As Manchester City continue to demolish everything in sight, their foreign stars are garnering more and more attention. However Fabio Capello`s attention will fixed primarily on city’s English contingent rather than the Silva’s, Aguero`s, and Balotelli`s. One member in particular should be grabbing his attention.
Micah Richards barnstorming performance against United resulted in him being awarded the man of the match by skysports; although most of us would have given the award to Silva, few would begrudge Richards his bottle of champagne. After being caught cold a couple of times by Young in the first few minutes, Richards recovered his composure to deliver a rampaging performance that rendered Young anonymous and Evra mortified. It was a complete full back performance, one that would have made Dani Alves proud.
Richards has started the season in effervescent form and his current status as the finest English full back is beyond reproach, however he remains some way down the ladder as England’s preferred right back. It is this anomaly that Capello needs to address.
From the moment the Italian touched down on English soil, he has espoused the following criteria when being considered for national duty; to be selected for England duty you must be 1) playing regularly for your club 2) and be playing to a sufficiently high standard. When we first heard this we gushed with admiration and optimism, here was a manager who would treat the national team like a meritocracy and instill discipline. Capello`s attitude was the perfect antidote to the fawning, sycophantic Mclaren.
Capello`s selection policy served him well until last years disastrous World Cup campaign, after which he was forced to take stock and reassess his ideals. In truth Capello was never wholly committed to the meritocracy plan, otherwise Joey Barton would be an England regular by now. Leaving Barton out is understandable given the scousers proclivity to rub his fellow professionals up the wrong way, after all Capello does not have time to pick Barton and then go about the process of making sure the dressing room is tranquil. Moreover despite Barton’s considerable gifts he is not vital to England’s success, however Capello will have much greater difficulty justifying Richards omission.
It’s a problem Capello has not had to worry about for most of his England tenure due to Richards erratic form. It’s only in the last few months that Richards has begun to deliver the consistently high performances that we all thought were guaranteed when he first exploded onto scene in 2006. Back then he was a defender with seemingly unlimited potential: fast, powerful, aerially dominant, versatile, and technically proficient. The first couple of years of his career were smooth on the road to stardom. His MOTM performance in the 2007 led Alan Hansen to exclaim it was one the best defensive performances he has seen in years.