Hope that kills: the life & times of the modern Blues fan

I guess having the international break from the Premiership and Championship has made me realise how much I base my weekend around football, how much I practically live for football. Over this weekend, I went to a comedy night, a last-ever concert with my choir, an Oxfam shift and my brother's 30th birthday dinner (thought I'd mention that to wind him up, don't worry, I offered him a herbal tea and a werthers original to cheer him- no pleasing some people).
You would expect my mind to be on other things; the truth is, throughout all of this, I was constantly checking my Sky Sports Score Centre app on my phone for the scores, only to find Scotland were drawing 0-0 with Serbia and Crawley Town were playing Portsmouth tommorrow. It was a bit thin on the ground, I'm not gonna lie.

When I think now, about 80% of my mind is probably full of pointless football games from the past that will never be of any use to me, about 17% is random song lyrics and the other 3% are things like when peoples birthdays are, what peoples names are at a stage in our relationship where it becomes too embarrassing to ask, and stuff I remember from school. I need to rearrange my data storage.

 

I digress. I feel like there's something kind of comforting about football, it has a reassuring quality to it, there's always hope, always something to look forward to. For example, if your team is in a relegation battle in May, I think it's kind of okay either way. If you stay up, you can celebrate, if you go down, there's always next season to look forward to and the challenge for promotion again in August, whilst deep down you know your life isn't actually that bad.

Maybe it's because I'm a Birmingham City fan that I feel like this. Maybe because of all the promotions and relegations we've experienced, as time goes by you learn to neutralise it in your mind.  You just get used to it to the point where it's no longer a shock, just a mild shame. Us getting relegated is becoming the equivalent of going to the supermarket and forgetting your bag for life. It's a bit of a pain, you get annoyed about it for a couple of minutes and then go home.

If there were two things Birmingham City needed to become an established Premiership club, I say two things because of the financial situation at the club with Carson Yeung and everything, but the other would be the sense of negativity around the place. We take a kind of weird pride in being crap, and having seen so many disastrous seasons take place, it becomes a part of our rich heritage. So many men in the Prince of Wales pub talk about getting relegated io the third division in 1989 at the same sort of time Aston Villa were challenging for the Premiership title, and stoicly watching rubbish football to the bitter end.

I'd like to compare our fans songs to those of other clubs. Manchester United have a song called: 'Glory, glory Man United': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCn4w-S2KM
That talks about the busby babes, when they won the FA Cup, all of their trophies and how famous they are.
This is a song called 'when the blues win the cup': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9r65OcUxzQ
About a sad old man sitting in the corner of a pub wishing Birmingham City would win the cup- doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Thankfully we don't sing this song at matches, but even 'keep right on' which is what we are most well known for has an element of tragic heroship about it. Some lyrics to that song are:

As you go through life,
it's a long, long road,
there'll be joys and sorrows too

Some Blues fans sing this with such passion and commitment, I think a part of us are proud of how rubbish we are but how we stick it out through everything. Here's a video I've found of a group of our fans singing after losing away at Coventry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCsIqb3KM6k
Only Birmingham City fans could pay all that money, watch us lose to our semi-rivals who were one of the worst teams in the league at that time and still want to sing. If Aston Villa lost to Coventry, their fans would spend the whole journey back like some pissed off wife, not saying anything to each other and not making eye contact. But then again, they probably wouldn't lose to Coventry in the first place.

I don't know what it is about the Birmingham City mentality that sort of expects failure. It's possibly that, maybe Barry Fry aside, we've rarely had a manager that got us to play good football, possibly because of that period of time in the late 80s/early 90s when we were still in the third division whilst having to watch west brom, wolves and villa all above us, maybe all the play-off disappointments under Trevor Francis in the late 90s- there have been a lot of periods of time, particularly in the play-off defeats, where things were looking promising for us and then we miss a penalty and everything falls apart again. Maybe all of our fans hopes for the future are buried by fear for another Chris Holland moment.

That's why I was so disappointed Chris Hughton left. Over the last season, it was almost like he was gradually getting a positive atmosphere at the club- the fans were undergoing psychotherapy with trust exercises. We were beginning to hope that in spite of everything happening off the pitch with the board, in spite of having to play midweek European games with a small squad, in spite of being relegated the season before with a defensive, McLeish-esc outlook, we could still build a team to be proud of completely from free transfers, loan signings and youngsters off the academy. And we did. We finished 4th in the second division with no money, purely built on grit and determination.

