The Simon Daily – Post 1

Hello, thank you for visiting especially as this is the first time I would be trying this out. I always think highly of folks like Arseblog, 7amkickoff and LeGroove (even though I don’t read him) who put out quality content on a daily basis.

So in my second week of a three-week vacation, I have set for myself a few targets before I get back to work.  Lose 5 kg, finish a project management course and write a blog on anything football. So this is my first shot.  Since I intend to post this daily, I’ll go with “The Simon Daily”.

The Call Up

So, Jesse Lingard got called up to join the senior national team yesterday by Mr. Roy Hodgson and I tweeted my instant reaction.

Jesse Lingard called up for England. The English keep wondering why they never progress.Make wearing the national colours worth something

— CanonCrested (@canoncrested) November 15, 2015

And many hours later, my opinion has not changed. Maybe the problem is with me still clinging to old school standards of what representing your country should be especially as the Three Lions are my national team of choice for European competitions. Growing up it was basically the Super Eagles and Spain, however, Arsenal and Euro 96 had a strong effect on my switching from Spain to England. It didn’t help that Spain were perennial underachievers at the time too.

The team at Euro ’96 consisted of players like David Seaman, Gary Neville, Stuart Pearce, Paul Ince, Tony Adams (captain), Gareth Southgate, David Platt, Paul Gascoigne, Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham, Darren Anderton, Jamie Redknapp, Sol Campbell, Steve McManaman, Les Ferdinand, Phil Neville and Robbie Fowler. That was a great set of players, and in the famous words of Graeme Souness, you could pay money to watch any of them play.

My grouse however, is not that current team does not have the same quality the squad above has, rather it’s with the ease with which players accumulate caps especially under Roy. There certainly are much more internationals and friendly’s to play in this era but if the primary focus is to win a major competition, shouldn’t Roy be working with a group of players he knows have the talent and stand a chance of actually making it to the Euros?

Being called up to represent your country should be something of immense pride, a reward for hard work and result not a right because you have played 5 games and scored 1 goal at a top 6 club. What is the pride in saying you have played for England when half the current Spurs team have done so.

Since Roy started coaching

• he has Fielded 66 different players, Jesse will be the 67^th.
• 21 of the 66 have 37 caps among them, and have played less than 5 times.
• Just above this band you have players like Luke Shaw (6 ), Fabian Delph (9), Andros Townsend (10), Rickie Lambert (11), Ross Barkley and Adam Lallana (18 caps), Raheem Sterling is 21 years and has (19 caps), Oxlade Chamberlain (24 caps).
• Aside, Sterling and Barkley none of the players above are guaranteed starters for their current teams.

When you contrast this with players like Hector Bellerin and Francis Coquelin who are definite starters for their clubs and are yet to receive a senior call up, it begs to wonder what value there is really to an English national team call up. To be fair to Roy, my national team’s coach, Sunday Oliseh called up Alex Iwobi to play for the Super Eagles.

In unrelated events, we all witnessed stuff of dreams and comedy at the same time. Messi would love to join Arsenal (dreams come true) but for $600,000 a week? (certainly a joke). Actually, I’m sure there would be people who would find a way to justify that kind of pay and they are very well entitled to their opinions.

At $600,000 a week, Messi would earn $28,800,000.00 a year, which is above what the premier league champions earned for winning the league last year.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3095501/Premier-League-table-Chelsea-pocket-24-7m-winning-title-did-team-receive-season-finishes.html

There goes my first post. Hope I can keep this up.  Cheers friends and thank you for visiting.