Click 'play' to listen to the interview.



Plain Soccer recently had the opportunity to speak with Tottenham great and former England international Gary Mabbutt, MBE.

Gary Mabbutt is Tottenham's longest serving captain and ranks second all-time in appearances for Spurs. He won the Uefa Cup in 1984, captained his team to FA Cup glory in 1991 and earned 16 caps for England. He is a Tottenham legend and holds the deepest admiration and respect from everyone associated with the English game.

Gary spoke with me about attending the PFA Player of the Year Awards ceremony in London as well as voting procedure for the player awards, changes in the evolution of the game over the past ten years, his marvelous career, his expectations for Spurs and his current role as a 2010 World Cup Ambassador.

I spoke with Gary the morning after the PFA Awards dinner, which he attended. This year's awards has received much controversy because of the the Player of the Year award being given to Ryan Giggs, a player who has only started 12 games so far this season, but Gary is happy for the Welshman. "I am absolutely delighted for Giggsy." Giggs has performed at the top level of the English and world game for eighteen years and this award showcases the respect he garners from his fellow professionals.

Mabbutt remains an ardent Spurs supporter. He is confident in the ability of Harry Redknapp and has high expectations for the club under the tutelage of the former Portsmouth manager. "The best thing with Harry is his communication skills are excellent; his man management skills are very good." The success he has achieved comparative to Juande Ramos is what was expected from Spurs' bosses when hiring the Londoner, and Redknapp will be called on to move the team even higher up the table in 2009/10.

One reason why the Spurs boss has moved the team forward so far is that he has built a strong defensive foundation at the club. The fulfillment of this task is essential for all teams that want to succeed. Spurs' recent signing of the tough tackling Wilson Palacios, which Gary refers to as a "master stroke," indicates Spurs' progress, as does their record, before the last game, of only having conceded 5 goals in 10 domestic games while the club climbed the table.

How high up the table does Gary expect Spurs to finish next season? "I would envisage [Spurs] pushing all the way, like Villa have done to Arsenal this season, for a top 4 place." Spurs fans: get excited.

Today Gary serves as an ambassador to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He is passionate about South Africa and eagerly anticipates what he expects will be a great event. "[The 2010 World Cup] will be the biggest football carnival the world has ever seen." Moreover, Gary recognizes the importance of the World Cup in providing an opportunity for South Africa to move forward. "This is an opportunity for football to help a country move forward."

You can listen to the interview above. Gary is a very eloquent speaker, very knowledgeable about the game and one of the kindest and most communicable gentlemen in football and I definitely recommend listening to him.

Gary Mabbutt writes a weekly Premiership round up that you can read at www.elan.co.za.

I'll be speaking tomorrow with former Spurs captain and England international defender Gary Mabbutt. Yes, the Spurs legend himself is right here at Plain Soccer.

Mabbutt is attending the controversial Man Utd PFA Awards show this evening. I'll be speaking with him about the awards, his career in football and what he sees as the tactical differences between how premier league games are played today compared with ten years ago.

This is an opportunity that Spurs fans and fans of football tactics do not want to miss.

Click play to listen to the exclusive interview.

Fulham and Australian international Mark Schwarzer is one of the outstanding goalkeepers and professionals in the English Premier League.

Schwarzer's performances this season have come to the attention of football coaches and pundits alike, with Fulham manager Roy Hodgson recently identifying the Australian as the Premier League “signing of the season” after his summer move from Middlesbrough. Applause for Schwarzer has been intensifying in recent weeks following stellar performances against Liverpool and his old club, Middlesbrough. Yet statistics have been telling of the Australian's performances all season.

Schwarzer leads the EPL in save percentage, saving 85% of all shots on target, and Fulham's Goals-Against-Average per game has been cut from 1.58 goals per game last season (15/20 in EPL) to .85 goals per game (4/20 in EPL) with Schwarzer in net. To put that in more concrete terms, Fulham last season conceded 60 goals. This season, with Schwarzer in net, the club are on pace to concede just 32 goals. No club other than Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool has a better defensive record.

