It’s going to take some time for the relegation hangover to clear for this Norwich City team. The first home game of the new season, with its warm sunshine, fresh kits and sense of optimism, was met with a performance that lacked quality and coherence. Back in my seat in the Barclay for the first time since 23rd April, here are a few thoughts I had from the Wigan game.
Some of these players have got a lot to prove
I may get shot down in flames for this but every Ben Gibson error at the back and every failed Milot Rashica cross made me wonder: do these players have a future at Norwich? Gibson, Rashica, Todd Cantwell and Josh Sargent all failed to inspire and they have a lot to prove in the games ahead. Dean Smith will be aware that a poor start to the season would put his job on the line so he can’t afford any passengers.
We still can’t take a corner
Back in June, Norwich appointed Allan Russell as the club’s first ever dedicated set piece coach. Whatever he’s been doing at Colney, it has yet to translate onto the pitch. It’s extraordinary how Norwich never look like scoring from a corner, and they don’t look assured when they are defending them either. This is nothing new but with someone in place purely to work on them, it’s something you’d expect to improve going forward.
Between a rock and a VAR-d place
No one likes VAR. No one likes the way it takes half an hour out of the game and then they still get the decisions wrong. But then, the referee at Carrow Road was really rather poor and Norwich should have had at least one penalty. If we’d had the dreaded VAR, maybe we’d have got what we deserved.
Wigan’s behaviour should be seen as a positive for Norwich
The time wasting from Wigan in the second half, which saw multiple players booked, should be taken as a compliment by Norwich. Clearly, for last season’s League One champions, a point at Carrow Road is a great result. City need to get used to teams that defend deep and waste time like they did today and learn how to break them down.
Two games down, forty-four to go. Norwich are yet to register a win – they go to Hull next Saturday – but these are very early days. With the new players bedding in, patience is the order of the day.
England vs New Zealand 1st Test (of 3) Lord’s, London 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th June 2022 Result: England (141 & 279-5) beat New Zealand (132 & 285) by 5 wickets
I’ve looked it up. There were 281 days between England’s men completing an innings victory over India at Headingley on 28th August last year and scoring the winning runs to beat New Zealand at Lord’s yesterday. That forty week gap between Test wins was without doubt far too long for a nation that loves this form of the game as much as we do. It had included a third disastrous Ashes tour on the bounce, the well-intentioned but ultimately ludicrous decision to drop James Anderson and Stuart Broad, and the departure of the captain, the coach and the managing director.
Joe Root was the player of the match
It was fitting that Joe Root was the one to get England home. To say he is now able to play freely, unburdened by the responsibility of being captain, isn’t quite right. He was still the best batter in the team when he was leading it. At Lord’s, however, the smile was definitely wider and the shoulders a little lighter. His 115 not out to see England safely to their target of 277 was masterful and it was great to see him enjoying being out there. Root is a special one, who we will not truly appreciate until he is no longer there. He would walk into any previous England side and be one of the first names in a World XI of current male Test players. Surprisingly, this was his first fourth innings century, but it also got him to the landmark of 10,000 Test runs. Only thirteen others have ever reached that number and at the age of just 31 he could well have more than anyone else by the time he calls it a day.
England got the bowling attack exactly right. Regardless of their age, Anderson and Broad are two of the best there have ever been and simply had to play. Anderson will always get wickets and won’t go for many runs, either. Broad is capable of incredible spells in which it feels as if he turns a match on its head all by himself, as we saw on the third morning when one of his overs brought about three wickets that meant New Zealand went from being in a very strong position to blowing the door open for England.
Stuart Broad got England back into the match with an inspired spell on the third morning
Had it not been for the staggering number of injuries currently hampering England’s pace bowlers (they have no fewer than six currently unavailable), Matty Potts probably wouldn’t have been in contention for the squad, let alone making his Test debut. I like the attitude from new coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes to give a young man in good form a go and he repaid them with seven wickets. I feel like I’ve seen enough of Craig Overton, the other contender for a place in the side this week, for now. Potts must surely play in the second match at Trent Bridge.
