Capello calls time on England stint, as fan's favourite Harry is clear to take the national reigns.

So, there we have it, Fabio Capello’s four year reign laying in tatters as he decided to walk with his authority woefully undermined in a state of affairs that has rivalled anything the Football Authorities have managed to achieve in recent history. 

Even after the sordid Sven Goran Eriksson affairs, the revolving-door policy that embraces its Chief Executives and the whole business of John Terry’s internal leisure, somehow the FA have managed to surpass themselves with this latest episode which left the Italian manager with no option but to walk away from what has deviated to a total farce.

The manager should always be the most important man at a football team, as Sir Alex Ferguson was so quick to point out earlier in the week where talk was still rife about Capello’s apparent talk with his native RAI media station where he made it clear he did not agree with his employer’s decision of two days earlier to strip the armband from his chosen captain over allegations of racism. It became clear that the hierarchy of English football had reached a knee-jerk verdict in the aftermath of the chosen delay of a trial by the Magistrate until after the European Championships in the summer, most vitally, without the permission of the man who is handed a significant salary to be the figurehead of the national team.

It was a reaction that was designed to avoid any diplomatic disaster for the organisation that had already dealt its hand on the ugly side of racist language in the sport with the hard-line stance on Luis Suarez. The brains of David Bernstein and co. were wily enough to know that being led to a flagship tournament under the scrutinising gaze of the world by a man with such vile allegations hanging over him would be an embarrassment, so they had to quickly but unfortunately, with enough haste to evade the required judgement of Fabio Capello. 

And so, with his view that Terry is still the captain under the age old premise that provides the basis for an honorary justice system, the maxim of “innocent until proven guilty” not shifting, Capello saw no option but to relinquish his duties from the contract he was required to honour until the summer. With any standing or power that Capello seemingly had over his squad being torn like a rug from under him, it was a perfectly understandable choice and has he sped away from his meeting with the FA at Wembley, he only served to leave a dust cloud of shock and confusion.

The disarray and self-destruction is almost like a rubber-stamp on England’s preparations for major tournaments and that is an indictment on the FA who have come out of this looking inferior to the Italian manager who refused to be dictated to, yet these are the same men charged with recovering the latest wreckage from the disaster and re-building a settled camp that can provide the basis for a successful assault on the Poland and Ukraine in June. “Finding Fabio’s replacement was never a priority” said David Bernstein, but that particular remit has been thrown upon him with such immediacy that he won’t even have time to circle it into his calendar.

So what happens now, to whom do the FA turn as a solution to this mess of gigantic proportions that involves the task of being able to make a dramatic impact in the short term. The immediate future will be charged to Stuart Pearce, an integral part of Capello’s set-up, who will oversee the match with the Netherlands at the end of February, but it remains to be seen how long he will be given as he has neither the track-record or experience needed to take charge of the team on the most grandiose of stages. Perhaps consolation came in Harry Redknapp’s acquittal of tax evasion on the morning of what has been a frantic day of sporting news in the capital, leaving him free to manage to England to a brave new era past the European Championships, as predicted.

Even the wildest of fantasists could not have expected the short-term to be the most thespian of problems to befall this England team in the early stages of the year though, and surely it cannot be expected of Redknapp, at the tender age of 64, to combine both Spurs and England roles for the rest of the season. Any chance of a complete walk from White Hart Lane would be ridiculous when it is considered he is on the verge of Spurs’ best finish to a league season for twenty-two years, and of course, the immovable faith instilled in him by his chairman Daniel Levy as his fight against a tax-evasion prosecution took a side-cart to what has been a mesmeric time in North London.

When the general consensus that the next England manager should be a native is taken into account, then the short-term option pre-Redknapp becomes an extremely narrow bracket; Roy Hodgson advocating uninspiring football whilst struggling with West Brom, Alan Pardew who is in the midst of achieving something with Newcastle but again does not have a fitting history of sustained success in the same vein as Guus Hiddink, who has been fast in making his interest in the job known, or Jose Mourinho as some people have clamoured for in the overseas market. Hiddink would be a polarized choice, he’s both the man who did the stabilising job so brilliantly at Chelsea three years ago and he is the same man who could not steer Turkey to these forthcoming European Championships that now loom over England’s horizon like a gathering storm cloud. 

Whoever is chosen or whatever the authorities do now though, the damage has been done. The reputation has been built for an organisation that is willing to go over a manager’s head to leave its own stamp on team affairs. Just who is going to be attracted to such a proposition when it is offered them? Who is going to be interested in a post that is immersed in enough incongruity that has made even the most determined and respected managers in European football turn his back? It’s not worth guessing; just leave it to the men who do not know what they are doing. Typical England. Sweet FA.