I had the opportunity to speak with the shot-stopper two days after his Man of the Match performance against his old club, Middlesbrough.

It is perhaps surprising to learn from Schwarzer that this season's success comes after a difficult time in his career. He admits that he felt written off and had lost some of his hunger for the game at the end of his tenure at Middlesbrough, and he wanted to rekindle that desire. In this way, he viewed his move to Fulham not only as a change of clubs, but as an opportunity to prove to himself and his critics that he could continue to excel at the highest level of football. This drive of course propelled Schwarzer despite his new club's chances of any EPL success being ridiculed by many before the season even began. “I've been reinvigorated coming to a new club. I'm enjoying my football even more than I have before and it's brought that hunger back again...leaving Middlesbrough after 11 ½ years and being really written off and said I was not good enough and past my used by date, coming to Fulham, it was seen by a lot of people as a club that was going to be fighting for survival.”

One can be excused for saying these expectations of Fulham were warranted. Fulham survived last season on the last day of the season, while Middlesbrough were relatively comfortably, finishing the season in 13^th position. Yet Fulham manager Roy Hodgson and his players were determined to prove the club's critics wrong. This has been done. “We've been able to prove the contrary to that (the low expectations of Fulham),” says Schwarzer. Fulham sit on the cusp of Europe on the backs of one of the strongest defenses in the league, while Middlesbrough are feeling the full effect of the Australian's departure.

Its clearly saddens Schwarzer to see his old club struggling as they are, but from a personal standpoint, it is equally apparent that he felt written off and was determined to reinvigorate his hunger for football at another club. “It was disappointing to see Middlesbrough in the position that they are in...but I play for a new club and my allegiance is with a new club and we want to qualify for Europe.”

Schwarzer is the first to admit that he is happy in London and that his performance this season will hold a special place when he looks back upon his career. “This has got to be one of the most rewarding [seasons of my career] in the sense of self-reward...a season I'll look upon in the future with high regard because of not only the way we've performed as a team but the way I've performed individually.”

Followers of Fulham would have to concur with the Australian. The team's success is constructed around sound defense, something which all football managers know cannot exist without a top goalkeeper. “We've defended very well...if you don't concede a goal, you have a good chance of at least getting a point if not winning the game. That's been the mindset from the beginning,” says Schwarzer.

This strategic mindset speaks volumes about coach Roy Hodgson and his trust in the Australian. The team has only been able to play this defensive strategy and achieve such success due to full trust in it's last line of defense.

Yet we all know that teams cannot attain success based solely on trust and rhetorical strategies. The great managers of the game are not only good man managers. They are also tacticians and motivators. “[Hodgson is] a good motivator as well as a good man manager and a good coach, so I think he's got three very important ingredients that create a very very good manager.”

Game strategies are built in the training pitch upon hard-work, communication, demonstration and the trusting of team members. It is clear that it is on the training pitch where Hodgson makes his mark to players. Schwarzer notes, “Hodgson is...a good trainer. He spends probably 95% of the time plus on the training field doing 95% of the training sessions and for me that's probably one of the highest percentage rates I've ever seen a manager be so involved with the team.”

Hodgson is a very hands-on tutor who personally ensures that his players are fully knowledgeable of their own strategy and fully prepared for opponents.

When not on the training pitch, Hodgson ensures that his players study video to learn not only their own strategies and strengths and weaknesses, but those of Fulham's opponents as well. “At Fulham we have three or four video sessions per week – on our opponents, on ourselves, on our previous performance, on our coming opponents.” With the intensification of game analysis, room for error on the football pitch has become smaller, making it crucial for players to study tape of both team strategies and individual scenarios. Schwarzer comments, “I think [video analysis] is a very important and vital part of being a professional footballer these days.”

