be the man who passes the great goalkeepers record if Beckham fails.

Cole made his England debut in a routine 3-1 against Albania in 2001. Since then he has been an England regular filling the void left by Stuart Pearce, which we struggled to fill. If England make it through their next two campaigns like this one, Cole could feature in 2012 euro’s and the next world cup.

Now with England in the world cup finals, he will be able to extend his caps into the mid eighties. I’m sure he has more important things at the full front of his mind, such as Chelsea getting back on top of the League. But somewhere deep in his thoughts must be the ambition to become England’s most caped player.

Cole has already set one record though. He is the only player to have won the FA cup a breathtaking five times. With the only other decent young English left backs being Kieron Gibbs and Leighton Baines, Cole should continue to have a long run in the England set-up.

OTHERS COULD FOLLOW SOUTHGATE

YESTERDAY Gareth Southgate was sacked as manager of Middlesbrough. Now there could be more casualties to other championship managers.

Southgate was axed after Tuesdays 2-0 win over Derby at The Riverside. But after losing three home games, and a rapid decrease in ticket sales Boro chairman Steve Gibson decided to end Southgate’s three year reign.

Although Middlesbrough’s home record this year has been poor they are still fourth in the league, and only one point off leaders West Bromwich Albion. But this isn’t the first time Southgate’s job has came under the spotlight.

He managed to hold on to his position last season before Middlesbrough were relegated from the premiership. But Gibson kept faith in the former England international saying “We will not have a scapegoat at this club, and it will not be Gareth.” This is the first sacking Gibson has made in his 15 years of being chairman at the club.

The question is now who will be next to go in the championship? Bookmakers’ favourite is Roy Keane who has yet to register a win this season at Ipswich. The tractor boys are currently laying bottom of the league with only seven points from 13 matches.

Derby are another team down the wrong end of the league. Nigel Clough and his men are currently nineteenth in the league with only 14 points. Although I’m sure he will push them forward when he has a fully fit squad, it's still nervous times at Pride Park.

Brendan Rodgers could also be on his way out after watching QPR batter his team 4-1 on Tuesday. To make matters worse the Reading faithful have turned on Rodgers, singing "you won`thave a job in the morning." Also chanting former boss Steve Coppell’s name throughout their last game.

Paul Sturrock is another manager in the shadow of the former boss. Ian Holloway was a fan’s favourite at Plymouth. With only two wins this year the Green Army have not had much to shout about. Could Sturrock be the next casualty this year?

LIFE’S A BEACH FOR REDS

Liverpools title hope`s are left in tatter`s as a freak Darren Bent goal gives Sunderland deserved win.



Unfortunately the ball wasn’t recorded as the goal scorer, as Bent claimed his eighth of the season. But on the plus side it wasn’t blamed for the incident from reds boss Rafa Benitez either. He said, “We didn't’t play well, that is the main thing for me. “These things happen, we need to improve.”

The most humorous part about the whole incident was that it was a Liverpool fan who had hit the beach ball onto the pitch in first place.I hope for his sake he is as far away from the red side of Merseyside as possible. Also Sammy Lee`s attempted to find out if there was a law to disallow the goal. What was he expecting? Who in there right mind would of come up with a rule like that? A for effort though Sammy.

Liverpool now lie eighth in the league, and already trailing leaders Manchester United by seven points. With only nine games gone there is still along season ahead, but while Liverpool are not performing well and dropping points, United are taking points with or without a great performance. That’s what wins you trophies. Even if you’re not firing on all cylinders you still dig deep to get the points. Something that isn't’t happening at Liverpool at the moment, something that they seem to do in the champions league, but not the premiership.

Manchester United are on route in taking over Liverpools record of 18 league titles. I would of thought that Liverpool would of defended their honor a little bit more gracefully.

WEEK IN WORDS

FIRSTLY I’ve got to mention England’s successful qualifying campaign. For once the boys in white have done it the easy way and done what was asked of them. Still I’m not going to get carried away there’s a few tweaks to sort out, mainly who’s going to play between the sticks. Also we need to stop making schoolboy errors at the back and giving away soft goals. With the experience of Ferdinand, Terry and Cole along with the confident Glen Johnson I’m hopeful that will be stopped.
Also who will support Rooney up front? If it were my choice Jermaine Defoe would be that man, but again there is a long way to go yet, and surely a few injuries.

SPECULATION surrounding Emile Heskey’s future at Aston Villa has been put into the public eye. According to various papers the 31 year old will leave the midlands club in January if he fails to claim a starting spot. Heskey has failed to carry his international form, which has seen him link up well with Wayne Rooney, to his club form. I can’t help thinking if he can’t make the Villa starting line up how can he start for England in a world cup?

RAFEAL Benitez hit out after star players Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres came back injured from international duty. He said, “both players played with us and they were fine, then came back from international duty injured.” Its extremely unfortunate timing for the reds as they face Sunderland today, Lyon midweek and Manchester United next weekend. A loss to Sunderland will near enough end Liverpool’s title hopes, and defeat to Lyon will leave them falling behind in the champions league. This a big week for the reds and their boss.