Carroll reaps rewards after breaking goalscoring duck.

Despite a battling display that produced a match-winning assist and the liverpool.fc.tv fans’ player of the match award, talk of Andy Carroll in the media last weekend was dominated by speculation of his departure from Anfield, and not of the striker’s relative improvement in form in the F.A Cup Fourth Round win over Man United. 

Carroll put a real shift in, got the flick-on that led to Dirk Kuyt’s winning goal and was unlucky to rattle David De Gea’s bar with a difficult chance late on. Still, man of the match might have been stretching things a bit far. He played much better than in midweek against Manchester City, though that wasn’t hard, as in the Carling Cup clash he had generally looked as cumbersome and immobile as ever. 

But then the Sunday morning papers ran with reports of the striker being offered to City in exchange for Carlos Tevez – a suggestion that was apparently knocked back by those at the Etihad – and for Carroll, the high from the United game was over. So going into deadline day and the away clash with Wolves, there wasn’t a great deal of spotlight on whether Carroll could build on his latest display, as instead, Kenny Dalglish was left to defend transfer speculation and deny that the club wanted rid of the big man. 

Us Liverpool fans have often taken as protective a stance over Carroll as Dalglish, who at every available opportunity has fiercely defended his £35million signing. He claimed that ‘self-belief isn’t a problem’, that Carroll has ‘adapted well to change’ and has ‘gone about his work very well, on and off the pitch’. 

The big Geordie’s performance on Saturday was perhaps overstated due to the fans’ collective desperation to see Carroll do well. Every time he went in for a tackle, a big cheer and applause erupted like he had produced an eye-catchingly neat touch or a moment of magic to turn the game. 

Yet on Tuesday night in Wolverhampton, he didn’t need the exaggerated emphasis. He genuinely did play well, and in the second half he was even in danger of producing what might be called eye-catching football – bringing the ball down with great control, turning, running at defenders. 

Carroll has in all fairness suffered from a lack of service in his time at Anfield, and has been longing for Stewart Downing to re-produce the standard of delivery that Joey Barton and Jonas Gutiérrez did at Newcastle. And with fifty-two minutes gone against Wolves, Charlie Adam sent him something parcel-wrapped with a first-class courier stamp. 

Receiving the ball out wide on the left from Craig Bellamy’s throw, the Scotsman flighted an absolute peach of a cross over the Wolves defence to the advancing Carroll at the back post. A year to the day since his big-money arrival, Carroll stretched a leg to poke the ball past Wayne Hennessey and celebrate his first anniversary at Liverpool with his seventh goal for the club. 

At £5million a goal Carroll still isn’t value for money. And even with Luis Suarez returning, Liverpool are still short of goalscoring options. However, after good performances in back-to-back games, Carroll has played his part in what has probably been Liverpool’s best week of the season so far. So things are looking up. And given more time to adjust, Carroll might yet do well in a red shirt.

In 1980, Liverpool broke the British record transfer fee for a teenager by signing a young striker from Chester (£350,000 back then might well have felt like £35million). Awkward, and not much of a threat on goal, he was as such restricted to very few first-team opportunities and was placed on the transfer list a year after joining the club having still not opened his scoring account. The Kop was wondering what the hell Liverpool had signed. Bob Paisley’s kick up the backside obviously did Ian Rush the world of good, as shortly after he scored the first of his 346 goals for Liverpool, going on to become the club’s all-time leading goal-scorer. 

No pressure, Andrew. 

The january transfer window has long been a bone of contention, yet some managers can't resist a dip into the market in search of that all important 'run-in' player.

Tuesday marks the passing of the 31 day January transfer window in what the only thing that appeared to move was tumbleweed for an undisclosed fee.

There are no big instances of last-ditch transfers expected and everyone is looking forward to the two nights of Premier League action instead of the usual excitement that is generated by the buzzing ticker on the Sky Sports News screen. Journalists are posted in every nook and cranny across the country looking for the arrival or even departure of a star name from a big club in order to draw the lunatic faithful out at midnight to brave the cold in eagerness for their clubs to deliver a seal on a massive transfer as we lap it all up in a blaze of child-like hysteria.

Unless one of the top seven clubs decide their squad is not good enough in the early hours of the morning, Tuesday promises to contain no such entertainment on the transfer front. In fact, the biggest deals appear to be the much-travelled Djibril Cisse, scorer of one goal in 17 games at Lazio, to QPR for £4 million and Pavel Pogrebynyak who has struggled in Germany with Stuttgart scoring 15 in 64, to Fulham for the same fee. While they may be significant acquisitions for the respective clubs, it is hardly anything to get the collective juices flowing whilst the refresh button is being hammered on the transfer timeline. As inevitable as death and taxes, some news outlets have rolled out the Wesley Sneijder to Manchester United story yet again, but this will remain in the ether with all other outlandish speculation as the top clubs seem to have built an aversion to spending big in January.