The unfortunate Jack Leach was withdrawn from the game early on its first morning when he landed heavily attempting to stop the ball getting to the boundary and subsequently showing signs of concussion. The relatively recent addition of concussion substitutes meant that England were able to replace him with someone who could play a full part and they called upon Matt Parkinson, the leg spinner, who had to make his way from Manchester to London. Many had been calling for Parkinson to play in the match anyway, so for them the sight of ‘Parky’ being awarded his Test cap was welcome and overdue. He had been taken to the Caribbean but bafflingly left out, carrying the drinks while the bowling attack toiled. His first and so far only Test wicket was that of Tim Southee to bring New Zealand’s second innings to an end, but in a match dominated by the seamers little can be read into that. He simply has to be given another chance in Nottingham.
The batting order is still a deep concern. Alex Lees and Zak Crawley opened, as they did in the Caribbean, but Lees is in danger of falling into the trope of looking good but not scoring many runs. His second innings 20 was, according to Michael Vaughan on the BBC coverage, the best runs he’d seen him make for England so far but then he made a terrible decision to leave a Kyle Jamieson delivery that thumped into his stumps and left him looking foolish. Crawley, we’re always being told, has so much talent, and he does – that 267 against Pakistan two years ago and the hundred he made on the West Indies tour earlier this year are proof of that. He’s not been consistent enough, though, and has a James Vinceian tendency to get out the same way all the time (caught behind or in the slips trying a flashy drive). His average is under 30. It seems incredible that England haven’t found the right opening partnership since Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook.
Zak Crawley so often looks the part but needs more consistent runs
Ollie Pope is another batter with undoubted talent. I have fond memories of his hundred in Johannesburg against South Africa, an innings that made him look every inch the Test player. He was brought into this match, however, as a number three – a position he’d never previously played in. Another couple of disappointing scores will not have helped to get certain sections of the public off his back.
This is something I have noticed with the England team of late. Whenever they dismiss a team cheaply, some fans will laud the excellent bowling. If an England batter should be out for a low score, however, it is always because they are not good enough and should be dropped. I was watching the run chase on television and thought that Crawley and Pope – Pope in particular – lost their wickets to brilliant pieces of bowling that they could have done little to prevent. The reaction online was that both were useless and pathetic. I wonder how many of these commenters had actually seen the dismissals at all, or whether they were just waiting to see the fall of their wickets so they could criticise them.
The next questionable member of the England top order was Jonny Bairstow. He had actually been one of the team’s form players this year, with a century in Sydney and Antigua, but had played no red ball cricket since the Caribbean tour because he’d been at the IPL. It was clear he hadn’t been able to switch his mindset away from the short forms, as a couple of scatty innings saw him bowled both times for not very many. One of the explanations often offered for why England seem to stick to the same underperforming batting line up is that there is no one else waiting in the wings. The early part of the county season has shown this to be untrue, with impressive performances from Harry Brook, Ben Compton and Josh Bohannon giving them genuine options. With the batting once again being spared its blushes by Root and Stokes, it feels like an opportunity was missed to give someone new a go at Lord’s.
On a happier note, Ben Foakes showed exactly why I’ve been calling for him to be in the side for years. As much as I love Jos Buttler, he just isn’t a Test match cricketer and through his immaculate wicket keeping and digging in to support Root in the run chase hopefully Foakes has cemented his place for the foreseeable future.
Ben Foakes provided perfect support for Root to see England to victory
All things considered, this would be the team I would pick for the second Test:
Alex Lees
Zak Crawley
Dawid Malan/Ben Compton
Joe Root
Harry Brook
Ben Stokes (c)
Ben Foakes (wk)
Matty Potts
Stuart Broad
James Anderson
Matt Parkinson
I think Lees is worth persisting with. I was thinking of replacing Crawley with Compton, but feel there was enough in his performance at Lord’s to give him another go. Dawid Malan is a name that hasn’t been mentioned much recently but he was harshly dropped after the Ashes tour, where he was actually one of England’s better batters. Brook is in amazing form and deserves to play ahead of Bairstow. Parkinson needs another go, even if Leach is fit. The rest of the side are assured of their places.
In fact, it’s highly unlikely that England will make any changes. As the old saying goes, ‘you don’t change a winning team’. What a pleasure it is to be positive about the England Test team again, to be writing about a win. In some ways we’ve learned very little – we’re still not sure about the top order, we know that Root is class and that Anderson and Broad are still the best – but in others we’ve learned a lot. Setting the summer up with a victory could be huge for this new England team. Let’s hope they can follow it up at Trent Bridge next week.
