Aaron Ramsay no scapegoat insists Chris Coleman

by

Following the humiliating 6-1 defeat that Wales suffered at the hands of Serbia in September, Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsay was relieved of the captaincy and replaced by Ashley Williams but, according to Chris Coleman, the Welsh manager, he has not been made a scapegoat. The Welsh national team have lost all 4 games since Coleman took charge, and the former manager of Fulham said that if he didn’t start changing things he would be a coward.

Coleman met up with Ramsay on Thursday at the Arsenal training ground and said afterwards that the 21 year old, who became the youngest ever captain of Wales when he was appointed skipper by Gary Speed back in March 2011, had responded maturely to the news. Coleman even suggested that Ramsay was actually relieved that the pressure of leading a struggling national team had been taken off his young shoulders.

Coleman has admitted that it was a far from easy decision and that it was something he had been considering for a while, and he felt that with Ramsay being so young he had really felt the pressure. Coleman added that he thought the team needed to go in a different direction to get out of this slump as the current system clearly wasn’t working and of all the changes he decided to make, this was the biggest.

Coleman went on to say that he fully expects Ramsay to lead his county again in the future, and wanted to make it clear that by making the decision to ask him to step down as skipper he was in no way pointing the finger of blame at Ramsay for their current poor form. He said that Ramsay could in no way be blamed for the losses simply because he was captain, and in fact blamed himself for not changing things sooner.

Ashley Cole takes to Twitter to rant about the FA

by

Ashley Cole, the Chelsea and England defender, has taken to Twitter to vent his anger after doubts were cast over the viability of the statement he gave supporting John Terry over the alleged racial abuse aimed at Anton Ferdinand. In a charming turn of phrase, Cole called the FA a ‘bunch of t—s’ for implying that he could be lying.

His outburst was the response to a report being published that questioned the statement Cole made which supported Terry’s version of event during the hearing of the former captain of England which took place last week. Cole’s tirade took place the day after he had been named in the England squad for the crucial World Cup qualifying matches against San Marino at home, and away in Poland.

It rounds off what has been an exceptionally busy week for Roy Hodgson, the England manager, which included an apology to Rio Ferdinand, the Man Utd defender after discussing his international prospects with a complete stranger on the London Underground. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse up pops Cole and his rant, throwing his own participation in the qualifiers into serious doubt.

Terry was cleared back in July at Westminster Magistrates Court of a racially aggravated public order offence, which was partly due to the testimony given by Cole, his team mate at both club and country level. The FA commission has since, however, found discrepancies in the initial statement which Cole gave in an FA interview regarding what he heard Terry say to Ferdinand compared to statements he gave later.

Cole didn’t say the word ‘black’ in the initial interview on the 28th October, but on the 3rd November David Barnard, the Chelsea club secretary, asked for the word to be inserted into Cole’s statement, this suggesting that Cole may have heard Terry use the term after all.

 

Cole believes he and Rio Ferdinand can be mates again

by

Ashley Cole is ready to share a dressing room with England’s Rio Ferdinand after a statement saying that he believes that they can be pals again. Ferdinand and Cole fell out over Cole’s support of John Terry the Blues skipper.

However, Ferdinand may return for an international run with Cole when England attempts to take the World Cup qualifiers against Poland and San Marino.

Hodgson, the boss of England, has not spoken to Rio since he chose not to take him on the Euro 2012 squad, but now that Terry has decided to drop out of the world of international football he will have to do something.

Hodgson is not excited about the idea to take the Manchester United player back on his team, but Cole wants to make it clear that his strained relationship should not be a factor in the decision.

Cole was on the defence for Terry in a courtroom case against that charged Terry of racially abusing Rio’s brother. Terry was cleared of all of the charges but Ferdinand ended up with a FA fine after re-tweeting a racial comment against Cole.

Torres has a smile on his face after scoring his 4th goal of the season

by

Fernando Torres likely woke up in a good mood this week after scoring his fourth goal of the season while playing in the Chelsea and Wolves match. The final score of the match came out at 6-0, but it turns out that this may not have been enough for his club.

While he may be floating high, it appears that Chelsea is not yet sure about him as they are getting ready to place a very hefty £45m bid on Radamel Falcao. The news that the team is looking for another strong striker is likely not the news that Torres would have wanted.

Chelsea of course knows that Falcao would be a heck of a striker as the 26 year old really showed off his skills during the Super Cup final of last month. He was able to score a 4-1 victory over Madrid putting in a show worth paying top dollar for.

In addition, while playing in Atletico he was able to score a total of 36 goals in only 49 different appearances last season. After this grand season Chelsea has their eye on the Colombian with goals to transfer him over by the close of January.

The Terry case brings other issues to the fore

by

The FA’s role as a selector of the national side, and a governing body at the same time, has been relieved by the Terry case with the captain of Chelsea claiming that conflict made it impossible for him to be selected to play for England. Many would argue that the situation is actually reversed, but since it is hard to narrow down the Wembley separation of powers this is an issue that is causing a lot of problems for the FA.

Disciplinary measures have always caused discontent among players, and therefore it is not very surprising that the Premier League has always been happy to leave these types of matters up to the FA to handle. However, over the last few years since Lord Burns first brought the topic up since 2005, there have been calls for the FA to create an independent disciplinary chapter so that there are no claims of bias.

The FA has firmly resisted this idea and it is likely that it will resist again in the Terry case although Terry will likely believe that all of the charges against him are the result of a FA agenda. David Bernstein, the Chairman, has not yet made a public comment regarding the Terry case because he does not want it to appear that he is interfering with the disciplinary hearings.

Darren Bailey, the head of governance for the FA, ultimately is the person that decided to bring charges against Terry as he was not connected to the Club England set-up.