But the question that has to be asked is why has this window been a watershed for a decline in business in which the top six clubs have spent a grand total of £7 million, Chelsea’s purchase of Gary Cahill being the only significant piece of action in which money has changed hands. Manchester United saw so much reluctance to spending in this month that their central midfield injury crisis had to be eased by a 37 year-old retired of six months previous, while Arsenal brought back their old genius Thierry Henry rather than address their striking issues with solid, hard cash. 

This time last year we saw the madness of Andy Carroll to Liverpool and Fernando Torres to Chelsea for rather significant sums of money and this is probably where the epicentre of the explanation lies. Fast forward a year and Carroll is being reportedly advertised to Manchester City whose troublemaker seems a more attractive option to solve the goal-scoring problems at Anfield, in which the £35 million Carroll has managed only four, than the physically impressive centre-forward that was rushed in for the outgoing Torres exactly a year ago. The Spaniard’s fortunes at Chelsea haven’t exactly been much better; a record of 3 goals in 31 matches and confidence shot so much that he looks a fraction of the player that convinced the Chelsea board he was worth £50 million. Present these two as examples of over-indulgent panic buying and you can see why the prominent clubs are shying away from splashing the cash as the window slams shut.

Furthermore, the folly of the January sales was explored further at Arsenal last week as Andrei Arshavin, Arsene Wenger’s last big money January purchase, was booed as he entered the fray against Manchester United after a series of underwhelming performances which has taken the Russian miles behind the electrifying player he represented upon his first arrival in this country. It appears that the pace and intensity of the league has caught up with Arshavin who pines for a move back to the Motherland while the player he replaced in that defeat to United, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, signed in the summer, looks hungry and a tenfold more potent force than that of the disillusioned Russian. Yet Arsenal fans have been relentless in their urge for Wenger to make a last ditch effort to bolster their effort to qualify for the Champions League but the wretched form of Arshavin should provide as good a counter-argument as any of the fickle nature of this window. Rumours are surfacing that Eden Hazard, the much reputed star of Lille, could be on his way, but the typically shrewd Wenger will be wise to repeating another £16 million deal for a player who has only enjoyed only a short spell of his best form and now lies on the receiving end of supporter’s vitriol.

Not even Manchester City, the Premier League’s current trailblazers in the transfer market, have entered into the fray to do business, despite Roberto Mancini’s bemoaning of their lack of midfield options while Liverpool, scorers of only 25 goals in the Premier League so far and shorn of the mercurial talent of Luis Suarez, have refused to dip in for a striker to solve that particular problem, choosing instead to safeguard the future by snatching some promising talent from the lower leagues. The only top seven side to have done business bar Chelsea is Newcastle who have brought in Papiss Cisse on the back of a phenomenal scoring rate of 37 in 65 games for Freiburg in the Bundesliga. Cisse is an unknown quantity and the onus will be centred around his impact on the Premier League together with the potent Demba Ba, but that is as far as talking points go in a very moribund transfer window.

Over the past few years there has become a reluctance for the top clubs to panic in January, Arsene Wenger has spoken recently of a refusal to buy players who have been cast-off by other clubs and are looking for a short-term route out, and that is effectively what the January window is now for. Manchester United struck gold with their signings of Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic in the January of 2006 but Sir Alex Ferguson will now pluck for limping through with a bare-boned squad than find a temporary bandage for the injury-caused wound. 

So as the window draws to a painstakingly slow ending against a back-drop of media outlets trying to exaggerate the excitement factor by 110 percent, remember that this has not been fun to watch at all. Think of Berbatov, Tevez, the madness of Robinho on the last day of August and remember summer is better, when Nikica Jelavic to Everton is the order of the day on January 31st. Roll on February.

As Manchester United keep up the pace on league leaders Manchester City, Tottenham lie in waiting.

It was scheduled to be the season opener for both clubs but the exceptional circumstances in London forced the game to be postponed and was finally completed on the evening of Wednesday January 11th with Spurs cruising to a 2-0 victory.

It is hard to say if the game would have produced the same result had it been played when intended as Spurs’ start to the season was somewhat disrupted by the transfer window saga that unsettled their influential midfield playmaker Luka Modric amongst others. Everton faced a far more settled side than they would have back in mid August.