And then we lost to Blackpool in the play-off semi-finals and one of our greatest ever managers left us. Right, I'm off to go and watch Halesowen Town.

 

Watford away: a game in prospect

I'm about to head off to Watford for the Blues game which, although early in the season, will be another important one in terms of Clark finding his best team that he can then use for the more nitty-gritty games around mid-September sort of time.

 

I say this because, judging by our performance against Charlton last week and the result at Sheffield Wednesday in midweek, we are still in pre-season mode. Given everything that has happened this summer with Hughton leaving and a minor overhaul of the squad, not to mention all of the uncertainty in the boardroom, it has inevitably taken time for the players to gel and for the dust to settle- I still don't think that process is over.

 

I also think Watford are in a similar position to ourselves in some ways. They've had some new Italian owners coming in this summer who have brought in Gianfranco Zola as their new manager, plus a few new Italiany players coming in on loan. There's an Italian theme coming through at that club.

 

Whenever anyone mentions Zola to me I can't help but remember Chelsea's pre-Ambromovich period when they had Gudjohnsen and Hasselbaink about 10 years ago. I remember Blues playing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and Zola absolutely walked over us. I think for Watford though, the new players will take time to bed in and the fact that Watford won their first game and then lost their second suggests that it's to early in the season to make much of a judgement on them.

 

With both teams still in that transitional period, I can only really see a draw for this game. I won't be very popular in the pub beforehand for saying this, but it has 0-0 written all over it. If I'm honest, the main reason I'm going to the game is to meet up with my brother who's just come back from Thailand this week.

For a few of the other games briefly, I think Blackburn against Leicester will be the key match in the Championship. If Blackburn win, their fans may begin to have faith in their manager Steve Kean- which would be interesting to see. I think the way he's perservered with the job given so much hate  and stick from his own fans, it shows a kind of bravery that borderlines on stupidity. So many people would have walked away- I can't help but admire him for that. For Leicester, they need to bounce back from losing at Charlton on Tuesday to ensure they're not playing catch-up football in September.

In the Premiership, I think it was a big statement of intent for United to spend £20 million on van Persie, I've got a feeling he will score against Fulham. You've also got to fancy Man City for the win at Liverpool on Sunday, to begin to pile the pressure on Brendan Rodgers- he's made the same mistake as Dalglish by spending too much money on average players.

Blues 1-1 Addicks: new-season fever

In the days coming up to this match, I hoped the game would provide me with a bit more of a base for evaluations on how well we could expect to do this season. Whilst we controlled the midfield quite well at times, I felt we looked vulnerable defensively and lacked that bit of guile and ruthlessness in the final third. In the end, a point was probably about a fair result, but we could still consider ourselves a little fortunate to get it with Nikola Zigic's late goal. If I'm honest, I feel none the wiser.

Waking up this morning, I felt a little more confident about this season for Blues than I did just after the Antwerp game a week ago. We had knocked a few goals past Barnet in the Carling Cup on Tuesday, the sun was shining and I felt that sense of buzzing anticipation for the first game always typical of the new season.

I had had a bit of a boozey brunch by the time I got to the game. I went to meet up at one of my dad's friends for his traditional pre-season buffet, met up in Moseley for a drink with some of my West Brom-supporting cousins who were playing Liverpool and got to the ground 20 minutes early to the sound of chattering Blues fans from the tilton eagerly anticipating this one.

In the opening exchanges, I noticed that Lee Clark had implemented a progressive, control system in the middle of the park. Our two central midfielders, Ravel Morrison and Hayden Mullins prowled the halfway line, playing a sort of patient, probing, short passing game at a relatively low tempo.

The benefits of this were that it gave the more creative players, such as Peter Lovenkrands, Darren Ambrose and Chris Burke, the freedom to get forward, express themselves and support target man marlon king up front. It also meant that we had a fair bit of possession.