FIFA THROW RONNIE AND CO A LIFELINE

FIFA dropped a bomb on Ireland this week by announcing their world cup qualifier will now be seeded.

After being seeded top in their groups why should Portugal, Greece and France get another lifeline to hold onto their world cup hope? Russia were seeded second in their group behind the Germans as were Republic of Ireland to Italy, but there were no favours given to the Irish.

The World cup finals should consist of the best nations around the world and France and Portugal do fall into that category, without a doubt. But they like the other six teams also came second in their groups.So why now has the rule suddenly changed? I think it would be great to see France and Portugal fighting to hold onto their world cup dreams. Also there are other big nations missing out such as Sweden, Czech Republic, Croatia and Turkey I’m surprised Mr Blatter hasn’t given them another chance to qualify if he's concerned about the bigger nations .

FIFA are so worried about loss of finances without the big money making players such as Ronaldo and Henry, rather than thinking about the revenue you they could possibly make from a surprise country such as Slovenia. Surely this is why Sepp Blatter introduced this seeded rule just last week. He said, “we have decided on seeding the teams into two groups of four, taking the FIFA world rankings into account, with the top four in one pot and the others in another pot.” Blatter also explained “there will be a separate draw to decide the home and away sides.”

I feel the group stages tell the whole story. For instance, in group one Denmark won the group which makes them the best team in the group overall. Portugal were second, they were top seeds, favourites and they fell short. As for the rest of the teams, better luck next time. We never seeded the qualifiers before so why start now?

I recently have started to think money is key in domestic football, but then international football starts up and it’s all about passion, heart and money is forgotten about. But now with this seeded rule for the bigger nations money influence with top players and merchandise is finally interfering and not for the good of the game.

McLEISH GETS CHANCE TO SHOP

ALEX Mcliesh will be given up to 40 million to spend in the January transfer window after new owner Carson Yeung gave the Scot his full support.

Now Mcliesh can really push the club forward, and out of the shadow of local rivals Aston Villa according to Yeung. He said, “Birmingham can be as big as possible, we are competitors for Aston Villa.”

I was impressed how he didn’t start ranting and raving about winning trophies and champions league spots in the next few seasons. He seems more interested in seeing stability in the top flight and just reminding their neighbours (Villa) that there is another club in the city.

Yeung has a big gap to fill after buying out former owners David Gold and Sullivan, who were extremely dedicated to the club for 16 years. In this time City have tasted the premiership three times.

But can Mcleish bring the right players to City? His big money buy his season Christian Benitez has failed to impress yet, while Barry Ferguson doesn’t look too much better than when he was at Blackburn in the Premiership, despite starting every game this year.

City are missing someone who can score plus ten goals a season and some quality in the middle.
Although they have not started too badly, their games have been won or lost by a single boring dull goal.

Hopefully with cash on the table City will add some class to the team to entertain their truly dedicated fans, instead of leaving them ruing missed opportunities.

ONLINE SHOCCER

TODAY’S game between England and Ukraine is being shown online and viewers will be charged to watch it. Online company Kentaro, who bought the rights to the game after Setanta went bust will be streaming the game to viewers after failing to sell the match to ITV or the BBC. England fans have posted their anger online already, but some people are now saying this is the future way to watch football, but is it really?

The plus side is that we would be able to choose which premier league match we wanted, instead of watching the games Sky or ESPN broadcast. Also if every football match could be streamed people who support smaller clubs with no live TV coverage such as league two sides would be able to watch their side’s week in week out.

But is this really the root we want to take? I dislike watching sports on a small screen let alone on a laptop. What would happen to going to the pub to watch Manchester United v Chelsea only to find out their showing Burton Albion v Bristol Rovers? because the landlord is from Burton. Also if pubs were paying £10 per a match and were screening three or four would the have an entry fee to enter your local?

England fans have supported the team so much through this campaign. They have put less pressure on the team, got behind them all the way and packed Wembley out for all the qualifiers. But now we are told we have to spend extra money to watch our country play football. I personally think it’s a disgrace and leaving more fans out of pocket.

If England were still in the hunt for qualification this issue would not have surfaced for a long time and I would be happily sat in the pub with a pint, surrounded by hundreds of others doing the same.

Darren's Hopes Bented

THE England squad to face Ukraine and Belarus was announced last week and without the premierships 2nd top scorer. Yes Darren Bent will not be taking part in England's last two qualifiers this week.

Instead Mr Capello has opted for Gabby Agbonlahor, Emile Heskey, Carlton Cole, Peter Crouch and Wayne Rooney as his striking options. I couldn’t help thinking with Defoe injured Bents our only other player who is a natural goal scorer and would be a certainty for a call up.

I fail to understand how a player who has scored more goals than any other player of the same nationality and has started every league game this year can fail to be picked over a player such as Emile Heskey who has only started 3 games and failed to score. I’m not saying he should start For England or even that he’s proved he’s international quality, but as goals and form go he’s on fire at the moment. Surely any English striker who has scored all most a goal every game in the premiership should be picked for the national team, whoever they are.