The game itself was mostly one sided, I remember games of this nature involving these two teams being mostly edgy affairs with the home side nervously scraping a win or disappointingly slumping do a draw or worse, a defeat. These days the confidence in every department is evident. The goalkeeper could possibly be the biggest reason for this new found swagger as there is no doubt the defence is much more confident and less destructive with the experienced Friedel between the posts. Michael Dawson returned for his first Premier League game after a four month lay off and looked as if he had never been away. The two full backs of Walker and Assou Ekotto constantly attack and cause all sorts of problems, while the pace of Bale and Lennon further up the flanks is frightening. Modric was his usual influential self while Jake Livermore, who ranks as third choice holding midfielder, behing Parker & Sandro had a fantastic game in front of the back four, a very assured performance with a very high percentage of pass completion.
The forward line of Van Der Vaart and Adebayor was also dangerous throughout the game and with Defoe waiting in the wings and the potential of a new striker arriving in the upcoming transfer window Spurs could have even greater options going forward.

The result puts Spurs level on points with Manchester United in second place, albeit eleven goals inferior, but also they are only three points behind leaders Manchester City. Perhaps more significantly for Spurs is that they are eight points ahead of Chelsea and nine ahead of Arsenal meaning the are very much in the driving seat for a top four finish which would have been the target at the start of their campaign.

Are Spurs genuine title challengers? It has to be said that they are, they are almost unstoppable at home and have dramatically improved their away form this season, they have cover in all positions, although long term injuries to Modric, Bale or Adebayor could prove costly. January could be season defining for Spurs with home games to come against Wolves and Wigan while in between those games Spurs face City at the Etihad stadium which is building up to be a huge game, if Spurs win that and they can beat United at White Hart Lane in early March we could have unexpected Champions in May.

Two yellow cards in just eighteen minutes at Anfield, leaves mindless Balotelli once again asking: "Why always me?"

Bar the fireworks and the catalogue of off the field issues that comes with the Mario Balotelli package, it was all going so well for the Italian on the pitch.

The firework episode was still resonating in everybody’s minds when he scored his 5th and 6th goals in a 5 game run to contribute so significantly to the 1-6 thrashing. “Why Always Me?” he asked nonchalantly after his side footed finish opened the scoring on that seismic day, but it took 35 days for him to provide his own answer to that particular poser at Anfield on Sunday, he reverted back to the spectacularly idiotic Balotelli that attracts the spotlight like no other.

The striker was coming off a run of nine goals in ten games, including one in a poor individual display against Napoli in midweek, and was beginning to look like a genuine footballer, the one that has threatened so often in patches only to be let down by baffling stupidity and indicating that he does possess the talent that has Roberto Mancini persistently sifting through the lunacy in order to unearth it. His disappointing night in Naples was probably reason enough to jettison his trusted disciple in favour of Samir Nasri, but when Mancini called on his substitute with Manchester City’s game with Liverpool poised at 1-1, he would not have expected, even in the context of Balotelli’s wildest moments, that his player would proceed to attract two cautions, in a six minute spell between 77 and 83 minutes, and be heading back into the direction of the dressing room a mere 18 minutes later, leaving his team-mates to desperately hang on to a point courtesy of the miraculous reflexes of his goalkeeper Joe Hart.

Mancini has of course been here before, the petulant dismissal with his team trailing a 2-1 aggregate deficit to Dynamo Kiev in last season’s Europa League or even his sudden dramatic phobia of grass which saw him avoid responsibility in the first leg out in Ukraine which has put his team in severe hindrance. The ridiculous has often come hand-in-hand with the sublime, two goals at West Brom last November were followed by his first red card in English football, while the ridiculous has also been known to stand alone; his last trip to Anfield saw him substituted on and then off to cap a torrid night, while Mancini showed even the most stringent of patience can wear thin as he immediately hauled Balotelli off for attempting the most ludicrous of back-heels when on a pre-season jaunt of America. 

His talent has never been in question; he was handed his Inter Milan debut at the age of 17 in a 2-0 win away at Cagliari in 2007 and scored twice three days later in a 4-1 win at Reggina, going on to be part of the Scudetto winning Inter Milan side of that year. Nevertheless, the frustrations that came with the striker always seemed to betray his promising development, Jose Mourinho was vocal in his disdain for Balotelli on numerous occasions, including his inability to train well, eventually leading to Mourinho to abandon his patience with the young Italian after his long run of barmy episodes hit a nadir with the Champions League semi-final over Barcelona, marring celebrations by throwing his shirt to the ground and inviting a physical confrontation with supporters.