The problems with it were that the aforementioned players, maybe Chris Burke aside, lacked that bit of quality going forward- their movement off the ball seemed to be very prioritised on  just finding space even when the player with the ball couldn't pick them out with a pass, so they weren't as able to get on the ball and really influence play.
This problem, combined with how well Chris Powell had organised his Charlton side, meant that on many occassions we would play a series of short passes, realise that it wasn't going to lead to a shot on goal, try to play a more clinical pass to someone further away, and then just lose possession.
I thought that then made us incredibly vulnerable to the pace of Bradley Wright-Phillips and Yann Kermorgant on a few of Charlton's counter attacks, as our players tended to lose their focus and positional discipline when we had the ball- we were often caught out of position. Steven Caldwell was forced to make a few last-ditch tackles to stop Wright-Phillips having a one-on-one chance, Jack Butland had to make some decent saves to keep us in it and I remember Charlton having at least three free headers on goal from around the penalty spot.

We were lucky to be going in at half-time at 0-0. Although we had had the better of the play in terms of possession, it was Charlton who had easily had the better of the chances and could have been a couple of goals ahead.

In the second half, I noticed a slight improvement. We had nudged our tempo up a little bit, we were playing with a little bit more urgency, but I didn't feel that it was our slow tempo that stopped us from creating chances in the first half. The main problem was that Marlon King was being marked out of the game by Charlton's defence and that the players given the free role to support him and make runs off him, weren't doing so in as well-timed and smart a way as they had been known to. As the game got deeper into the second half, there were more and more high balls from midfield in towards King, but with two centre-backs on him, he was forced to resort to just getting a shot away with his back to goal.

Defensively, we didn't learn from our mistakes and on a Charlton counterattack typical of what happened in the first half, Bradley Pritchard crossed the ball in from the right-hand side and Leon Cort scored with another free header at the back post to give Charlton the lead ten minutes from time.
Lee Clark then put on Zigic for the last five minutes and he made an instant impact. He held the ball up well and got a lot more of the flick-ons than King did which opened things up a bit, he scored a pretty good goal in the last minute to rescue a point- he received the ball near the edge of the 'D', flicked it past a defender and sidefooted it in the bottom-left corner to ignite our campaign and give us a point out of practically nothing.

It still remains to be seen whether we can gather some of that momentum and confidence that Chris Hughton instilled in the team last season, and whilst I like to be one of the more optimistic Birmingham City fans, Lee Clark hasn't quite provided that yet. But having said that, its difficult to be too critical of him too early. We've only played one league game under the new regime and things will undoubtably take time to settle. Though its not exactly a confidence-inspiring start from him from what I've seen, we have to wait until at least October to make much of a judgement.

Blues 1-3 Antwerp: cause for Royal concern?

So this game approached me as a bit of an unknown quantity for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it would be the first time I'd see this new look Blues team under Lee Clark and what his philosophy is (I mean in football, not whether free will or determinism exists). I'd not heard much of Clark before, though I seem to remember he played for Fulham about eight years ago and was sacked as manager of Huddersfield last season. With the much-loved Chris Hughton left for Norwich then, you could have forgiven the most optimistic of bluenoses for being rather sceptical about the choice of his replacement. I hoped this game would provide me with at least some degree of reassurance.

The other thing that intrigued me about this game, was that I knew nothing about Antwerp- and how good, or bad, they are in the scheme of Belgian football. Having said that, I vaguely recalled them to be an affiliate club of Man United from my dabbling in the football manager games.
In terms of Belgium generally, what interests me is that they are one of those multi-lingual countries. I knew from my European tour when we played Club Brugge, that they speak a combination of German, Dutch and French. I sometimes wonder if people there know what each other are saying in conversations.
To be fair to them, they were excellent fans. They were on their feet for the whole game, and quite a lot of their songs were English. They sung 'Hey Jude', a couple of trademark Manchester United songs, after which they strangely sung 'you'll never walk alone', which surprised me. I half expected them to burst into blue moon. The other funny thing was that once their third goal went in they started chanting: "shame on you, shame on you" I thought, what a middle-class way of insulting a team. What next? "you're not very good, and you know you aren't."

Anyway, this time me and dad sat in different seats. I was getting too heavy for him. This time we sat in the tilton behind the goal. When the teams came out, I made a point of standing up to applaud Jack Butland into goal, which I think he acknowledged due to the lack of people at the game. He had done fantastically well to get into the Team GB side at the Olympics from being on loan at Cheltenham for most of last season! If truth be told, it was also partly because I was concious of how well he would do. I think when any young goalkeeper comes into a team, there can be a tendency for them to be nervous, flap at balls into the box, feel overrawed by the defence- but there was something different about Butland. He shouted instructions from time to time, when he was told to collect the ball he would, he came for crosses. I felt comfortable enough with him in goal.