But what strategies does Hodgson provide his players to study? The kind of analysis a coach provides of course depends on what the coach views as valuable information to know, which again is dependent upon what the coach sees as his and his opponent's skill-set.

The great coaches, as in any leadership position, know the most about their own team's strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of their opponents. This obviously requires extensive knowledge of the game and confidence in one's own judgment, attributes that are difficult to find in football analysts. “I think that a lot of coaches, a lot of managers at times probably don't really know how to identify what their strong points are and what their weak points are,” Schwarzer remarks. In Hodgson, Fulham have a coach who knows the game inside-out.

Once a coach chooses what to teach, he must be able to effectively communicate that information. Effective communication is another tool of the great coaches. Hodgson knows how to communicate his message. “The difference [between the great managers and those still learning is that the great ones] know how to use that information and transfer that information across to players and show them what [he] wants them to do – showing players what opponents are doing and how we are able to combat [them] if they are a far superior team or whether they are a team that has weaknesses. I think that all teams have weaknesses and I think that the good managers know how to really use [analysis] to their advantage.”

No EPL team automatically challenges for Europe. Fulham, a team with a small transfer budget and small payroll, was instead expected to fight for its league survival. People obviously forgot about the football mind running the club. Hodgson signed Mark Schwarzer in the summer to serve as the backbone of his defense and used his training resources and time to teach a defense-first approach built around the Australian. Eight months later, Schwarzer leads the league in save-percentage and is being hailed as the EPL “signing of the season”, while Fulham are on the cusp of European qualification with the fourth best defensive record in the EPL.

With regards to the most memorable moment of Schwarzer's career, you probably will remember the event. “It would have to be qualification for the 2006 World Cup.” He famously led Australia to her second ever World Cup qualification in 2006 by saving 2 penalties in a penalty shoot-out victory against Uruguay in front of 83,000 stadium fans and an estimated 7 million watching on television. In a sports world in which top athletes are expected to perform under pressure in clutch situations, little can outdo Schwarzer's penalty magic that catapulted Australia to the World Cup Finals.

Oh, and if you do not already know, Schwarzer is a children's author. “Being a parent and having a son as my oldest child, when he was getting a bit older and wanting to read...I found it was very difficult to find books that were oriented toward football and boys...There was a niche there to really get into and try to encourage reading among boys and try to explore the avenue of writing about football.” You can get a copy of Schwarzer's book here.

Spurs once again won today, 1-0 versus Newcastle United.

Tottenham have now conceded just five goals in ten domestic games since the close of January, with two of these at Blackburn after Wilson Palacios was unjustly sent off.

This record is the sign of a very strong defense and a massively improved team from that which began the season.

Well done 'Arry!

Lastly, a tip of my hat to this piece of cinematic genius. Enjoy!

Fulham manager Roy Hodgson has heaped praise on goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer calling him the signing of the season.

Schwarzer is a summer signing from Middlesbrough and is due to face his old club at the Riverside for the first time this Saturday.

Hodgson said: "We didn't buy him of course, he was a free transfer so in that respect he must be the signing of the season.

"He's had an outstanding season and a major contributor to the success."

As Plain Soccer readers know, Fulham have the best defensive record in the Premier League outside of the top 4. This comes just one season after the team conceded more than 60 goals, with summer signing Schwarzer playing no small part in the defensive transformation. Not only has the goalkeeper has amassed the highest save percentage of all EPL goalkeepers, but he has propelled his side to the brink of a European spot, while his former club has suffered without presence.

"The stability he has brought to the team is something you can see in the confidence the back four have in him," Hodgson added.

"Every team have units and our back four and goalkeeper have been very strong this year; Mark has been a major factor in that."

Plain Soccer will have an exclusive interview with Mark Schwarzer after the Middlesbrough game.

There is little doubt that forwards get the applause on the football field, but a new article has raised questions about who deserves the credit for football victories.