Things were never easy for Balotelli in Italy; he was promoted to the full Inter Milan side early by Roberto Mancini, now his manager at Manchester City, only to attract a negative reception not based on performances, but by the colour of his skin. Scoring in a 1-1 draw away at Juventus, he was subjected to taunts from the Bianconera who claimed that “black Italians do not exist”, leading to a partial attendance ban for Juventus fans. Following his turbulent childhood where he experienced a premature split from his natural parents as a result of medical problems as an infant, he was perceived as an outsider upon his breakthrough to Italian professional football and such volatile indifference made it very difficult for him to settle. Losing Mancini, who had instilled a huge amount of faith in the youngster, at the end of his debut season, was a blow, initiating a series of confrontations and scrapes with the equally egotistical Mourinho.

But it was Mancini’s faith that refused to wane and his devotion to the player was typified by his £24 million signing in the August of 2010 and just over a year of madness later, Mancini still refuses to buckle to the increasingly common perception that his trust in Balotelli is misguided. Since being in England, Balotelli has picked up 16 bookings and three red cards from a total of 38 Manchester City appearances, to put this into context, Sunderland’s much maligned Lee Cattermole has 45 bookings from 141 career appearances and only two more dismissals to his name than Balotellli. Even during his recent resurgence as an integral member to the City title charge, he has acquired five bookings from his last seven games, a strike rate as prescient as any that he is nowhere near curbing his fractious character that is so often to the detriment to the team, as it were on Merseyside on Sunday evening. As his arm wrapped around the skull of Martin Skrtel, Martin Atkinson prepared to produce the fifth red card of 21 year old Balotelli’s four year career. 

Still Mancini’s belief that one day he will eventually cut shy of the wild antics refuses to wilt, as he stood on the touchline concealing his anger enough to calmly usher his striker down the tunnel there was a sense of severe disappointment but again, with the words of “we have no problem” in the aftermath of the incident which took a further caveat with news that Balotelli’s infuriation had extended enough to damage the away dressing room door at Anfield, summoned admiration of his loyal refusal to condemn his charge but also feelings of exasperation that the protagonist of this drama is so blind to the effect the Italian protagonist is having on his team. Much is documented of Mancini’s luxury that he affords Balotelli’s genius in the same realm as Sir Alex Ferguson associated to Eric Cantona, letting him miss the FA Cup victory parade to visit his Italian home, while he was allowed to stay on in Italy after the defeat to Naples on Tuesday, but what the manager seemingly cannot see is that unlike Cantona with Ferguson, he is reaping not match-winning ingenuity but frustrating naivety. 

Mancini did go onto claim that Balotelli’s sending off was heavily influenced by the reaction of Liverpool’s players, that of immediate crowding and Skrtel’s penchant for writhing in agony to an impact that, to the most rational of neutral, was in the aftermath of the minimalist of contact, However, similarly to past incidents that spring to the memory, Swedish midfielder Pontus Wernbloom’s ridiculous over-reaction to a miniscule kick by the Italian in the under 21 European championships of 2009, courtesy of a simple internet search, would be a case in point; that the troublesome reputation Balotelli has endeavoured to build up is now to his hindrance. Rather than the ferocious talent that is promised us in little glimpses, we still have this tormented footballer chained to the wall by his wild antics. However, not in any time soon, does Mancini seem willing to give up on him.

The London Olympics will be the first time in 52 years that Great Britain has fielded a football team in the games.  

Team GB plans to enter both male and female teams to play on home turf next year.  While this will be an exciting and historical moment in British sport, it has caused a great deal of controversy among the organisers, fans and players. 
Here GetMeIn explores some of the issues. 

Separate nations

The Welsh, Scottish and Irish football associations are worried that Team GB will affect how they are seen by FIFA. With the English FA taking in the lead in the formation of Team GB’s football squad, the other home nations are worried this will affect their independence in FIFA organised tournaments, such as the World Cup and next year’s Euros. In a joint statement, released in June, they explained this that stance was “principally to protect the identity of each national association”.

The FA claims that an ‘historic agreement’ was made to allow players from each team to play.  However the joint statement said that no such agreement had taken place.

Obviously this has had an implication for players. Last week on Twitter, Wales captain Aaron Ramsay posted: “Relax everyone, there is no way I would play if it was going to affect Wales’s identity as an individual nation!" in an attempt to reassure fans.

Age limit

As the 2012 Euros are also next year FIFA planned to exclude all players over the age of 21 from competing. This way they hoped to avoid clashes between the two major tournaments.

The International Olympic Committee was against this restriction and set the upper age limit at 23. The committee has allowed each team to field up to three ‘over age’ players. This means that while many of Britain’s footballing legends will be excluded, some stars, such as David Beckham, might be able to represent Great Britain next summer.

What do the fans think?