What worried me the most, was Lee Clark's team selection. Up front, we had a system involving Zigic as the central target man, Wade Elliott playing slightly deeper with Lovenkrands as part left winger/part forward, and Adam Rooney- who is traditionally a striker- on the right wing. I would have otherwise been positively interested in the effects of this system and the reasons behind it had it not been for the selection of players in midfield. We'd signed Ravel Morrison on loan from West Ham a few days previously, I knew him to be an attacking midfielder, but he was played in the centre alongside Morgaro Gomis, another more creative-minded player. To play that an attacking a team was a mistake on Lee Clark's part. We had no structure in the centre of the park and were left very vulnerable to the Antwerp midfield- we gave it away an awful lot. I think a better choice would have been to play Darren Ambrose and Hayden Mullins. Mullins, certainly, would have at least given us that protection for the back four in the 'water carrier' role. I also wondered why Chris Burke wasn't in the side ahead of Rooney on the right but was prepared to put it down to fitness reasons for the time being. In terms of the defence, he played Steven Caldwell and Pablo Ibanez. Curtis Davies was virtually an ever-present in Chris Hughton's team last season and had done very well- a strong contender for player of the season in my opinion. Instead of him, Clark played Steven Caldwell who can't run and Pablo Ibanez who gets scared of high balls that come towards him. The perfect combination, then, against a pacy striker and a tall target man. This didn't improve my confidence for the rest of the game.

We started the match looking very relaxed on the ball- almost to the point where we were too relaxed and lacked that bit of energy, that urgency and hunger to prove ourselves. Wegave the ball away in midfield a fair bit and with such an attack-focused line-up, I didn't feel like there were enough people behind the ball to win it back. Some of our long passes were sloppy and some of our players dwelled on the ball for far longer than they should have. It was like we played with a swagger that we didn't have the right for. I don't know how else to quite describe it.
Perhaps a partial reason for our sluggish start was that the distribution of the fans was very spread out. Chants that broke out were few and far between and it was more a case of individual spectatorship than support. I was pleased then, when Ravel Morrison scored on his non-competitive debut at the Railway End and that nudged the atmosphere up a bar.
What pissed me off then, was that we conceded almost immediately afterwards. When any team takes a lead, the thinking has to be "right, let's keep it tight, let's not give anything away". But when Antwerp kicked off, there was no body language of the sort, and we looked vulnerable down our left-hand side with academy graduate Mitch Hancox getting a start. The cross came in far too easily and Butland parried it onto the goalline for their centre-forward to get a cheap goal.

Now, all the momentum and energy was with the Belgian side. They completely outplayed our midfield and my suspicions about Morrison's attack-mindedness were proved accurate- he never tracked back to help the defence and Gomis was getting passed around the place in midfield. With the space between defence and midfield left completely open, Ibanez had to close down from defence, which left gaps at the back and he made a clumsy tackle from behind in the box on Antwerp's pacy forward. The penalty was converted despite Butland's best efforts putting us behind at half-time.

To try and cheer myself up, I decided to get myself a Coke from the refreshments bar. Annoyingly though, the one time I remembered to go before the interval to beat the queue, I found the bar closed. With a rare poor score from me at the half-time quiz in the programme, my mood was not improved when I found Clark had made no substitutions at half-time, when it was blindingly obvious how much we needed to change the midfield.

Quite early on in the second half, we gave another goal away. Again, we were pushed wide open at the back and Will Packwood, another academy graduate with Fellaini-esc hair, gave it away. He had done quite well up to this point, since he came on early for Stephen Carr who had a fitness issue. Another penalty, another goal for Antwerp. When that went in, I felt like unless we did something about the defence, they could walk through us and score five or six.

To be fair though, we did end the game on a minor high as towards the end Hayden Mullins and Curtis Davies came on which made us more solid at the back. Also, Nathan Redmond looked bright, Adam Rooney only narrowly missed a one-on-one chance and Nikola Zigic scored a goal that was ruled out for offside. It took the gloss off their win a bit and gave us some fresh hope for the season to walk out on.

Overall though, Clark was talking in his programme notes about this game being an attempt to get everyone's fitness up for the new season. I disagreed with him. I think the first few games of pre-season should be devoted to fitness and, this being our last friendly match of the summer, it should have been more about getting the tactical system mapped out for the players and a final run through. I would think we must be quite a bit behind the level of fitness other teams have at this time and the prospect of getting a point next week against a Charlton team with the momentum of last season's promotion from the division below is becoming almost an inviting one.

