| De Jong escapes FA tackle punishment • FA unable to act after referee admits he saw the incident• Manchester City midfielder dropped by Holland for qualifiersThe Football Association will take no action against Nigel de Jong over the tackle that left the Newcastle United winger Hatem Ben Arfa with a broken leg.Ben Arfa was stretchered off following a robust challenge by De Jong in the third minute of yesterday's match at Eastlands, which Manchester City won 2-1. The 23-year-old Frenchman suffered a broken tibia and fibula of his left leg and underwent successful surgery this morning.Because the referee Martin Atkinson admitted he saw the incident at the time and decided not to punish De Jong, the FA cannot pursue the matter. However, the midfielder was today dropped from the Holland squad for their upcoming Euro 2012 qualifiers against Moldova and Sweden.The Holland coach, Bert van Marwijk, said he saw "no alternative" but to remove De Jong, adding: "I've seen the pictures back. It was a wild and unnecessary offence. He went in much too hard. It is unfortunate, especially since he does not need to do it."The funny thing is that the referee did not even show a yellow card for it. Apparently, there are other standards. But I have a problem with the way Nigel needlessly looks to push the limit. I am going to speak to him."It is not the first time De Jong has come under the microscope for his aggressive play, having caused the Bolton Wanderers and United States midfielder Stuart Holden a fractured right fibula on international duty in March. Then in the World Cup final in July, he was fortunate to escape with a yellow card following a chest-high challenge on Spain's Xabi Alonso.Manchester CityHollandNewcastle UnitedKaty Murrellsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Andy Carroll's England bid for European Championship qualifer lifted by Newcastle cameo Andy Carroll's hopes of earning a first call-up to the England squad have been boosted after he recovered from illness. telegraph.co.uk |
Rooney winning the struggle for now Keane was run out of town, Van Nistelrooy too disruptive and Beckham upgraded but Rooney appears to be dictating eventsSir Alex Ferguson always argues that control is achievable only through success. Winning trophies bestows power. So now we see a struggle between 11 Premier League titles and two European Cups and a morose 24-year-old who is at present unable to control the ball when it reaches him in a home game against West Bromwich Albion.Statistics demonstrate that neither Manchester United nor England would be much worse off had Wayne Rooney stayed at home. A player who used to excoriate team-mates for lack of industry (shades of Roy Keane) is now a passenger himself. By any objective definition Rooney has detached himself from the great collective effort that distinguishes Ferguson's teams.So far attention has been locked on his poor form and questionable fitness. With the news from his camp that Rooney is not seeking to renew his United contract when it expires in the summer of 2012 the gaze shifts to questions of attitude. Supporters halt the pub debate about "what's eating Wazza" and observe an unpalatable truth. Rooney, we discover, would rather be somewhere else.This is the point where the most gifted English footballer since Paul Scholes or Paul Gascoigne steps into the light to be judged. No longer can he hide behind turmoil at home, knocks and strains that date back to his injury at Bayern Munich in March or Ferguson's supposed hard line on drinking, smoking and urinating in the street. Victim-status is denied to a footballer who lopes around the pitch and elects not to stay and fight for his place, pursuing instead a huge-money move to Spain or even Manchester City.This unilateral declaration of war hands the moral advantage to Ferguson. For the decision to be announced in this way is a violation of protocol. Ferguson can say he has protected Rooney through many scrapes and scraps only to have his star player go awol on him just as United have started the season slowly and desperately need his goals. After eight games they are already five points behind Chelsea.A boisterous, barnstorming Rooney who returned from the World Cup reinvigorated would be a grievous loss to last season's Premier League runners-up. But the listless figure who muttered "I don't know" in the Wembley mixed zone when asked why Ferguson had said he was carrying an ankle injury starts to look more like an agent provocateur of the sort the United manager has purged many times down the years.There remains time, of course, for these two combustible characters to lock antlers, purge resentments and unite once more after an hour or two in a locked room. But the odds are against it. Their relationship is speeding to a sad end. When Rooney signed from Everton for £27m in September 2004, Ferguson identified him as the kind of rough-hewn starlet on whom he might exert paternal influence. The theory was that Rooney, a passionate Evertonian, was really a classic Manchester United player. He just didn't know it yet.Ferguson is always on the look-out for players who will carry his own spiritual torch. The young United footballer must embrace the team's socialist ethic and obey the manager. Rooney went along with this for as long as it suited him but reverted to outsider status when his relationship with Ferguson fractured and the scent of a bigger salary wafted past his nose.The weekend's escalation will be written up as football's Last Conflict. Some will even frame it as the greatest power struggle of Ferguson's career. Keane was crunching to a halt and had become poisonously dismissive of some of his colleagues when Ferguson ran him out of town. Ruud van Nistelrooy too had become disruptive. David Beckham was replaced in the No7 shirt by Cristiano Ronaldo: an upgrade. Rooney is only 24 and was bought to be a United player for life. He is the one dictating events.For Ferguson the timing could be no worse. United have surrendered two-goal leads against Everton and West Brom. A run of mediocre results is bound to re-ignite fan hostility to the Glazer family, with their mountain of leveraged debt.Ferguson and David Gill, the United chief executive, will know Rooney's flounce is bound to be confused in some minds with the Glazer problem. They have spent more than a year reassuring supporters that a lack of "value" in the market has kept most of the £80m from Ronaldo's sale to Real Madrid on ice. Now this.If Rooney leaves there will be a hue and cry to spend the £50m they would expect to receive for him straight away on a proven world-class striker. In retrospect the renewed faith invested by Ferguson in Dimitar Berbatov from the start of the season points to longstanding uncertainty about Rooney's intentions. His professional indiscipline off the pitch alerted the whole of football to the likelihood that he will be a busted flush by 30: hence his own urge to chase the dollar now, while he still can.The ruinous modern cult of celebrity works in Rooney's favour because there will be United supporters who persuade themselves there can be no life without him and that his loss would lead straight to perdition. On the other hand there is a competing desire to see the authority of the manager defended at all costs. Ferguson and Arsène Wenger are its two custodians. The mantra that a great football club is always bigger than any individual was asserted by Wenger in the cases of Nicolas Anelka, Patrick Vieira, Mathieu Flamini and most obviously Thierry Henry.In an interview with the Observer this year Ferguson said of Rooney: "He's a one-off in terms of the modern type of fragile player we're getting today, cocooned by their agents, mothers and fathers, psychologists, welfare officers. Rooney's a cut to the old days." He might not say this now. He also said: "What we're seeing now is a terror of a player." Terror still sounds right.Wayne RooneySir Alex FergusonManchester UnitedPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Wayne Rooney should look after himself over Manchester United, says Roy Keane Roy Keane has told Wayne Rooney to look after himself as response grows over Manchester United striker's future. telegraph.co.uk |
Jets bid to lure Beckham Newcastle Jets are ambitiously bidding to lure football megastar David Beckham for an exhibition game with his club LA Galaxy. foxsports.com.au |