There are few things more infuriating as a football fan than watching a player with unquestionable talent being dicked around by their club, and then going on to great things elsewhere. Here's ten examples of managers managing to balls up an absolute gem:
1. Javier Mascherano - West Ham
Spent his 6 months at the club behind Hayden Mullins in the pecking order. Next.
2. Robbie Keane - Liverpool
If you sign a striker for £20 million, why on earth would you use him as backup for when your slightly more expensive striker gets injured? I could have done the same job, for a fraction of the wages. As Ireland's all-time top goalscorer, he has been criminally under-used at club level.
3. Joe Cole - Chelsea
In his time at Chelsea, averaged 26 games a season; a great many of those off the bench. Yes, he won awards and the odd accolade, but these were the peak years of his career and we never got to see a full, stunning season from him.
4. Michael Owen - Real Madrid
Only started 15 of 41 games, and still scored 18 goals. Just think what he could have done if they had had a little faith.
5. Samuel Eto'o - Real Madrid
Another Madrid forward, and this one is even worse. Real had him for three years, sent him out on loan to three different clubs and played him precisely three times. Has scored 193 goals in 338 games since leaving.
6. Lassana Diarra - Chelsea/Arsenal
Went from occasional right-back at Chelsea to Carling Cup player at Arsenal. Then boom, he goes to Portsmouth and becomes one of the best deep-lying midfielders in Europe, and now wears the Madrid number 10 shirt. How Wenger could have used a player like him.
7. Gerard Pique - Man Utd
Inexplicably under-used at Old Trafford, and couldn't get away fast enough. The second he did, he won the Champions League, Spanish League, European Championship and World Cup and became probably the most expensive centre-back in the world. Sure Chris Smalling is destined for similar things, though.
8. Patrick Vieira - AC Milan
Made captain of Cannes while still a teenager, became one of the best midfielders in Premier League history at Arsenal, but between that had a season in the reserves at AC Milan, then coached by Fabio Capello. And was sold for £3.5 million.
9. Thierry Henry - Juventus
Central striker who had just won the World Cup. I know, let's play him on the wing. That'll work...
10. Carlo Cudicini - everywhere
Poor sod. Should have at least made the Italian squads over the last 15 years, but never did because he wasn't consistently played at Chelsea, or got injured when he started to get a run. Now 37 and playing at Tottenham behind Heurelho Gomes. Does life get any more frustrating.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
The decline of the English centre forward
To draw 0-0 at home to Montenegro is not a good result by most international football team's standards. But what hurts most as an England fan is to see the dice that are thrown to try and resolve the situation. At no point in international football should a player like Kevin Davies be relied upon to nick you a goal.
Footballers like Davies, Emile Heskey, Zamora and Carlton Cole, have all been turned from lithe, pacey and somewhat prolific strikers into hench, elbow-wielding lumps designed to play the majority of the game with their back to goal. They concede more free kicks than they score goals. Other than Alan Shearer (who would always turn and shoot anyway), I can't think of another England generation that relied on these players. They preferred the likes of Sheringham, Linker, Ian Wright, Gascoigne and Beardsley. Les Ferdinand or Mark Bright never got much of a look in despite prolific domestic form. They just didn't have enough... skill for the top level. How times change.
Perhaps the Premier League has something to answer for here. They made these centre forwards this way. I remember when Kevin Davies played on the wing at Chesterfield, and scored goals too.
It's much easier to beef up and be a battering ram of a centre forward than shoulder the goalscoring burden, and for many teams having a player like this can help you out-think a defence at set-pieces. But at the top level the flaws of these guys are found out. You have to worry that young prospects like Andy Carrol or Connor Wickham, a teenager displaying enough touch, skill and eye for goal to grace a good Premiership team, will be moulded the same way.
So maybe Capello is playing to what some Premiership managers would deem our 'strengths'. But the fact is that in today's England side, players with the potential to be genuine creators are marginalised, and this is what holds us back against the best teams. Ashley Young made an exceptionally rare start against Montenegro, but Jack Wilshere sat the whole game out. Adam Johnson didn't make the world cup, neither did Theo Walcott. Gabby Agbonlahor may not be the best example, but it is still telling that a player who has pace and likes to run and shoot has been overlooked for almost two years.
No other top international sides seem to have this negative attitude towards centre-forward play. Spain's strikers are all midgets, the South American's mostly weigh 6 stone 7. Even Scotland leave Chris Iwelumo out more often than not.
Big centre forwards with the ability to score goals for fun - Drogba, Shearer, Mark Hughes, are incredibly rare. We have only one player who comes even close to this level in Peter Crouch, and picking anyone else to play the big number 9 role is simply defeatist. If we can't give players the chance to do what they are good at, and instead force them into a role that it is assumed we need to play, then we are going nowhere, and it won't be long before the excitement of being a goalscorer is extinguished altogether.
Footballers like Davies, Emile Heskey, Zamora and Carlton Cole, have all been turned from lithe, pacey and somewhat prolific strikers into hench, elbow-wielding lumps designed to play the majority of the game with their back to goal. They concede more free kicks than they score goals. Other than Alan Shearer (who would always turn and shoot anyway), I can't think of another England generation that relied on these players. They preferred the likes of Sheringham, Linker, Ian Wright, Gascoigne and Beardsley. Les Ferdinand or Mark Bright never got much of a look in despite prolific domestic form. They just didn't have enough... skill for the top level. How times change.
Perhaps the Premier League has something to answer for here. They made these centre forwards this way. I remember when Kevin Davies played on the wing at Chesterfield, and scored goals too.
It's much easier to beef up and be a battering ram of a centre forward than shoulder the goalscoring burden, and for many teams having a player like this can help you out-think a defence at set-pieces. But at the top level the flaws of these guys are found out. You have to worry that young prospects like Andy Carrol or Connor Wickham, a teenager displaying enough touch, skill and eye for goal to grace a good Premiership team, will be moulded the same way.
So maybe Capello is playing to what some Premiership managers would deem our 'strengths'. But the fact is that in today's England side, players with the potential to be genuine creators are marginalised, and this is what holds us back against the best teams. Ashley Young made an exceptionally rare start against Montenegro, but Jack Wilshere sat the whole game out. Adam Johnson didn't make the world cup, neither did Theo Walcott. Gabby Agbonlahor may not be the best example, but it is still telling that a player who has pace and likes to run and shoot has been overlooked for almost two years.
No other top international sides seem to have this negative attitude towards centre-forward play. Spain's strikers are all midgets, the South American's mostly weigh 6 stone 7. Even Scotland leave Chris Iwelumo out more often than not.
Big centre forwards with the ability to score goals for fun - Drogba, Shearer, Mark Hughes, are incredibly rare. We have only one player who comes even close to this level in Peter Crouch, and picking anyone else to play the big number 9 role is simply defeatist. If we can't give players the chance to do what they are good at, and instead force them into a role that it is assumed we need to play, then we are going nowhere, and it won't be long before the excitement of being a goalscorer is extinguished altogether.
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