Jonathan Wilson recently composed an article published in the Guardian on why the full-back position is the most crucial on the football pitch. The popular football hype is about the forwards, but, according to Wilson, games are often won and lost among the full-backs.

The evidence: every World Cup won since USA 1994 has been won by the team with the best pair of full-backs. This of course does not mean that having the best pair of full-backs is the independent variable behind success, but it does allude to the important role played by full-backs in modern football games.

What distinguishes the modern full-back from historical incarnations of the position is the increasing reliance on the full-back to attack. The modern full-back is expected to be both a superb defender as well as the ability to forage into the opponent's territory and play a key attacking role.

A key contributor to the attacking role of the full-back, according to Wilson, has been the gradual move by managers in the world game to a single striker, which crowded the middle of the field. Coaches responded to this change by changing from the 3-man defense, which was popular in the 1990s, to the 4-man defense, with the full-backs expected to act as de facto wingers. The great full-back will both play as a winger, providing attacking width, and in doing so, allow for the left and right midfielders on his team in-front of him to move into the middle and ensure the central midfield battle is won.

Now this system is not faultless. Teams can deploy midfielders to restrict the movements of full-backs, as Russia discovered in Euro 2008. Players such as Man Utd's Park Ji-Sung play very far up the field, but are very capable of performing a defensive job, removing the often empty space that is afforded the full-back. If the winger cannot defend, and often wingers do not grow up playing defense, then the full-back will get space and advance, utilising his attacking abilities.

With this in mind, PlainSoccer.com is listing the best attacking right-backs in the Premier League. These players were measured by their attacking contribution to games, taking the form of passes, attempts created, goals and assists. According to many modern readers of the game, it is these players who are keeping their teams on the attack and their opponents fenced in, often making the difference on the field between winning and losing. This list should not be seen as comprhensive in its analysis, but rather simply as a list of good attacking right-backs constructed by a blending of basic attacking variables.

One thing that I noticed from this brief examination is that there is a shortage of attacking right-backs in the EPL in comparison to counterparts on the left side of the pitch. Outside of the top 3 listed below, there are no EPL right-backs whom one would say have a strong attacking game.

Plain Soccer Top 5 EPL Right-Backs.

1. Jose Bosingwa, Chelsea
Games: 29
Passes Per Game: 48 (80% success)
Goal Attempts Created: 32
Goals: 2, Assists: 3





2. Alvaro Arbeloa, Liverpool
Games: 24
Passes Per Game: 44 (83% success)
Goal Attempts Created: 23
Goals: 1, Assists: 1





3. Glen Johnson, Portsmouth
Games: 24
Passes Per Game: 36 (70% success)
Goal Attempts Created: 22
Goals: 3, Assists: 5



4. Bacary Sagna, Arsenal
Games: 30
Passes Per Game: 52 (85% success)
Goal Attempts Created: 22
Goals: 0, Assists: 0

5. Vedran Corluka, Tottenham Hotspur
Games: 31
Passes Per Game: 46 (80% success)
Goal Attempts Created: 24
Goals: 1, Assists: 1

Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks has defaulted on about $500 million worth of loans.

This cannot possibly bode well for Liverpool, unless of course he is forced to sell his shares in the club to better owners.

We decided to buy a custom domain. Soccer Statistics will now be found at PlainSoccer.com.

I don't know why I did not do this earlier. It is so cheap and easy to get a custom domain, and PlainSoccer.com is much easier for readers to remember than the long blogspot name.

The site content will still be the same: analysis and statistics.

Please remember the change.

Cheers,

HU

A major PlainSoccer.com exclusive!

PlainSoccer.com will have an exclusive interview with Fulham and Australia international goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer next Monday, April 20.

I'll be speaking with Schwarzer about his career, Fulham's rise up the EPL table and performance analysis within EPL clubs

Keep your eyes posted on the site!

