one tournament doesnt make a bad captain.

i had two choices of topic today for my blog. england's win over wales in the euro 2012 qualifier or england's crushing, ten wickets defeat in the cricket world cup quarter finals. however, i decided not to particularly discuss either, as the real story being talked about this morning is whether andrew strauss should keep england ODI captaincy.
when we were buzzing from the ashes in early february, i cant imagine anybody was calling for strauss to give up the captaincy. in fact, i'm sure everyone thought he was some sort of god. him and andy flower had master-minded the team to a victory down under, something that no england team had achieved in 24 years. yes the ODI series after didn't go to plan. my interpretation of the 6-1 series defeat was that the players were mentally and physically drained. how can you motivate a group of players who are playing a series simply, in the words of graeme swann, 'playing fairly meaningless matches scheduled purely to put silver in the coffers of some cricket board'. i'm not saying the lads didn't try but the ashes had already been won. their main mission was complete.
regarding the debate over strauss, england coach andy flower said 'i don't think making snap judgements at the end of five months of solid cricket, is the right time to be doing it'.
and after all, when looking back at the world cup campaign, is there evidence to suggest that strauss was a weak link? absolutely not.
an eighty eight in the opening match against the netherlands and a memorable century against india are just two examples of the quality of strauss in one day cricket.
he leads by example on and off the pitch and at the age of 34, still has alot more to give as one day captain. i am struggling to believe the rumours that alastair cook replacing andrew strauss as ODI captain are one, true and secondly that it would benefit the team. cook, a man who hasn't played ODI cricket for england for a while, cannot be the solution to england's 'failing' in the fifty over format of the game. cook is a fantastic test batsman and will captain the test team to glory in a few years. now is not the time to promote him to ODI captain.

one of the best winter's in english cricket should be not overshadowed by an inconsistent world cup and media pressure on strauss.

nobody's perfect.

thirteen months ago, fabio Capello stripped john terry of the england captaincy stating that terry would never be england captain again as long as he was in charge. however, a year or so later and it seems as if fabio could be making a dramatic u-turn. last month's win second half in copenhagen signalled that a permanent england captain is desperately neccesary. the last half an hour of the game was spent passing the armband from player to player, yet argubably the player with the most captain-like qualities, was left to watch the game of 'pass the armband' from a distance without participating.
seeing as offical captain and vice captain (ferdinand and gerrard) seem to be out of the games against wales and ghana at the end of the month, many have argued that capello should reinstate terry for these games or maybe even in the long term.
a few people in the media have come out and said that terry deserved to have the captain's armband taken away from him and that he doesnt deserve to get it back. i disagree with both parts of that sentence.
john terry was said to be a bad captain because of events in his not-so-private life. yet the first thing capello did after sacking terry was to appoint ferdinand as captain, hardly a man known his quiet life, more like trouble follows him everywhere he goes. vice captain steven gerrard has been in court and wayne rooney is no role model off the field. england's most capped full back is never off the tabliod's front pages, most recently for shooting a work experience student with a rifle!
all fantastic players but nowhere near perfect off the pitch. john terry: a fantastic player but had his responsibilities as a captain taken away from him because of off the field actions. seems rather hypocritical doesn't it?
capello shouldn't be pressured by the media into making a decision as he is in charge and he should do what he thinks is best.but if he's looking for a captain who leads by example on the pitch and gives their all in every game for england, look no further than john terry. nobody's perfect.

what a difference thirteen days makes.

this time two weeks ago, we were in four competitions and looked like we had a fair chance in all of them. a defensive error against birmingham at wembley cost us the carling cup, a pathetic referee & an average performance led to us going out of the champions league with a whimper against the 'mighty' barcelona and an unlucky defeat at old trafford yesterday, led to yet another cup exit.

i can't make up my mind whether this will benefit our push for the title or if a lack of confidence could damage us more than i'd like to think.

next game, west brom away. it wasn't considered an easy game before the 'slump' but now, it looks like a real test. the squad is riddled with injuries to key players. johan djourou out for the rest of the season, with thomas vermaelen showing no signs of a comeback anytime soon, meaning the rest of our season relies on good, solid performances from laurent koscielny and sebastian squillaci.
'good' and 'solid' aren't really the words that come to mind when you first think of squillaci. maybe if he had more experience, i would suggest turning to ignasi miquel. a young, promising spanish central defender. but i fear this would be too much pressure on the eighteen year old.

we'll have to keep the faith with squillaci because we have faith in arsene wenger and i like to think that arsene wenger would know a good player from a shit player.

this premier league title is up for grabs and there's no reason why we can't win this. we've put in some really good performances this season and as long as we can deal with the pressure, we'll be absolutely fine.

c'mon arsenal!
we still believe.

i'm in a blogging mood.

probably cricket related. needs some inspiration?