EXPERIMENTATION TIME FOR PROFESSOR CAPELLO

The luxury of qualifying early for South Africa next summer gives Fabio Capello a chance to experiment and sift out some of the squad's aging deadwood. The next qualifier against Belarus will give younger players the opportunity to experience the competitive edge which a friendly can't provide.

With up and coming players like Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor of Aston Villa and Jack Wilshere and Kieron Gibbs of Arsenal, Capello can now experiment with different strike partnerships, which up until now have failed to shine.

Against Ukraine, players like Rio Ferdinand and Emile Heskey once again showed that they have perhaps been handed one too many opportunities to prove their worth. Now it is time to try something new. Heskey looked hopeless on the ball, hardly winning anything in the air, and running into trouble on the ground. Even against Croatia, he made a strong case against himself, missing two clear cut openings. The huge problem with Emile Heskey that many people have is his lack of goals. The last two games have only moved to strengthen that view.

Rio Ferdinand, this season, has almost looked like fish out of water. Early signs were there to be seen - agaisnt Manchester City - giving the ball away, and failing to prevent Craig Bellamy from scoring from a tight angle. In Dnipropetrovsk, Ferdinand once again showed that he was not at his best, he almost looked clueless as the ball came over the top. He looked like a Sunday league player caught short because he had stitch from the beer he drank the night before.

If Capello thinks we can win the World Cup with Rio in defence and Heskey up top, he is very much mistaken. Time for a change, only two small changes, but he needs to start the experimentation now...before it's too late.

Sport today

Firstly I would like to say sorry for not posting for six months, but I have been busy with my GCSEs and currently AS levels.

I suppose the main issue in sport at the moment is the Indian cricket racism row. It’s all very complicated, Harbhajan Singh has been accused of calling Andrew Symonds a "monkey" and now Singh has accused Brad Hogg of racial abuse. They have both been banned pending appeals. Quite frankly, Harbhajan Singh has been in trouble for this sort of thing before after an incident with Ricky Ponting, and if he did make another comment, the ICC should quite literally "throw the book at him". There is no room for this type of unsporting behaviour in any sport and anyone found guilty of it should be banned for life.
What followed this should bring the whole of the Indian cricketing game to shame. First, they accuse Umpire Steve Bucknor of giving a number of decisions to the Australians and demand that the ICC replace him. Then upon hearing that Singh had been banned, they decided to suspend their tour until the ICC withdrew the ban. This sort of action should be severely reprimanded, and is highly irresponsible of the Indian Cricket Association. What example does this set to up and coming athletes? If decisions don't go your way, use blackmail to get what you want? It's ridiculous. This could be an under-hand move to try to over-shadow the race row, and it if is, for me, it has worked. In all honesty, if the Indian Cricket Association is going to behave like this, then we don't need them in the game, and they should be banned from competing until they learn to accept punishments and to play by the rules.
Anyway, that’s the end of my cricket rant. On a lighter note, it is nice to see the English teams away from any negative press for a change. In tennis, Andy Murray has won his fourth ATP Tour title at the 2008 Qatar ExxonMobil Open, moving him up to 9th in the World rankings. It’s good to see a Brit finally doing well in, well anything really. No that’s not fair, I mean, Paula Radcliffe’s not bad is she?
Away from tennis, Fabio Capello has started his new job as England football team manager as of Monday. His first job is to travel to the Croatian capital of Zagreb to organise the fixtures for the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers on the 31st January. He has already been spotted on scouting missions at Aston Villa v Man United and Luton Town v Liverpool. It’s good to see he has taken by Sven Goran Eriksson’s example by attending matches and making public appearances regularly.
I hope to attend Charlton v Blackpool this weekend and I will hopefully have a report by the end of this Sunday.