Telegraph writer Henry Winter has composed a stern defense of Manchester City manager Mark Hughes.

The club's problems, according to Winter, lie in a dressing room that requires toughness, not Hughes' dugout. It is on this point that I can only concur.

After the recent 3-1 Uefa Cup defeat to Hamburg, City midfielder Stephen Ireland told BBC Radio 5 Live that "at times some people were hiding and when we had our backs against the wall they were not brave enough to come out and fight''.

These are not the kind of words that any fan wants to hear coming from club players. Yet City fans and casual followers of the game know full well that Ireland is far from speaking nonsense.

Following the departure of Joey Barton, it became impossible for anybody to say that City had a tough central midfield. The club was in possession of a skillful midfield, but accompanying toughness was not found. The danger lay in City becoming the Spurs of the north, a club of riches that did not pick up on the memo from all great coaches that toughness in the middle of the park is always necessary.

Luckily for City fans, Hughes is no dummy when it comes to football. Any club fan could have identified battling midfielder Nigel de Jong as the missing element of the Hamburg tie. This player was a Hughes pickup in the January transfer window who was unfortunately cup-tied. Hughes identified the midfield hole a long time ago, and he has cemented that hole. What this tells us is that it would be fickle to lose hope in City.

Good managers are always on the ball, and Hughes has shown that he is on the ball. While Redknapp's first piece of transfer savviness at Spurs was the purchase of the tough tackling midfield presence of Wilson Palacious, a player who has by any judgment made a huge contribution to the side, Hughes went out in January and bought the tough tackling Nigel de Jong to fill the midfield hole.

If anything, that de Jong was cup-tied should raise trust in Hughes. If what fans identify as the missing element between mediocrity and excellence is a player that the manager bought, then the fans are saying that the manager knows the team and how to improve it.

Hughes is one of the best young managers in the Premier League. He has a track record of achieving far more than monetary allowance would indicate he should achieve, and he has done this year after year after year.

Mark Hughes' Blackburn finished last season in 7th (3rd excluding the big 4), just 2 points behind Aston Villa, yet Hughes did this on a smaller budget than relegated teams. Look at his purchases during his time in Lancashire: Pederson-1.5m, McCarthy-2.5m, Bentley-undisclosed, Warnock-1.5m, Cruz-3.5m. Hughes built a team of near all-stars for just over half the price of Darren Bent. He finished year after year in the top 10 and had his team outperforming other clubs with budgets 3 times the size.

Then Hughes left Blackburn and, looking at the table, one does not have to be Einstein to recognize he is being sorely missed.

Nobody can doubt that Hughes did a magnificent job at Blackburn. His eye for players reveals this, as do his superb team results. People should think for a moment just how much Blackburn over-performed relative to their budget. Hughes is the reason for this.

It would be genuinely fickle, a sign of colossal silliness, if City let go of the Welsh manager. Managerial acumen does not disappear. Hughes achieved titanic results at Blackburn, and nothing says similar results will not follow at City. He has already begun to fill in the holes in the team and this construction job, only a few months in, will continue.

In the words of Winter, "even if they go out of Europe on Thursday, City must resist panic measures. Any clear-out should be focused on certain dressing-room under-achievers." Hughes should be trusted to build the team. Like all great managers, he knows the under-achievers and he knows what must happen at City for the team to succeed.

Roy Hodgson is one of the great coaches and tacticians of modern football. I have always admired the managerial aptitude of Hodgson and am pleased to see his presence in the top tier of the English game. He is moving Fulham to a far higher league position than recent Fulham managers could manage and than the club's financial clout would indicate they deserve. This is really no surprise considering the remarkable managerial career that the Englishman has had.

I recommend this video of Hodgson discussing the pros and cons of the 4-4-2 formation. It is an informative introduction to the formation and I wish I could listen to the Fulham boss speak for longer.