With all of the politics surrounding this event, it’s easy to overlook what the fans think about the British team. Some Welsh, Scottish and Irish fans are as against Team GB as their football association. Fansite NoTeamGB.com  was set up in opposition of the Olympic team. It has released an array of anti-Olympic press releases. These fans feel that “such a move toward a joint team could severely jeopardise the independent status of the four Home Associations. All four associations have a proud tradition of very long standing which fans from the four countries wish to retain and any move toward a joint team is seen a major threat to this status.”

Prominent Sky broadcaster Jeff Stelling is also set against the event. He told the Independent that an Olympic football was ‘nonsensical’ and believes the Games should stick to track and field events.

It’s not all bad news

While this is going on behind the scenes, players such as David Beckham are getting behind the event. Beckham has already mentioned that he would be ‘honoured’ to be asked to play as an ‘over-ager’. Wales and Tottenham star Gareth Bale has also given team GB his support, posing for a photo shoot in the official kit.

If it’s alright for them

Football isn’t the only sport to consider the implications of mixing up home nations teams. Other sports have done it successfully. Rugby is probably the best example of this with the British Lions taking part in international tours regularly. The Lions often play rugby powerhouses such as South Africa and New Zealand, while the home nations are kept separate for tournaments such as the World Cup and Six Nations.

Cricket also sees a joint effort between the Home Nations. The England cricket team is actually representative of England and Wales. The only Welsh county cricket team, Glamorgan, often provides Welsh players with a platform from which to launch their England cricket career.

Player announcements for the two Olympic GB football teams will be made in 2012.  Keep watching the domestic football league and Champions League this season to make your predictions for the football stars of the Games in the meantime.

To see how a British team should be, visit www.getmein.com for cricket, rugby tickets and other sports tickets.

England captain John Terry, is once again the focus of the media's attention ahead of their clash with world champions Spain at Wembley.

It’s time for yet another return to the international stage with England and yet again, they approach the friendlies with Spain and Sweden shrouded in controversy regarding players and squad selection.

As the FA seek to fight the ban of the talismanic Wayne Rooney, his three match suspension currently basis for debate of whether to persist with the striker despite his three match suspension which could rule him out of England’s entire participation in Poland and Ukraine, Fabio Capello is seemingly at loggerheads with his employers over the attraction of his captain John Terry, currently subject of a Police investigation surrounding accusations of racism.

As it is, Capello has stood by his captain and included him in a 23 man squad which is notably without Rooney, the Italian willing to make haste with the exploration of alternatives as he powerlessly awaits the verdict of the FA’s challenge to UEFA’s original group stage ban for the European Championships. The same cannot be said for Terry however, there is no abundance of defensive replacement with such leadership qualities to rival the Chelsea man. Terry has undergone intense interrogation of character before, England have been down the captaincy stripping route before in attempt to stick to moral guidelines, but have merely concluded in going back to the tried and trusted centre-half. Terry has a long history of character assassination, but still remains England captain simply because he fits the mould of a leader in a way no other Englishman does.

However, with Capello running the “innocence until proven guilty” line in an admirable show of faith, he seems to be very close to the dangerous gauntlet of picking John Terry for England simply as a result of his leadership abilities. Terry seems so central to the England cause that, while the argument rages of his appeal to the national team whilst such demeaning accusations are held against his name, his role in a Chelsea defence that has made a rocky start to the season, conceding an alarming 15 goals in the first ten games before their second clean sheet of the season was achieved at Blackburn at the weekend, has been overlooked. That Andre Villas Boas’ side has already conceded as many goals as the Jose Mourinho guided defence in the whole of the ominous title winning year of 2005 of which Terry was a central par,t is damning evidence as any of his own startling demise. While many will be quick to condemn Terry’s involvement due to what allegedly comes out of his mouth, the doubt remains that the central defender is worthy of his inclusion when judged on his form alone.

Terry has been integral to the England set-up over the past year and with Capello’s unwavering loyalty in his leader that shines through all the off-field controversies, there has been nothing to suggest he will not remain as England’s first choice centre-half as England descend on the European Championships with preparations beginning this weekend with the visit of Spain. Terry however, has found recluse in his controversy as Capello has decided to take advantage of the impending investigation by the Crown Prosecution Service to spare him of such an intense examination of his qualities as a defender against the very best footballers in the World. His latest crack at England retribution will come against Sweden on Wednesday, a safe haven when compared to the foreboding encounter with the technically divine Spanish. 

Though, Capello needs to determine his true status on a pure footballing sense as quickly as possible. Is he reliable enough to provide the backbone of a creditable assault on the European Championships for an English team that looks for acceptance on the biggest stage? Too often England have embarked on the major scene with huge amounts of confidence in the wrong players, the over-hyped or over-promoted and if lessons, as Capello has previously claimed, have been heeded from the lessons of the debacle of the summer stay in Rustenburg, then he will not go down the same route. Yet with Terry, it seems the latest case in the false idolisation that has haunted England managers over the past decade or so; being a part of the defence that was found so wanting in the defensive necessity of organisation when two set-pieces were conceded against Switzerland, or the back four that was so positionally inept as they combusted against Montenegro is as clear as any indication, even his uncanny recent surrender to the excellence of Robin Van Persie, that he no longer possesses the abilities to cut it as a national centre-half. 

