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THE ROCKLIFFE FILES - SOUTHGATE NEEDS TO DROP ANOTHER CAPTAIN 19-8-08
Toby Higgins
Oh, Gareth. You don’t half make it difficult for yourself sometimes.
Formalities first. The win against Spurs was, obviously, superb.
The nitty gritty will be covered by others but what a fantastic day it turned into.
An attendance of over 32,000 for the first game of the season is somewhat of a collectors' item. In fact, it's almost as rare as an opening day win.
The Riverside buzzed throughout – eighteen more of those and we’ll soon be Champions.
The mood is always brightened by the unveiling of a new signing prior to kick off. Justin Hoyte’s round of applause, which Mark Page seemed to let rumble on for about fifteen minutes, was a particularly good one because everyone knows that Arsenal don’t have bad players.
Indeed, it is encouraging to have two young, athletic and technically superb ex-Gunners who Arsene Wenger was reluctant to sell, in the starting eleven.
Whether this season started with Hoyte or the departed Luke Young at right full back, Southgate was going to have to make a big decision regarding his back four.
It all started last season. With Huth, Woodgate, Pogatetz and Bates all out injured, and with Young yet to sign, Boro started against Blackburn with a back four of Davies, Wheater, Riggott and Taylor.
It was easy enough to knock Davies and the injury and error prone Riggott out of that line-up.
However, Wheater coupled some good, no-nonsense performances with some key goals to make him almost undroppable. He also had the obvious bonus of being local and further injuries to Huth and Pogatetz also helped his cause.
More goals and more solidarity meant it was easy for Southgate to sell Woodgate in January and from then until the end of the season, one of either Huth, Pogatetz or Taylor was unavailable.
Towards the end of the season, with injuries in defence really piling up, Southgate recalled Riggott from his loan at Stoke. A goal against Pompey on his return and a handful of impressive displays earned Riggott the right to keep hold of his number five jersey this season and to be considered a contender for a starting berth.
Which he would have been, had he not succumbed to yet another injury. His absence made picking a back four a little easier, although in reality, it’s hard to imagine even a fully fit Riggott would have ousted any of the three ahead of him.
On Saturday, with the right back slot open for one game only, Southgate was able to squeeze his three centre halves into the backline, as Wheater shuffled along one to keep Hoyte’s seat warm.
But at Liverpool next week, there’ll be a surplus of bodies and someone has to be dropped.
The problem is that the person who should be dropped is the one person who probably shouldn’t be.
The captain’s armband has cursed all those who have worn it since Southgate’s move from kit to suit, with George Boateng and Julio Arca suffering dramatic dips in form once they became its wearer. Both were dropped, and had the armband revoked, before too long.
That shouldn’t happen. Captains should be undroppable because of their consistency – the one person who plays every week, who wears the armband because they’re consistently good.
This is why they’re often defenders, who struggle less with erratic form, than strikers, who tend to go through phases of goals and confidence.
The reason for Boateng and Arca’s loss of form could be totally coincidental with them becoming captain. After all, aside from a few off field responsibilities, the coin toss, and the new initiative involving speaking to the referee, the captain doesn’t do that much.
But captains are different to the rest of the players. They’ve been chosen as the one field leader and that puts them hierarchically higher than the other ten players. It makes dropping one extremely difficult as it shows a lack of trust and faith.
In purely football terms, Pogatetz is the one who should be moved aside.
He’s not comfortable or quick enough on the ball to play at left back. He is also more reckless and positionally unsure than Huth or Wheater. Although the three of them suffer with distribution, the Austrian is arguably the poorest at that, too.
The case gets stronger. Wheater is the local lad, one of our own. He’s also reliable and young. Southgate would be a fool to risk the fans wrath when he has done nothing to deserve the elbow.
Huth, meanwhile, is one of Southgate’s signings and a pricey one at £6million whereas Pogatetz was inherited from the previous management.
Despite early suggestions that Southgate wasn’t keen on Pogatetz when he first took control, ‘Mad Dog’ has managed to perform well enough to keep his place in the side.
If Southgate didn’t like him, he wouldn’t have made him skipper, although in doing so, he has made dropping him even more difficult.
The most likely outcome is that Taylor will make way and Pogatetz will move to left back. If that does happen, it’ll be a terrific shame.
Taylor was superb against Spurs and is a much better left back than Pogatetz will ever be. He’s seen off Queudrue and Arca in the battle for the left back slot and having given him the number three shirt for this season, Southgate is as big a fan of him as many fans are.
Pogatetz hasn’t done anything to deserve being dropped. He’s simply not as good as the other defenders. If Southgate has the conviction and confidence to drop him, I’ll be mightily impressed.
Don’t be surprised if Pogatetz or Taylor, are ‘injured’ next week at Anfield either. It’s a classic move that McClaren and Southgate have both used during recent years when a difficult selection decision has had to be made.
It’s a rather underhand way of dodging any backlash for making a tough decision and whilst it’s almost impossible to prove, it’s happened too often in the past, particularly with regard to goalkeepers, for it to be purely coincidence.
Southgate has a week to think it over. Until then, sit back and enjoy looking at a League table that shows us above Arsenal, Manchester United, both set of scousers, Sunderland and Newcastle.
Happy days.
Up the Boro.
BACK TO THE ROCKLIFFE FILES INDEX
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