EPL News: Ferguson defends Capello as Shearer unhappy with the English national team manager
Manchester United’s long standing manager, Sir Alex Ferguson has come out and defended Fabio Capello after there have been calls for his dismissal following England’s loss to France in their latest friendly match which took place the Wembley
stadium.
Ferguson who almost quit United in 2002 said, "I think the criticism of Capello is over the top. If Fabio had played all his strong hitters he would probably have got a better result. But John Terry and Ashley Cole had withdrawn, while
Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney weren't fit, so he had a lot of players missing."
Liverpool’s Captain Steven Gerrard, who was injured during the match against France for England was a main bone of contention between the Football Association and Liverpool. However, F.A have now agreed to pay Liverpool 500,000 Pounds
in compensation for their injured talismanic midfielder.
Manchester United’s defender Rio Ferdinand who sustained a groin injury after playing a full 90 minutes for the Red Devils on Saturday against Wigan. Rio also played for England against France in mid-week but Manchester United’s manager
confirmed that he had no agreement about whether Ferdinand will play the full 90 minutes for England against France.
Ferguson said, "Rio has a groin injury now and we won't be taking him up to Glasgow to face Rangers in the Champions League on Wednesday, I wouldn't think. But I had no arrangement with England about how long my players would play. I am
not surprised other clubs might have spoken about that as it has happened in the past. I've done it with Sven-Goran Eriksson and Terry Venables when they were in charge. I spoke to them and outlined the situation with certain players, particularly when you
get to March and have European ties coming up.”
Sir Alex added, "The present day national boss needs that flexibility to help clubs, because we need to help each other. I've no complaints about what happened to Rio because you accept injuries are part of the game. I don't know the situation
with Liverpool and how long was agreed that he would play, but you can't be precise in these games. Don't forget, England were losing and now they are getting hammered in the media for a friendly defeat.”
Ferguson who has always been quite critical of the F.A and how English football is run went onto say, "People are getting paranoid about friendly matches when Capello has quite a few young players in there - Gibbs, Henderson, Carroll and
Ben Foster, playing his first game for a long time. It's over the top."
In other news, Alan Shearer, ex-Newcastle United striker who also played international football for the English national team has come out and doubted Fabio Capello’s capabilities as the English national team manager. Shearer said in his
latest comments, "Fabio has been here two and a half years now and I'm not sure we've gone forward in that time. If every England player was fit I'm not sure he would actually know what system he wanted to play or what team he wanted to play.”
The Newcastle legend said, "If you look at before we went into the World Cup our qualifying campaign was a huge success but it seems that we have gone slightly backwards from that. I'm not sure what system we'd play or what XI we would
play if everyone was fit. I don't know if the manager would either."
A lot of people have pointed toward the fact that England’s youthful players are lacking sufficient technique to play at the highest level of international football. Shearer added to this point as he stated, "The problem lies with the
kids coming through. How are they taught? What are they taught? That is where you have to start from and it will take a long time. Unfortunately in this country we don't have patience. We always put so much pressure on our players that we go into every tournament
wanting and expecting to win the tournament. Is that fair? I'm not sure it is."
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