Left field

Could Pardew take Champions League spot and England job from Redknapp?

By Phil O’Connor

Unheralded and unpopular when he took over at Newcastle United, Alan Pardew has led them into the upper reaches of the English Premier League, and within touching distance of a Champions League place.

The question is whether he can beat Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Redknapp to fourth spot and the last Premier League place in football’s top club competition – and make himself a contender for the England manager’s job at the same time.

Pardew replaced Chris Hughton at the helm of Newcastle in December 2010. It wasn’t an easy task; Hughton, popular with players and fans alike, had brought the Geordies back to the Premier League on a shoestring following the ignominy of relegation.

Selling striker Andy Carroll didn’t help his cause, but this season has seen Pardew’s side climb almost unnoticed and return to the heights they enjoyed under Bobby Robson.

Between his team and a place in the Champions League is a Tottenham side managed by Redknapp, who was installed as favourite to succeed Fabio Capello as England manager from almost the moment the Italian resigned.

Since then, Tottenham’s form has suffered and the clamour for Redknapp has receded somewhat, but there is still a strong preference for an English manager from fans and the FA alike.

Ireland seek scrum coach with ‘complete and thorough understanding of rugby’

By Padraic Halpin

Ireland’s rugby board advertised for the newly established role of high performance scrum coach on Tuesday, just days after the national team’s scrummaging skills were shambolically exposed in a 30-9 Six Nations defeat by England.

The job, posted on the Leinster and Munster provincial websites, called on applicants with “a complete and thorough understanding of rugby union” to plan, research and constantly evaluate current scrummaging practice.

Ireland lost scrum after scrum on Saturday and watching television pundits in Dublin even expressed their concern for the safety of replacement tighthead prop Tom Court after the Ulsterman was put under relentless pressure.

The successful candidate will be chiefly responsible for implementing a new scrum programme at the country’s academies that, despite producing the likes of flyhalf Jonathan Sexton and flanker Sean O’Brien, have had only one major frontrow graduate in the shape of looshead Cian Healy.

What can England achieve at Euro 2012?

Whoever takes over from Fabio Capello either as a caretaker manager or a long-term replacement faces the dauting task of living up to somewhat unrealistic hopes that England will land their first major trophy since the 1966 World Cup.

Let’s face it, the Three Lions have entered every tournament since, bar Euro 1996 on home soil, as one of the dark horses to bring the silverware back home but never as the top contenders among a plethora of more talented if not more resourceful nations taking centre stage either in European Championships or World Cups.

The Capello experiment failed for two reasons. One, as my colleague Mitch Phillips pointed out, was his inability to warm up to the English mindset and language. The other, in my humble opinion as an outsider, is that for all his impressive achievements with Real Madrid, Milan, Juventus and Roma, the 66-year old had never coached a national team during his illustrious career and lacked a certain verve.

There is precious little margin for error in international football and even more so for those who take the unforgiving job of coaching England. Many of Capello’s predecessors found the ever so thin line between success and failure too tough to navigate, amid cries from glory-hunting fans to bring the trophy “back home” to the birthplace of the game.

From the vast lands of eastern Europe, a region as alien to the English mentality as Capello’s largely incomprehensible attempts to address the players in an adopted language, an England triumph looks as unlikely as did in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, especially with Wayne Rooney out of their opening two games with suspension and John Terry’s involvement hanging in the balance all together after he was stripped of captaincy.

Then again, will one-game caretaker Stuart Pearce, whose penalty miss in the shootout against Germany in their epic 1990 World Cup semi-final denied England a chance of rekindling past glory, be given the opportunity for what would be a spectacular reprieve?

Is he the right man for the job on a long-term basis or should the FA roll out  the red carpet for favourite Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager,  at the end of the season?

Mumbling Capello never at home in England

By Mitch Phillips

Fabio Capello arrived in London four years ago with a sparkling CV but for all his club success he departed still barely able to speak English and with his adopted country frought with division and long shots for success at Euro 2012.