Broadcasting is another great interest of mine and it was nice to see Sky Sports back, showing their first live England Test since last September after a winter of BT Sport exclusivity. The commentary team has changed a lot since last year. Michael Holding has retired, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd has left, Rob Key is now the England men’s managing director of cricket and there was of course the tragic and untimely death of the great Shane Warne. Sky dedicated the whole Test to the Australian legend and his name was never far from anyone’s lips. The TV commentary box at Lord’s has been renamed after him and on the first morning the ribbon was cut live on the coverage. They also used the lunch breaks to show a documentary about Warne. 23 overs into the first day’s play there was an applause for him, a moving moment in which everyone on the field lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to commemorate an icon gone too soon.
When the Australian Mel Jones resumed commentating after the applause, it was with an emotional break in her voice that was shared by everyone. Jones was part of the commentary team alongside fellow Aussie Mark Taylor (great insight), Kiwi Simon Doull, England white ball captain Eoin Morgan and the stalwarts Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton and Ian Ward. Even with Mark Butcher going down with Covid before the match, the Sky team is still the best in the business. Holding and Lloyd were the subject of another documentary, Voices of Summer, narrated by the brilliant Charles Colvile. I urge you to watch it, which if you can do here:
Less than a month after the end of the season, they were no longer rumours. My first reaction was disappointment. I was desperate for Norwich to keep their most creative player, believing him to be crucial to our hopes of staying in the Premier League.
My second reaction was surprise at his destination. This brilliant, skillful, tenacious midfielder with most of his career still ahead of him. One of the best players Norwich have ever had, one who can make things happen and do things that other players just can’t. One who has just made it into the Argentina squad for the first time, surely to hang around for a long time to come. His new club? Aston Villa.
I felt sure that, with Premier League football now on offer at Carrow Road, were Buendia to leave it would be to a club in a European competition. When Arsenal (who will not play in any of the three European competitions next season) were touted as his next club, I said he could do better than them – and I meant it.
Buendia is rough around the edges, not the complete package by any means. He can win games on his own but if he’s having an off day he can quickly get frustrated. When that happens, he can be a bit of a passenger. Also, he tends to be so much better than his opponents that the only way they can stop him is by kicking him around the pitch. Occasionally, Buendia will react to this harsh treatment and more than once got himself sent off.
The talent is undoubtedly there, however, and I am convinced he will reach the very top. Which is why I am rather surprised that he has chosen mid-table Villa, and their not exactly inspiring manager, as the next step in his career. Having said that, I wish him every success (apart from when he plays against us) and I am grateful for the three years we had him.
From Norwich’s point of view, Buendia’s sale has come relatively early in the summer and the club have plenty of time to invest the transfer fee in new players to replace him. It’s a sizeable fee, too. City have an irritating policy of labelling all of their transfer dealings as ‘undisclosed’ fees, but Aston Villa are reportedly paying an initial £33m with another £5m potentially coming if certain, though unspecified, performance criteria are met. Should he move from Villa to the big club I expected him to in the first place, Norwich will benefit once again from a 10% sell-on fee.
This makes the 24-year-old comfortably Norwich’s biggest sale. Until 2018, the club had never sold a player for £20m or more. They have since sold three – James Maddison to Leicester, Ben Godfrey to Everton and now Buendia. In an interview with the BBC last week, sporting director Stuart Webber said that if the club sold one of their top players the figure is ‘probably going to start with a number three in front of it’ and ‘we’re really relaxed on that front’. He has been true to his word.
It is reassuring that this doesn’t appear to have come as a shock to the people in power at Carrow Road. While I was hoping they would stick their heels in, refuse to sell Buendia and build the team around him to take on the Premier League – like Villa did with Jack Grealish – the relaxed response from Webber suggests that new faces are already being lined up. I thought it would be worth our while spending a fair bit convincing Buendia to stay for just one more season, and that it would be much easier to replace Max Aarons if the club needed a big sale. For the size of the fee, we could potentially buy three players to replace the one we have sold. Speaking of Grealish, I imagine Villa must be expecting to sell him this summer now and have bought Buendia to take his place.
I do think Norwich have taken a risk in selling their star man. Buendia created an incredible number of chances in the Premier League last time, considering he was in the side that finished bottom. It will be difficult to find someone with as much creativity in midfield as him. It’s hard for me not to believe that our chances of staying up next season have taken a hit. However, if we’ve learned one thing in the four years since Webber and Farke took over, it’s that they know what they are doing and to question their judgement often leaves you looking a fool.
