Debates have been raging during the weekend over Fabio Capello’s latest England squad with fans of various clubs offering their two cents on who should and shouldn’t be taking part in the upcoming friendly games. A lot of the attention has been focused upon Manchester City defender Micah Richards with scores of supporters taking to twitter to voice their displeasure that the 23-year-old wasn’t selected for the squad with the inept Glen Johnson and exciting Kyle Walker chosen ahead of him. Whilst Richards has enjoyed a decent season he is playing in a team with a midfield and attack that sorts out a majority of problems before they reach the defence making his job far easier than people realise. In my opinion fans of the national team should focus their attention on Newcastle United centre half Steven Taylor after Capello overlooked him in favour of England skipper and chief controversy courter.
Lets start with the fact that Chelsea‘s ‘rock’ is currently embroiled in a racism scandal after he allegedly abused QPR defender Anton Ferdinand in a recent game – a matter that is currently being investigated by the police. Surely that is enough for the FA to suspend him from the national team? Dissension has plagued Terry’s career and whilst I could moan on about the example he is setting to today’s youth and that the hypocrisy surrounding his position as England captain is a farce, I’m not going to go down that route and use them as justification for the argument in Taylor’s favour. It would be disrespectful towards the Geordie defender to do that and paint over the fact his performances have been of the highest quality this season.
Both players have been ever presents in the Premier League for their respective clubs so far this season with Terry statistically the poorer of the two. In his 11 games for Chelsea the 30-year old has been the leader in a defence which has conceded 15 goals and kept two clean sheets. Taylor on the other hand has formed a solid centre back pairing with captain Fabricio Coloccini and has played a major role in the Newcastle’s storming start to the campaign which has seen them conceded only eight goals and keep four clean sheets making them the meanest back line in the league.
Moving even further then just quoting statistics it’s evident that Terry’s performances have been on the decline for a while now. His failure to gel with Alex, David Luiz and Branislav Ivanovic in the Chelsea rearguard is worrying and his presence as the ultimate dominator is rapidly dwindling. Surely that inability to form a cohesive partnership should worry Capello as he plans to introduce fresh faces to the England side? He isn’t the force that used to thunder into tackles, win every aerial duel and generally be that beacon of inspiration that drove Chelsea to success a couple of years ago.
Couldn’t agree more. If players are picked on form then why is he not in the squad at least?!! Although Taylor deserves to be in he squad, as a Newcastle fan I’m also quite happy that he’s not part of the circus that is the England squad.
John Terry is completely past it, but Stephen Taylor is the classic example of an English defender. Flies into tackles gets his head on the ball has a great attitude, but isn’t very good. Hopeless on the ball, makes mistakes as much chance of making it as an international as me.
Terry has by his actions shown himself to be the unpleasant person that he is.Lack of sportsmanship is his trademark and he should not represent England.