It is ironic that his tenure was effectively ended by an interview given in his native Italian, when he said he disagreed completely with the FA’s decision to strip John Terry of the England captaincy.

Capello, rich beyond dreams, with trophies and titles galore and looking forward to retirement as he turns 66 this year, felt undermined and betrayed. The FA seemingly felt the same way and England fans, unanimously if the phone-ins and social media are any indication, were left pleading for an English manager who they, and the players, can understand.

In these days of multinational Premier League players and managers it seems a petty point, and one that would no doubt have been conveniently overlooked if he had found success at the 2010 World Cup.

But Capello’s inability to master even the most basic vocabulary required for a manager’s post-match press conference eventually came to symbolise his failure to get to grips with the English game and mentality.

Vastly experienced in the political machinations of Serie A and La Liga, he nevertheless seemed out on a limb when forced to deal with the vast baggage that comes with the job of England manager and was regularly left completely bemused by questions from journalists with a multitude of agendas.

Should Terry go to Euro 2012 at all?

So now we know. John Terry has been stripped of the England captaincy (again) but is available for selection for Euro 2012, which ends days before the start of his trial for alleged racist abuse.

Of course, Terry is innocent until found guilty and most fans would agree he should not be dropped from the team because of a so far unproven allegation, which he denies.

Related issues must come into coach Fabio Capello’s thinking though when selecting his Euro squad.

Firstly, will worries over the court case affect Terry’s form? Let’s face it, the centre back is not the player he once was. The likes of Joleon Lescott, Phil Jagielka and Chelsea team mate Gary Cahill are champing at the bit to take his place assuming Rio Ferdinand will recover full fitness and be the other main centre back. Which leads me onto the second point.

How will Rio react to playing with Terry, a man accused of racially abusing his brother Anton?

How will other black players in the England squad react to Terry and could it upset the team’s hopes in Ukraine and Poland? Stripping him of the captaincy alleviates some of the issues but bigger ones may remain.

Capello has a massive decision to make.

England to play Panesar? Another batter more like

The fallout from England’s crushing first-test defeat by Pakistan has led many pundits to call for Monty Panesar to play as a second spinner in next week’s second test, despite the fact it was the batsmen and not the bowlers who failed to turn up for the world’s top-ranked test side.

Number 11 Panesar may have performed heroics with the bat in Cardiff to save the first Ashes test in 2009 but the Pakistan bowlers will hardly be quaking in their boots. Including Panesar would seemingly mean dropping seamer Chris Tremlett, who did not get a wicket in Dubai but still bowled decently. England getting Pakistan down to 289-8 having only scored 192 first up themselves was a good effort from the England attack.

There has been talk of Ravi Bopara coming in instead to bolster the batting and bowling but the all-rounder has always struggled to impose himself on tests when the pressure is on. Being one down in a three-test series in unfamiliar surroundings really is pressure. Yes the injured Tim Bresnan brought runs down the order but so do Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann. Dropping Tremlett for Bopara would be a risky move.

While rising to number one in the world, England have recovered from sudden setbacks well, such as the defeat in Perth on their way to winning the Ashes in Australia at the turn of 2010/11.

Coach Andy Flower said the side were “undercooked” for the Pakistan test series having not played the longer form of the game since the final India test in August. So much for there being too much cricket….

All the pointers from how Flower has run this England side suggests they will go in to the Abu Dhabi test with exactly the same 11.

The batters were bamboozled by Saeed Ajmal in Dubai, not the pitch. It was not doing too much and they don’t expect Abu Dhabi to either. So why bring in Panesar?

from Photographers Blog:

NFL touchdown in London

By Suzanne Plunkett

British sports fans are a serious bunch. When it comes to football (they never call it soccer), many would rather lose their home than miss their team score a winning goal. Club allegiance is often demonstrated with tribal passion - influencing tattoos, clothing and even choice of marital partners.

