Derek McGovern In The Mirror

[Boris Bear]

I hate this 'neat and tidy' shit, it's taken over and totally warped the argument. You define Colback as 'neat and tidy' and then use the fact that he's 'neat and tidy' to dismiss his ability. I don't think I've used that phrase once in his defence.

And I'm not saying that Hodgson is justified in giving him a call up, I actually said that Cattermole was one of several arguably more deserving, but just trying to put up a counter argument to this constant stream of rubbish that Colback is gonna be the worst player to ever put on an England shirt, or that he should be so far away from the squad that he's not even in contention. He is in contention, he's the sort of player that if he didn't play for Newcastle having just left us that we'd be using as a good example for our players that unfashionable players at unfashionable clubs do have a chance. Plus, with the injuries and retirements, added to the fact that it's a friendly so a bit of an experimental squad, means that he's hardly guaranteed anything more than a once over by Roy and then dropped as soon as everyone else is fit.

Just because he doesn't score a 30 yard screamer every week, or have the passing range of Zinedine Zidane he's dismissed as being terrible, which is the sort of logic that saw England teams of the past just try to cram all our best players into midfield and hope that somehow it work itself out.

The 'constant stream of rubbish' does not come from me. I've never held him in high esteem. For me he's the epitome of average and if he was in the Sunderland midfield of today I think we would be slightly worse off than we are.