The first international cricket played since the start of the coronavirus pandemic has not disappointed. The Test series between England and the West Indies is level at 1-1 going into the final match on Friday after the home side completed a superb 113 run win today. Here are a few talking points I’ve found from the second Test.
First innings runs were key
England were bowled out for 204 in their first innings in the first Test at the Rose Bowl, a match they went on to lose by 4 wickets. They arrived at Old Trafford knowing they needed to post a bigger total and they did so, amassing 469-9 before declaring on the second evening. It was slow going – they took 162 overs to score those runs and Dom Sibley’s 120 came from 372 balls, the third slowest ever by an England batsman in a home Test. I have read a few pieces criticising Sibley for batting too slowly – frankly, that’s ridiculous. England have been crying out for a solid opening batsman ever since the retirement of Alastair Cook and now they’ve got one we must not start moaning at him. Remember, they tried to turn limited overs opener Jason Roy into a Test batsman last summer and the experiment was a total failure. The value of building a big first innings total cannot be overestimated, no matter how slowly it comes.
Dom Sibley batted for more than nine hours in scoring his first innings century
Stokes just gets better and better
What a cricketer Ben Stokes is. We already knew that after last year – England would not have won the World Cup without his innings in the final and he batted them to a quite simply miraculous victory in the Ashes Test at Headingley. The way he has resurrected his career since that incident in Bristol could have so easily killed it has been incredible, and how lucky we are that we haven’t lost a player of his calibre.
Ben Stokes was the man of the match
In the first innings Stokes scored 176, but said he was ‘more buzzing’ to have faced 300 balls in his innings because ‘it’s something I never thought I would be capable of doing’. In the second innings, when England were looking for quick runs to set up a winning position, Stokes was sent in as opener and cracked 78 off just 57 balls. Later in the day, after fielding a ball on the boundary off his own bowling at one point, he took the crucial wicket of Jermaine Blackwood on the stroke of Tea – just as the West Indies looked like they might be settling in for the draw. Stokes is quite simply indispensable.
Write off Broad at your peril
Stuart Broad was dropped for the first Test at the Rose Bowl, the first time that had happened to him in a home Test for eight years. The 34-year-old said he was ‘frustrated, angry and gutted’ to have been left out, so when he was brought back at Old Trafford while James Anderson and Mark Wood were rested he was determined to prove a point. On the fourth afternoon, with the draw the most likely result, Broad took 3 wickets for one run with the new ball to turn the game in England’s favour. He took 3-42 in the second innings. His powers are certainly not waning and he is now just nine away from 400 Test wickets.
Stuart Broad is closing in on 400 Test wickets
Who do England pick for the third Test?
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the English cricket season to include six Test in seven weeks, and the third Test against the West Indies starts in just four days’ time. Do England go with the same eleven, adhering to the old adage that you ‘never change a winning team’? Or are there decisions to be made?
The batting line up was impressive in the second match, putting a big total on the board in the first innings and being versatile enough to whack 129 in just 19 overs in the second. In Rory Burns and Sibley they have two solid openers, Zak Crawley looks a decent prospect at number three although he is still finding his feet, Ollie Pope is a fantastic young talent and they are all supported by the experienced heads of Stokes and the captain Joe Root, who returned for the second match having missed the first to be at the birth of his daughter.
The England team and the selectors clearly love having Jos Buttler around, but he just doesn’t seem good enough with the bat in Test cricket to warrant a place in the side. Especially not when a top keeper and perfectly good batsman in Ben Foakes is waiting in the wings. Buttler is a magnificent player in the shorter formats but he still only has one Test century to his name in 43 matches. He was given the perfect opportunity to go full on One Day mode in the second innings as he was sent in to open with Stokes but played on for 0. It won’t happen but I’d pick Foakes ahead of him.
England may be tempted to bring back Jofra Archer for the decider
It would seem like insanity to drop Broad again so the question is whether Chris Woakes, Sam Curran or indeed both make way for Anderson, Wood or Jofra Archer. Archer would have played in the second match had he not breached the bio-secure protocols that have enabled this series to take place at all by popping home to Sussex before arriving in Manchester. His pace would no doubt have caused problems to the West Indies batsmen, and England may be tempted to bring him in.
All in all, this was a superb Test victory for England and one of the most entertaining final days you could ever wish to see. With the whole of Saturday washed out by rain, the home side have done brilliantly well to force a positive result and it feels like they may now have the momentum heading into the third match, which will decide the winners of the Wisden Trophy.