The interviewee probably asked him to provide an elementary introduction to the strengths and weaknesses of the formation. Hodgson clearly gets excited by the analysis of the formation, going into more detail than he really needed to. This is what makes the video enjoyable. It is far from a Phd or anything, but it is interesting for football watchers and those wanting to learn more about strategic approaches to the game.

Hodgson is a guy whom I would really like to interview about the game of football, statistics and tactics.

For those interested, the Uefa site also has video introductions to other formations as well as positional skills, for example, the option to listen to Daniel Alves speak about how to play the right-back position.

David Pleat is a great orator.

"Dennis Bergkamp has been a wonderful player for Arsenal down the years and I'm sure he'll be a valuable member of the squad for years to come" (on Bergkamp's career after his testimonial match at the emirates).

Well, the Guardian pays him (I assume) to write for the newspaper. In exchange, Pleat incoherently rants, editors grieve and in the end, articles are printed in the newspaper under the name of the former Sheffield Wednesday and Spurs boss.

His latest article discusses the Liverpool versus Chelsea Champions League Quarter-Final tie this evening. One section of the article caught my attention and conveniently raised my left eyebrow. The question: How can Chelsea stop Gerrard? The answer: man-mark him. This is fine. No problems. Lovely jubbly.

But Pleat decides that he wants to prove that man-marking is the best way to stop Gerrard from controlling the game. He peruses his marvelous mind and decides empirical evidence is the way to go. History has answers proving that man-marking is the best way to stop Gerrard. Still fine. The question now becomes: Can Pleat find a historical scenario when man-marking a dangerous attacking midfielder succeeded?

Guardian editors should have had a buzzer ringing right here. They could have stopped him. But they didn't. They let him attempt an argument using historical evidence.

It is here where Pleat's argument falls apart. You see, Pleat decided to bring up Dec. 28, 1996, a game between his old club Sheffield Wednesday and Gianfranco Zola's Chelsea. "Gerrard demands attention. I recall as manager of Sheffield Wednesday, back in 1996-97, designating Peter Atherton – a limited passer but a disciplined marker – to stay tight on Gianfranco Zola..."

The argument becomes: As manager of Sheffield Wednesday, I decided to man-mark Gianfranco Zola and, in the words of Pleat, "The tactic succeeded". My tactic of man-marking Zola is proof as to why Chelsea should man-mark Gerrard.

What then is the problem? Well, success of a defensive strategy is not usually defined by the player you are man-marking scoring on you in a high scoring game. And the problem in Pleat's argument is that the player he chose to man-mark, Zola, scored on him in a relatively high scoring 2-2 draw. Chelsea should look to this game and this marking strategy on Zola as proof as to why they should mark Gerrard this evening. Pleat, your faultness arguments are the work of a genius.

David Pleat: Man marking is the best way to stop an attacking midfielder. You want proof? Look no further than Dec. 28, 1996: Sheffield Wednesday versus Chelsea. I chose to man-mark Zola. He scored on us in a 2-2 tie.

Martin Samuel has amazingly blamed Newcastle United's non-British born players for their loss to Chelsea on the weekend.

According to Samuel, the appointment of a local lad like Shearer as manager would in the past have essentially guaranteed a victory, regardless of the opponents. Chelsea? World XI? Intergalactic XI? The emotional lift caused by the appointment of a local lad would have ensured success.

But things have changed. In the words of Samuel,

Newcastle United's starting line-up for Shearer's first game contained two Argentines, two west Africans, a Spaniard and a Dane, players who are not going to get the same lift from all this talk of a proud, Geordie nation.

That is not to say foreign footballers are to blame for Newcastle's plight

Of course not. You would not blame foreigners for a team's terrible performance, would you?

...but the reality is that Shearer's appointment is all about inspirational impetus and that is not something that will be felt by a player like Jonas Gutierrez, who was a resident of Saenz Peña, near Argentina's border with Paraguay, when his new manager was banging them in for England at the 1996 European Championship.