Why Arsenal should sell Robin van Persie

Hi all-

A lot of blogs I've read about Arsenal and the topic of Robin van Persie have been saying that Robin van Persie is crucial to the future of Arsenal, and that the only way to persuade him to stay is to go on a £100 million summer spending spree.

Obviously he has now rejected the possibility of signing a new contract in favour of a move to Manchester City or Manchester United. For me, van Persie leaving Arsenal for about £20 million would not be a disaster. He is now 29, edging away from his best years, i think in the next few years he may begin to lose his fitness, his agility and the way he comes alive in the box, the skills he has based his career on. I think £20 million is quite a lot of money for Arsenal to get for him, when you consider that he may begin to age, he is on high wages, not to mention that he has said he wants to leave the club.

Whilst I think Man City would be being the most sensible in parting with that kind of money for him, I would lose quite a bit of respect for van Persie if he signed for them. Mainly because it would be obvious he was signing for them for the money. He couldn't be guarenteed first team football at the Citizens, with Aguero, Tevez, Dzeko and Balotelli in the squad.

However, if he signed for Manchester United, it would be clear he was signing up for a challenge, and the buzz of pressure that comes with signing for a club with that kind of tradition and a manager like Sir Alex Ferguson. Whilst the likes of Welbeck and Hernandez might get the odd starting spot ahead of him in Cup matches, he would be playing week in, week out and would potentially be the saviour of United given the challenges they face this season, or buckle under the pressure to be so.

At this point I would admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Manchester United. Aside from having a few friends who support them, I like the way they have built great sides over the course of history, not by having a mega-rich chairman who can pump billions into the club at will, but by having a fantastic youth setup and building great teams over time. I also think that the partnership of Rooney and van Persie would be interesting to see, and would give United a chance to make this title race at least a bit interesting.

Gabriel

Birmingham City- a summer feeling the blues?

This will be a very decisive summer in terms of the future of our club. I think this summers events are very much interdependent. For example: new board/fresh money coming into the club = Hughton, crucially, will probably stay = our key players will stay = we will put in a strong bid for automatic promotion without the hinderances the Europa League brought us.
No money comes into the club = Hughton will probably go = most of the best players will go = a midtable finish at best.

I'd like to run through the spine of the team and think, with you, about who will stay and who will go:

In goal

Ben Foster will go to Baggies, if not Tottenham. He has to go to a Premiership club, at 29, these are the best years for any goalkeeper. He will leave and hopefully we can get a strong £5 million for him. I'm not utterly convinced about Boaz Myhill in goal for us. He made a lot of mistakes at the start of the season that had cost us points. If we can get some more money into the club, I'd be hoping to get a better quality goalkeeper to replace him. Don't spose Joe Hart's struggling to get a game at Man City is he?

Defence

Curtis Davies and Steven Caldwell are two very solid centre-backs, and, now they've had a year to gel together, could become key members of our Championship campaign next season. Davies might want to leave if a Premiership club comes in for him. You'd hope to get a good £4 million for him. I'd be happy if we could keep David Murphy at left back, he's scored a few goals last season and gets forward a lot. At right-back, I don't know when Stephen Carr is coming back from injury. He's certainly aging at 35, if Peter Ramage doesn't stay with us we'll need to get some cover for Carr anyway.

Midfield

Chris Burke. My favourite player at the club. I would even have him in my team ahead of Sebastien Larsson, who's now at Sunderland on the right-wing. Burke can beat fullbacks with ease, and it is very entertaining to watch as fans. He's our Ronaldo. If he leaves the club, it would have to be for £4 million at least. On the left-wing, I'm hoping that we can keep hold of Andros Townsend. I'm a massive fan of Nathan Redmond, but he plays best when he isn't bombarded with games. In the Championship, the games come at you like a cannon, Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday. Redmond's pace will never be as effective if he plays all of those. We need a good left winger to rotate Redmond with. In the centre of midfield, I think Keith Fahey is quite underrated by our fans. He works incredibly hard and is the man who links up play and is always in space and always has time on the ball. As well as that, Jordan Mutch has played incredibly well and with the influence of Hughton to encourage him to get forward more and hit shots, he's played well.