There’s a lot going on at the moment that can really get you down. If the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t enough, keeping us away from our family and friends, ruining our plans and making us worry, then the events in the US over the last week or so have only added to the load.
I am a big Twitter user. I find it useful to keep up with what’s going on, connect with a wide range of people and to try to get my writing seen. However, I find it really difficult to avoid getting into arguments on there. With the topic of race right back at the top of the world agenda, I’ve been coming to blows with some who I feel have truly abhorrent views.
To drag myself out of that particular tunnel I have started something called #GoodStuff, where I share things that have made me laugh, smile or simply made this whole situation easier to deal with over the last couple of months. Here are my first selections.
Mark Church’s Garden Cricket
When sport is your thing, a global virus pandemic bringing the whole thing to a sudden halt for a while is tough. Football and cricket are my two biggest loves and there hasn’t been any live action to watch in this country since March – except in Mark Church’s garden.
Mark Church is the cricket commentator for BBC London. Usually at this time of year he’d be busy reporting on all of Surrey’s matches, but the coronavirus has left him with a bit more time on his hands.
He’s been playing in his garden, against his garden furniture. A full schedule of five Test matches, five One Day Internationals and some upcoming Twenty20 games. Some might describe the whole thing as one man’s slow descent into insanity but, trust me, it will put a smile on your face.
This week I should have seen Blossoms supporting The Killers at Carrow Road, but that’s been rescheduled for next year for obvious reasons. I’ve been a fan of the Stockport band for a while and loved Foolish Loving Spaces, their third album, released in January.
They haven’t let the fact that they’ve been locked down in different places stop them making music, though. They have recorded some of their own songs and a few covers in isolation, and the results have been incredible.
My favourite is their cover of Tame Impala’s The Less I Know The Better, with Miles Kane from The Last Shadow Puppets. It sounds great, you’d never know they were recording their individual parts – and at one point drummer Joe Donovan plays a potato peeler. Have a listen.
Elis and John’s Isolation Tapes
I’ve been a big fan of Elis James and John Robins for about three years now. At the time, they presented the 1pm-4pm slot on a Saturday on Radio X and the start of their show would coincide with me driving home from work.
I really liked how the show was basically two mates having a chat. They talked about all kinds of stuff, and it never felt forced or fake. They’re both comedians by trade, Robins an Edinburgh festival fringe comedy award winner and James a proud Welshman who now does a lot of gigs in the Welsh language.
I started listening to the podcasts of their radio show and have done ever since. I went to see them at the UEA in 2018 when they released a book and did a tour of the country to promote it. At the end, I even got my copy signed!
My signed book
Last year they moved to BBC Radio 5 Live and during the pandemic they’ve been recording extra episodes called The Isolation Tapes. I’ve found them a wonderful slice of normality amidst the chaos.
It’s limbs in the studio as a box of brownies and a couple of books have lifted Elis out of a funk. What great news for bookworms with low blood sugar. But the internal glucose alarm isn’t the only one going off as a fire alert causes chaos. We also get psychological as the boys unpick the idea of the inner monologue, and with that the terrifying engine steering John under the bonnet. Would Freud enjoy this? Potentially. Would it frighten him? Almost certainly. And from brains to bodies, the show gets panned as the least erotic thing possible, whilst we have a couple of fantastically zoological Mad Dads.It’s elisandjohn@bbc.co.uk or 07974 293022 on WhatsApp if you’ve got any comments on the above. But please nothing too close to the erotic bone. Keep it PG.
David Beckham last night, going down in a heap after suffering Achilles damage that will force him out of the World Cup. The injury could mean the end of his 115-cap England career.
Laying in bed this morning, semi-conscious minutes after being woken up by the BBC Radio Norfolk newsreader, I felt a sudden sadness when I learned that David Beckham would not be going to the World Cup. I felt sorry for him. He never strikes me as being the most intelligent of people – a friend of mine at school used to love telling me Beckham once answered an interview question with the phrase ‘I wasn’t teached that way’ – but then he doesn’t need to be. Not in the academic sense anyway. From what I have seen of him on the TV, Beckham is a genius with a football. He is unrivalled when it comes to crossing or passing the ball. Not to mention his mesmerising free kicks, works of art in accuracy and precision. Some say his legs had gone, but an England squad with David Beckham in it is better than one without.