The outsider judgements of Terry’s persona will not cease regardless of what happens within the forthcoming international week, as they will also not upon the conclusion of the police investigation, people will always associate a dose of scepticism when it comes to the defender that courts controversy like no other, everyone pretty much except Capello, who sees qualities in the Chelsea man that he does not in anybody else with English eligibility. Gary Cahill will be partnered by somebody else as they face the wonders of Iberia at Wembley, but as Terry sits out waiting for his Wednesday opportunity to let his football do the talking, the clouds from his latest headline storm will still hang over him. But there is a sense of irony that the only challenge to his previously untouchable spot as England’s trusty centre-half comes from flimsy lip-reading evidence, not from his decline in form.

Manchester City set the pace as the Premier League affirms its position at the pinnacle of world football.

The start of the Premier League season has already been fantastic, with the usual blend of exciting matches, controversy and stunning goals, things are starting to take shape in terms of the league positions, and some of the teams have laid down a marker, none more so that the financial powerhouse that is Manchester City. 

Mancini’s men have certainly exceeded expectations, after only 10 games they have developed a winning habit, not only winning but annihilating their opponents, most notable Spurs at the beginning of the season with a 5-1 win at White Hart Lane and more recently a historic 6-1 win at Old Trafford.  A bad day at the office for the Untied defence but take nothing away from City’s performance, all six goals were pure class and they currently sit five points ahead of United, with only one draw showing as a blemish on there excellent start to the season which, slightly surprisingly, was away at Fulham.
 
Sir Alex’s Ferguson’s men are no doubt the nearest challengers, with the Man City defeat aside their season has been typically successful, new signings Phil Jones and Ashley Young certainly started the season well and Rooney has shown the sort of form expected of him that was lacking last season. 
Chelsea currently sit in fourth and are looking vulnerable now after two consecutive defeats with Newcastle now in third and Spurs level on points with Chelsea and with a game in hand.  It has been an indifferent start to the season for Chelsea as their new manager finds his feet in the Premier League and struggles with an aging squad, a £50 million striker still short on confidence and a Captain again under scrutiny for his performances and behaviour a crushing defeat at home to a resurgent Arsenal summing up Andre Villas-Boas’s struggles. 
 
Newcastle are the league’s surprise package so far this season as they currently sit within the sought after Champions League places in third place, they are still undefeated and team spirit is sky high due to a number of team building events including paintballing and such like.  Alan Pardew was an almost surprise choice to replace the popular Chris Hughton, however this current run of form has certainly seen their fans get behind their team and at St James Park 52,500 Geordies make for a formidable twelfth man! Can Newcastle keep up this type of form for the whole season?
 
Potentially the favourites to finish in the coveted fourth position are Spurs whose recent form has seen the rise up the table after suffering heavy defeats to both Manchester clubs in their first two games.  The signing of Scott Parker and Emmanuel Adebayor seemingly instrumental in the North Londoners change of fortunes as since the pair arrived Spurs are unbeaten.  Raphael Van Der Vaart has been exceptional in front of goal, scoring in the last five league games and keeping a no doubt frustrated Defoe out of the starting line up, with the strength and depth that Spurs have in their squad they are looking in good shape to finish in the top four but they should be aiming a little higher that fourth if their unbeaten run of seven league games continues.
 
Liverpool and Arsenal also harbour ambitions of playing in the Champions League next season and are managing to keep in touch with the teams above them, Arsenal in particular have gone on an incredible run after a disastrous start to the season by their standards.  Losing their two creative midfield players is certain to have an impact but one of their superstar’s remains at the club, and as long as Robin Van Persie is fit and playing Arsenal are a dangerous team and should not be written off. 
Liverpool’s resurgence continues steadily under Kenny Dalglish and their new American owners, a vast improvement on their form at this stage last year but they are still very much a work in progress and will need more time to gel as a team fully and get back to the heights they are used to at Anfield.
 
While Aston Villa and Stoke are positioned in the usual mid table mediocrity the three teams around them may be slightly unfamiliar, all three promoted teams have started exceptionally well and are also currently sitting around the mid table positions, Norwich look a potential problem for any team under the astute management of the highly rated Paul Lambert, while Brendan Rodgers is guiding Swansea to some excellent results.  Neil Warnock has made some interesting signings for QPR and their financial stability should mean that the club are likely to continue their rise.
 
