IAN LADYMAN: James should start World Cup but don't leave Trent behind
IAN LADYMAN: Reece James should start at the World Cup but don’t leave Trent Alexander Arnold behind, Erik ten Hag has shown shades of Sir Alex Ferguson and Leicester are entitled to squeeze Chelsea over Wesley Fofana
- Trent Alexander Arnold should be behind Reece James in World Cup reckoning
- The Liverpool right-back should not be left behind by manager Gareth Southgate
- Man United boss Erik ten Hag does not have the trophies to disrespect reporters
- Leicester are right to push for £75m after Chelsea’s splurge on Marc Cucurella
Early in Liverpool’s thrashing of Bournemouth, Trent Alexander-Arnold began a move in his own half and powered forwards, twice looking for passes that didn’t come.
He ended up in the opposition penalty area without the ball. Later on, he scored a wonderful goal. Then he provided a wicked cross that led to another.
At Old Trafford, Manchester, last week, things had been harder. With Liverpool in retreat, their right back made some poor decisions. He looked uncomfortable and conceded fouls.
Reece James (second from left) should be a starter for England at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s performances at right-back for Liverpool mean he must be involved
This is what we know about Alexander-Arnold and this is what makes him so hard to pigeon-hole.
What I also think I know, however, is that Chelsea’s Reece James is a better nuts and bolts full back and should therefore be picked ahead of him in Gareth Southgate’s World Cup team. Success in big tournaments is built from the back.
If England are to do well in Qatar it will be on the back of defensive soundness.or me, James should be in the team but under no circumstances should Alexander-Arnold be left at home. He is too talented and too versatile not to be there. As a substitute he has the skills to turn a game.
Ten Hag should show more respect to reporters
Erik ten Hag has had a good week but by failing to take a question from a Sky reporter he has history with at his Friday press conference he was in danger of sliding into Sir Alex Ferguson territory.
Ferguson used to get away with all that because he had a sideboard creaking with trophies. Ten Hag, so far, has two wins from four in the Premier League. It seems early.
Leicester have held out for a £75million fee from Chelsea for Wesley Fofana and no wonder. When Brighton were haggling over the sale of Marc Cucurella to the London club, they squeezed an extra £10m out of them in the space of 24 hours. They are still smiling about that.
Alex Neil has been confirmed as the successor to Michael O’Neill at Championship club Stoke
O’Neill did well to steady Stoke ship
Chasing the Premier League dream is expensive for those in the Championship and when it doesn’t work it can set a club back years. This is what has happened at Stoke City, where the man whose job it was to fix the leaks in the roof has just been sacked.
Michael O’Neill is best known for taking Northern Ireland to the European Championship in France in 2016. He joined Stoke in November 2019 with the club bottom of England’s second tier.
The squad he inherited in the Potteries were overpaid and underachieving. There were players at Stoke signed by each of four preceding managers — Nathan Jones, Gary Rowett, Paul Lambert and Mark Hughes. Some of them were earning more than £40,000 a week. The financial complexities of a club who had sought a return to the top division ever since their relegation in 2018 were sobering.
Stoke had opted to attempt to navigate a way back to the big time by being ambitious and it had backfired. In that, they are not alone. The Championship has not been described as football’s Wild West for nothing. There is not a league in Europe that is so competitive. Nor one characterised by such naked desperation.
O’Neill, 53, walked straight into this with his eyes wide open and left last week carrying that feeling of sadness known to all managers who lose their job. Also, he knows what he did for the club. He did not take them back to the Premier League like he wanted, but he rebuilt the house for somebody else to move into and that, as mundane as it sounds, was the really important bit.
On O’Neill’s watch, Stoke’s wage bill came down by almost 50 per cent. After saving them from relegation in his first season — they finished 15th — he then guided them through the pandemic.
Some players who come to the club now can expect to be paid in the region of £10,000 a week or less. Others are paid more but those are wages now appropriate to Stoke’s circumstances.
Stoke flew high once, of course. They were in the Premier League for 10 years. Hughes was responsible for much of that as was Tony Pulis before him. There was a time not long ago when players such as Peter Crouch, Michael Owen and Marko Arnautovic wore the famous red and white.
But this was not the Stoke City that greeted O’Neill. No, this version was a club who needed work on their medical, sports science and loans department, a club who needed fixing away from the field before anything significant could be done on it.
Stoke are a club run by good and reliable people. The Coates family are a Staffordshire success story. Their bet365 company is an enormous force for good in the area, in terms of job creation and reputation. Back in 2006, the family bought and saved their hometown football club when it was debt-ridden and in a mess. Five years later Stoke appeared in an FA Cup final.
Indeed had Stoke found a way back in the first couple of years after relegation, there would have been no need for O’Neill and the steady rebuild that will be his legacy. But they didn’t, so there was. When he took his squad away for pre-season to Ireland earlier this summer, they flew with easyJet.
Alex Neil is Stoke’s new manager. His squad are young and hungry and he has experience of promotion.
It seems a sound appointment and a reminder that football remains a results business. Stoke had won just once under O’Neill this season.
But in the Championship there are often other forces at play, other things that can, for a time, matter more. Look behind the curtain and it is surprising what you sometimes see.
Share this article
Source: Read Full Article