Hard work is something that Beckham doesn’t shy away from either. He was Sven’s England captain, but Steve McLaren had the guts to leave him out of the team (others might argue this was just another of McLaren’s misguided actions). ‘Becks’ earned his way back in, and was it not for his pin-point crosses England’s Wembley defeat to Croatia that made certain of their no-show at Euro 2008 would have been even more embarrassing.
The much more masterful Fabio Capello omitted Beckham from some of his squads too, wary of the quality of football the ex-Manchester United midfielder was participating in at the Los Angeles Galaxy. Far from admitting defeat as he approached his mid-30s, Beckham was prepared to strain his club relations for the sake of his country, organising a spring loan move to AC Milan. Don’t let the cynics make you believe that this was purely because his Spice Girl wife Victoria wanted a taste of fashionable Italy. Beckham moved to Serie A to keep his World Cup dream alive.
Now into his second spell at San Siro, it hasn’t been perfect for the 34-year-old. He has never been the leading star, often being forced to settle for substitute appearances, but when he came on Beckham still oozed an aura of class. This was a player not to be taken lightly. This was a player who commanded respect. In the last month he was put into the shade by the future of English football itself, Wayne Rooney, but on current form anyone would be. It wasn’t as much of a ‘that was the old, this is the new’ showing as some pundits are warbling on about. He had his own doubts about his chances of boarding the plane for South Africa this summer, but the general consensus was he would be there, and he had earned the right to be there.
It turns out, unfortunately, that these talking points are ultimately trivial. Last night Beckham broke down playing for Milan against Chievo. His manager Leonardo said the Londoner ‘knew immediately’ that his Achilles tendon was torn. TV pictures confirmed this, showing Beckham signalling a tear to the bench. Today, the injury that means he won’t be fit for the World Cup is headline news here, and heartbreaking news for Beckham himself.
Who will replace David Beckham?
James Milner, of Aston Villa, is my ideal choice to fill David Beckham's boots.
Not only does Beckham have to rethink his plans after last night’s events, so does England manager Fabio Capello ahead of the World Cup, and possibly for after the tournament as well. Thankfully, there are a number of options. The obvious choice, Aaron Lennon of Tottenham, is facing his own injury battle and should he be fit, he might not be match-ready for the immense pressure and intense pace World Cup finals matches bring. Another possibility, one utilised by Capello previously, is Manchester City’s Shaun Wright Phillips, though his stuttered contract talks with the club he loves have been playing on his mind of late. Personally, I would punt for Aston Villa’s versatile James Milner, who has had a season to remember as one of the outstanding players in Martin O’Neill’s strong outfit. Still quite young, Milner’s career has seen him face tough times at Leeds United and Newcastle United, so he is more mature than most. A talented and strong player, not afraid to try a long shot, Milner looks to me to be the ideal midfielder to fill the sizeable void left by Beckham’s absence.
Questions have now moved on to whether or not this would signal the end of David Beckham’s career. As I type, he is undergoing surgery in Finland to correct the injury. This would have been Beckham’s fourth World Cup – no Englishman has played at that many tournaments. It seems he will have to settle for three after all, a record to be proud of – only Bobby Moore and Peter Shilton have also played in as many World Cups for England as that. The swiftness with which Beckham has headed under the knife suggests he has not given up on his glittering career yet.
Not that I am at all qualified to tell him what to do, but if David Beckham asked me for his advice, I would tell him this (and this has come about after some considerable thought). Retire from international football and come home for a swansong. Surgeons appear to be confident that they can get him playing football again. That’s good. I had convinced myself, prior to this awful news, that Beckham would draw the curtains on his career as a whole after this summer’s World Cup. Now he won’t be going, that would be a bad idea. He wouldn’t want it to end like this. It is important that England move on after the summer, though, and their plans in order to progress simply cannot include a veteran. Draw a line under your international career, Becks, and do it before you disappoint yourself trying to make it work again when you are fit.
It would then be up to Beckham to sign off in the best possible way. Come home, back to play in front of the people who love you (the same people who hated you in 1998). I highly doubt Manchester United would take such a step to bring him back. Certainly not with Ferguson in charge. That’s just not how they work. It is without doubt, though, that Beckham could still cut it in the Premier League. How about at one of the clubs currently jostling for the coveted fourth place? Tottenham Hotspur? Aston Villa? Everton? A couple of seasons, dazzling performances, glory achieved before taking a step back as one of this country’s greats. I don’t want to go too far forward, but just in time for a cushy media job at Euro 2012?
LEE PAYNE 