Attack

Marlon King has scored 18 goals for us this season- almost a goal in two games. An exceptional job. I did wonder about signing Marlon King in the summer- I wondered if he was a replacement for Lee Bowyer. But he's scored goals and that's what's going to change any fans minds- it's certainly changed mine. Nikola Zigic has had a disappointing season. I thought that in the Championship he'd be hitting them left right and centre, when he in fact scored more than half the goals he scored in the season (7 goals), when he scored 4 goals away at Leeds United. Whenever he's played, it's almost been like his height has been more of a hinderance. The fact that he's so tall means it takes longer for him to get his shot off because his head is saying: 'okay, shoot', by the time his leg moves the ball has gone. He playes like a partially-sighted, disabled 6-year-old. And we payed a record £7 million for him? Whilst I kind of want him to score, because I'm in contact with him on Facebook- he's a nice guy, but just not good enough. Sorry, Nikola!

The most crucial thing, is that we can keep Chris Hughton as manager. Only he can rebuild this team into a serious promotion contender with hardly any money to spend. If that is possible at all, only Chris Hughton can do that. He has to stay.

Let's talk about England.

Hi Scorers- thought I'd talk a bit about the England team.

The main debates amongst fans at the moment are:

-Who should the next England manager be? 

This is a topic that has dragged on for while now, because I can't think of any other reason why the FA are choosing the manager with such little urgency than that they have agreed to wait until the end of the season to hire Harry Redknapp. That must be what the FA are doing- otherwise, why wait so long with the Euro's just around the corner? However, if it were me making the decision, I quite controversially would opt for Stuart Pearce to take the job full-time.

My thinking is that we need to be planning ahead. As far as I'm concerned, we need to blood the young players as early as possible. In international football you don't have the ability to just go and buy players, your youth players ARE your future. Whether you like it or not. My philosophy would be to start with a clean slate, sacrifice the Euros, for building a team for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. That way, the first team players then will have been trained to the best of their abilities and playing at the peak of their careers- look at the success Germany have had with a similar philosophy. 

Bearing that approach in mind, I just think that Stuart Pearce would already have the respect of some of the former U21 internationals who he coached. Despite a slightly tapered managerial career so far, he has demonstrated great motivational skills and won't be afraid to make decisions that will hurt players- I think thats essential. Capello had that but the fact he didn't have that bit of English blood and pride- maybe meant it didn't mean as much to him to succeed as it would for Stuart Pearce.

As for Harry Redknapp, I think he will get the job but I personally think it's too late in his career to be England manager, we need a long-term option- someone that can bring young players through and motivate them to play to the best of their abilities. For me, that man is Stuart Pearce.   

-Who should be given the England captain's armband for Euro 2012?  

My immediate thoughts for that position are Phil Jones and Jack Wilshere. Purely for their durability and my favoured outlook- to place emphasis on building for the future. Having said that, I think I may have to compromise that philosophy as I think it would be a massive gamble.

Though I see either of them as great potential captains one day, they are still maybe a bit too inexperienced and I think that decision could cause a rift within the squad. You can't play an entire team of youngsters. As far as I'm concerned John Terry has gone. Although all of what we hear on the news isn't necessarily all true, I just think he creates a bad image, and he's a bit too old anyway. Like him, I think we need to gradually get rid of players like Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Michael Carrick. They've had their chances and they've blown it. For me, I'm leaning towards Scott Parker as captain- by all accounts he's an inspiring guy and nearly kept West Ham up single-handedly last season.
He will also provide great use to the first team by dropping back into defensive midfield, always having time on the ball and being able to snuff attacks out very quickly. I'll expect Jack Rodwell to do that kind of job in the long-term. That will allow more attack-minded midfield players a lot more creative freedom.

I'd be inclined to give vice-captaincy to... Paul Scholes. Yes, this gives away who I'd pick for the 23-man squad for the Euro's but he leads by example. Players like Jack Wilshere, Tom Cleverley, James Milner can learn an awful lot from him. I think he is the best English passer of a ball.

-Who should be in the 23-man squad for the Euros?

Goalkeepers

Joe Hart- still young for a keeper and current England no.1. Reliable as well.
Ben Foster- least bad option really. Don't fancy Green or Carson, no prizes for guessing why. 2nd choice by default.