The bottom of the league is looking almost done and dusted with the three teams currently occupying the relegation places all in such bad form it’s hard to see them recovering.  Wigan seem to always be involved at the foot of the table but this time it could be an impossible task, they lost all their league game in October and scored only once.  
Bolton have suffered a number of heavy defeats and the fact they are almost certain to lose Gary Cahill in January can only make things worse, will Owen Coyle be able to turn it around?  
Blackburn have shown some spirited performances but with growing pressure on their unpopular manager it is hard to see how they can turn the corner.  Everton and Wolves are in danger of battling for survival for the rest of the season.
 
All this after only ten games, however there is a long way to go...

The changing face of English football as attack appears to the best form of defence. Jack Sumner considers why?
 
Spurs 1 Manchester City 5. Manchester United 8 Arsenal 2. Spurs 4-0 Liverpool. Manchester United 1 Manchester City 6. And now, Chelsea 3 Arsenal 5.  Never before in the Premier League has such an outlandish set of results been produced in such a short space of time.

And what’s more, all of these rugby scores have arisen from what in recent years have generally been perceived as tight, cagey fixtures. 

Football is evolving in the Premier League, and the onus now appears to be on attacking football, particularly in clashes between the league's top teams. Where for years, the big games have been decided by the odd goal with chances coming few-and-far-between, now the top sides' array of goal-scoring talent are running riot against each other. We are witnessing the kind of football that hasn't really been seen on these shores since the entertainers that were Keegan's Newcastle employed their 'attack, attack, attack' philosophy. Defending? 'We don't care if you score, because we'll score more than you.' 

Even in Man United's 3-1 win over Chelsea this season we could have ended up with a 6-6 scoreline. Yesterday's game at the Bridge could have produced any score. The thing is that, despite the big scores recently, sides are missing hat-fulls of chances, as highlighted by the Fernando Torres miss of the season, and the stat produced at the beginning of October showing that then league leaders Man United had conceded more chances than any other team in the top-flight. 

Speaking of stats, it looks as though this season is on course to break the last campaign's record number of Premier League goals. And it isn't just the big boys who are producing thrillers, see Norwich 3 Blackburn 3 on Saturday. The evidence conclusively suggests that attacking football is rife throughout the league.

But lets be honest, it is the fresh unpredictably of the top sides that has stuck a chord, and produced shock, and awe. Can you remember another time in Premier League history when we were talking about Man United conceding the most chances? Or a Chelsea side this side of the Abramovich era, shipping five goals at home? 

Chelsea conceded just 15 goals all season in Jose Mourinho's first year in charge, a total that they have already equalled this term. Yet after conceding five yesterday in a home defeat to a side who couldn't outscore the struggling Blackburn Rovers, Andre Villas-Boas came out and defended his teams attacking approach. 

“This philosophy is a personal value and a club value.” A personal value it may be Andre, but a club value? I'm not sure Roman Abramovich would agree, given his apparent preference for success over style, at least if his track-record for sacking managers is anything to go by. 

Also, what has happened to the so-called big four now? In the early weeks of this season fans had been deliberating over who might finish fourth, taking it as a given that the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea would make up the top three. Newcastle apparently wouldn't last, in fact Stoke were given a better chance, Liverpool and Spurs were the other contenders and Arsenal had to worry about a relegation battle.

Gathering fan's reactions to yesterday's events, Arsenal are back in the top-four argument, and along with Spurs and Liverpool could even get third, it's Chelsea who are on the slide. And Newcastle are still there. It's fluid this season, it has never been more open. 

The truth is that the Premier League is as open and unpredictable as it has ever been, and it's all down to this suddenly universal penchant for attacking football.

Is that because it has worked for Barcelona? Is it due to the greater influx of foreign stars, notably Manchester City's David Silva and Sergio Aguero? 

Who cares. It's brilliant. 

Before he got injured, Cole was starting to bang in the goals and was starting to re-capture the form he had when Gianfranco Zola was manager.

In Cole’s absence Carew and Baldock have performed well. But I still think Baldock is adapting to the Championship having played in League One with MK Dons. Carew is still getting his match fitness back but the signs are looking good from him.

Both Carew and Baldock will score goals for fun in this division once they are up to West Ham’s style of play.
I think that Cole should be the number one striker, with Baldock alongside him in a 4-4-2 formation, making it a perfect little and large combination. If West Ham play 4-5-1, there are many options, Cole could play up front on his own, with Baldock in the hole, or play Carew with Kevin Nolan off him.

There are many striker combinations the Hammers possess at the moment. Cole is still number one but if he fails, there are two perfectly capable strikers ready to fill the void.