When American football makes a rare appearance in London, it's somewhat of a surprise to see the seriousness of the sport replaced with a more frivolous obsession: cheerleaders.

That's not to say British fans have no interest in the sport. When the Chicago Bears took on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a showcase game at Wembley Stadium in October, I spoke to plenty of Brits among the American expats paying homage to their national sport. Many professed as much fanaticism as the American supporters who had traveled from the States specifically to see their team.

But as a photographer who had covered both kinds of football matches on either side of the Atlantic and grown to love both sports, it's hard to ignore a few major differences in the fan experience.

Wanderers test will not match Newlands. But for better or worse?

Last week’s crazy Cape Town test match between South Africa and Australia, where 23 wickets fell in a day and the visitors narrowly avoided the lowest ever test score, will go down in cricket’s esteemed annals.

They meet again at the Wanderers from Thursday. But would test cricket fans want to see a repeat?

The Newlands match was over in three days and despite all the drama, purists were left wondering whether the flurry of wickets was due to bad batting and a lack of application in the test arena rather than wonderful bowling in conducive conditions.

Australia captain Michael Clarke described his team’s batting as “disgraceful and unacceptable” after they were bowled out for 47.

Players preferring the big-money and rapid nature of limited overs cricket to the concentration-heavy longer format has worried test fanatics for several years, and the five-day game is definitely suffering.

The fact powerhouses South Africa and Australia are only playing two tests in this series adds weight to the argument, as did India’s lack of preparation ahead of touring Engliand earlier this year as the hosts won 4-0 to overtake the Indians as the world’s best test side.

England, who have struggled in 50-over cricket for years, appear to value tests more than some other sides these days as the jailing of three Pakistan players for deliberately bowling no balls for money in a test in England last year shows.

Strauss’s side still not England’s best

By John Mehaffey

According to International Cricket Council statistician David Kendix’s calculations, three England sides before Andrew Strauss’s present team would have topped the test world rankings too if the current format had existed.

In reverse chronological order, they are Mike Brearley’s side of 1979-80, Ray Illingworth’s 1970-3 team and the 1955-9 squad led first by Len Hutton then Peter May.

Brearley’s side had the young Ian Botham in his athletic prime when he scythed through opposition sides with quick late swing.

The opposition, though, did not that at stage include the best Australian and West Indies sides who had contracted to play for Kerry Packer’s World Series. England’s 5-1 Ashes win in Australia in 1978-9 was against a virtual second XI.

A similar reservation applies to Illingworth’s men. The 1970-1 Ashes win in Australia was a triumph for a tough professional bunch captained shrewdly and including Geoff Boycott and John Snow at the peak of their powers. But the Australians had just been thumped 4-0 by an undeniably great South African side who were then sent into 22 years of apartheid enforced isolation.

That leaves the 1955-9 England side, who retained the Ashes both away and at home.

How long can England dominate test cricket?

England have destroyed India to go 3-0 up in their test series and officially become the world’s best test nation having also humbled Australia Down Under just a few months ago.

It’s a new position for England to find themselves in after batting collapse after batting collapse undermined their sides in the 1980/90s and sporadically in recent years.

The great Australian teams of the last two decades managed to keep at the very top for years and their dominance only fell apart because of a lack of talent waiting in the wings once their big guns retired.

England have the advantage that only captain Andrew Strauss (34)  is anywhere near retirement and given he has given up on one-dayers, he can carry on his excellent captaincy for some time yet. Spinner Graeme Swann is 32 but his second wind as an international cricketer came late so he is unlikely to bow out soon.

They have a vast array of seam bowlers with Steven Finn and Chris Tremlett not even playing at Edgbaston and others knocking on the door.

Their batting perhaps does not have the same depth with Ravi Bopara failing again with Jonathan Trott injured but if Alistair Cook can continue scoring double tons for fun, it doesn’t much matter. In any case there are some decent youngsters coming through.

Hunger should not be a problem either given England have craved this sort of stature for so many years.