England’s Fountain of Youth

The English football world is in disarray following the seemingly delusional omissions of Micah Richards and Michael Carrick and not to mention the particularly touchy subject of Rio Ferdinand.My blog will explain why such decisions have been made.Just to clear up I am in no way and ITK or anything like that all it takes is a little research to know these things.So, here we go.

A Rebel Without A Cause

Micah Richards is a superb player that helped Manchester City to the Premier League title.However, Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini is of the opinion that Richards has a small but noticeable attitude problem.He has fought with Mario Balotelli at City’s training ground.Admittedly Micah has been  loyal regarding the youth set up at international level winning 14 caps with the u21 team.With that in mind Micah seems a rather loyal fellow but here is the clincher when Roy Hodgson picked his full team and back up list Micah was placed on the back up list,he notified the manger of his disgust and said he didn’t even want to  be considered for back up so bye bye Micah. Even Tony Hibbert and Danny Simpson performed better in the league than Micah did.Here’s the stats that matter in the premier league this sees Micah Richards had 10 clean sheets blocked the ball 14 times and made 32 clearances.Danny Simpson’s record is much better 14 clean sheets and 15 blocks and made 46 clearances.The argument against this of course is “Richards plays for much better team and thus does less defending”.In international football however defending is of higher importance and being England we defend much more than Spain Germany etc.That football fans is why Micah Richards isn’t on the plane to Poland and Ukraine.

The Fountain of Youth

Jordan Henderson is captain of the England u21’s,Michael Carrick hasn’t had a call up since the 2010 World Cup (one of the most unsuccessful World Cups in recent history for England) Carrick remained an unused player in the tournament.Now Jordan Henderson is 21 years of age and the  English footballing public have been loving getting on his back and generally calling for Carrick to be called up instead.These footballing “experts” have overlooked the fact that England (probably won’t win Euro 2012)and it is better to integrate a young player into the team,than calling up an older player who doesn’t add that much to the team anyway.The same with Rio Ferdinand, (admittedly the main reason I think he has been omitted the Terry race row,I won’t comment on because simply I do not know enough of the situation and I am in no position to comment about this issue) Martin Kelly is good young player and the experience at major tournament is invaluable. For many of England’s players this tournament will be their last, Roy Hodgson needs to bed in young players to make England successful. Without a doubt England have some good young players. Raheem Sterling at Liverpool Ross Barkley at Everton and Ravel Morrison at Man Utd I could go on.The youth is the future and England severely need to embrace it.

JT