Defence

Micah Richards- 23, great fitness and competing at the top. Plays with Joe Hart also. Our best right-back.
Gary Cahill- 26, great compromise between experience and long-term future planning. Is in great form for Chelsea.
Phil Jones- 20, a bit of a gamble, lacks experience. Given recent England performances in major tournaments, one we have to take. I see him as a great future captain, he's versatile and Ferguson rates him. I'm excited about his progress.
Leighton Baines- I hate Ashley Cole. He's gone as far as I'm concerned- we don't have many other left-backs, and Baines has half a decent free-kick on him.
Rio Ferdinand- he has a winning mentality about him. Would work well with Phil Jones if Cahill was sidelined. There's experience there and could help out some of the younger players.
Chris Smalling- very versatile, could gain some valuable experience to develop.
Kyle Walker- I've been very impressed with this lad at right-back for Spurs, he gets forward, creates goals, scores the odd one, decent defender. Would have no quams putting him in the team if Richards couldn't play. At 21, he's got a future.

Midfield

Scott Parker- so many ways he could benefit the team, influence, time on the ball, drops back to give creative midfielders license to get forward. For me, he was the missing piece of the jigsaw to the Lampard-Gerrard problem a few years ago.

Paul Scholes- if the new boss could call him out of retirement, I think any team would love to have someone like Paul Scholes in their side. He leads by example, he can ping the ball to wherever he wants with ease, he links up play. You give him the ball and he won't give it away. I think it's important to have players like that in the team- otherwise why have Spain and Barcelona been so successful?

Jack Wilshere- raw talent written all over this player. Hard graft, flair, pace, passing, dribbling, creating space, honesty. I think to have all of this in abundance at 20 speaks volumes. If his injury's impact on his game isn't a telling one, this kid can be world class.

Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain- when Arsene Wenger signed this 17-year-old boy from Southampton reserves for £12 million, I actually thought Wenger had gone insane. How well Chamberlain has done this season for Arsenal, is absolutely miraculous. On his day, I've seen him tear defences appart. What I say: stick him in on the left, take a gamble, use him as our secret weapon- he can terrorise defences.

Theo Walcott- I know, a bit of an Arsenal theme coming in here. I just feel that, the combination of Walcott, Chamberlain and RVP has been sensational. If we play Theo + Alex as wingers to cut inside, I think the effects could be devastating.

James Milner- rotating Milner and Wilshere, the previous five are my starting midfield. I think Milner can certainly bring fitness to the equation as a box-to-box midfielder. Possibly taking the Lampard role going forward- arriving late in the box unmarked. His stamina will lift the team I think.

Jack Rodwell- can come on for Scott Parker if he tires. I think he can be a big part of the future England team- he has allround ability and doesn't lack work rate and desire. All this and he is still just 21.

Ashley Young- because of his 'secret weapon' factor and young age, I'd say Oxlade-Chamberlain just pips Young to the post for a first team place, though Young's technical ability won't go amiss as an impact substitute.

Steven Gerrard- I think his attitude, hunger and professionalism at Liverpool will give him at least a place on the plane to Ukraine, he can be a bit of a mentor for some of the younger players. If it was me picking, I'd say Gerrard is best on the bench- personally I'd have Scholes and Wilshere ahead of him with reluctance.

Adam Johnson- basically there to make up the numbers and as cover for Walcott/Chamberlain. I don't rate him too highly.

Tom Cleverley- was in the Man United team at the start of the season- beating the likes of Fletcher and Carrick to do so. Certainly not a player to be underestimated

Gareth Barry- will provide a bit of experience. Owen Hargreaves type of player, good player to bring on with a lead late in the second  half to slow the tempo down and hold onto the win by reducing opposition chances and space.

Attack

Wayne Rooney- he will miss the first few games, but is undoubtably worthy of a place on the flight- he's our best player and can score goals. Needs little justification.
Daniel Sturridge- they spend £50 million on an experienced, Spanish striker. And who is Chelsea's top scorer? A product of the Manchester City academy. He's done brilliantly in what has been an otherwise lacklustre season for Chelsea. At 22, he's got the talent to go far and will be playing at his peak during the world cup.
Danny Welbeck- has obviously had the talent to impress Ferguson enough to get a first team place this season at United ahead of Berbatov, the side's top scorer last season and Hernandez, who formed a noticeably strong partnership with Rooney. He must have something about him.
Andy Carroll- has not really made the grade at Liverpool, but I can't see a more lucrative alternative.

These are my thoughts, some controversial ones there, but what do you think?