Who is to blame for Newcastle losing to Chelsea? Jonas Gutierraz. And Why? Because of his place of birth. Right. Err, Samuel, despite saying that foreigners are not to blame for Newcastle's plight, you did quite clearly just blame foreigners for Newcastle's plight.

Yet I do not think you have been blunt enough. Can you be even more blunt about why player will not unite around Shearer?

Shearer cannot unite his players beneath the flag of Geordie pride because, to many of them, it means nothing.

Still not clear enough, Mr. Samuel. You'll have to be more blunt.

They are not like him.

Ok, now it is mightily clear. Newcastle put in a generally paltry and laxidasical performance versus Chelsea because of the foreign-born likes of Jonas Gutierrez and and Fabricio Coloccini. The reason for this is that these players were not born in England and so do not understand Geordie pride.

British born Newcastle players are absolved of responsibility for the defeat. Foreign-born players are uniformly to blame for the defeat because of their birth-place, which led them to be unable to understand Geordie pride.

British (& Irish) born players who faced Chelsea (Absolved of Responsibility for Loss): Harper, Taylor, Nolan, Guthrie, Butt, Duff, Owen, Carroll

Foreign-born players who faced Chelsea (Responsible for Loss): Beye, Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Gutierrez, Lovenkrands, Martins

Mr. Samuel, I can see that you see football as a very strategic game.

Martin Samuel is ballin, apparently earning £400,000 per year!

Yep, the Martin Samuel who said this, this, this, and this (we certainly crushed him here) among other musings. Well at least Samuel gives writing opportunities to the Soccer Statistics crew.

Arsenal's 21 year-old midfielder Denilson Neves is a superstar and only getting better.

His technique and comfort on the ball is outstanding, while his maturity level is well above his age. All followers of Arsenal recognize this.

Statistically, the midfielder ranks #1 the EPL in passes, making over 70 per game (86% success rate) and ranks 5th in assists with 7. The popular Actim Statistics ranks the Arsenal man the 4th best midfielder in the EPL, behind only Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry and Steven Gerrard. And Denilson has accomplished these numbers and the accompanying praise at such a young age.

We also want to note that before anyone had really heard of the Arsenal midfielder, Soccer Statistics declared the unknown then teenager an "outstanding midfield talent" and said that if there is a young player worth risking the bank account on, Neves is it. We knew Arsenal had the next big midfield talent in the EPL.

This season, Denilson has shewn us right. Wenger has one of the best young midfielders in the world in the young Brazilian.

------------

Some other unrelated predictions that we made last summer included Newcastle Utd for relegation in 2008/09 (Our writer Phil was adamant on this point). And Scolari for a short reign at Chelsea. We also expected Man Utd to win the EPL and Barcelona the CL.

West Ham United manager Gianfranco Zola has called Scott Parker the best English player in his position and exhorted England boss Fabio Capello to select the defensive midfielder in the national squad.

Parker has quietly had the best year of his career in east London, showing that he has finally matured into the outstanding talent that England hoped he would become. When you watch Parker, you will quickly recognize that he has become more of a team player compared to his younger days, holding back his offensive urges and synthesizing a very clever passing game with an aggressive but equally decisive defensive approach that should be the jealousy of almost all midfielders that he comes up against. Perhaps unfortunately for him this transformation has happened on a small market team.

Manager Zola told Setanta Sports, "Scott Parker has been outstanding this year"

"He deserves [an England call]. His energy and quality has been outstanding, his passing - everything."

"He is a complete midfielder because he can produce quality but works very hard defensively. I believe in his position he is the best in this country."

Zola is certainly not delusional. Parker has been everything that his manager says he is. While Parker has significantly curbed his offensive game, scoring just once and setting up 3, his all-round game is superb.

Parker is showing his offensive decisiveness and comfort on the ball, getting on the ball more not only more than any other players on his team, but also putting him in the top 10 of all EPL players in passes. Parker is making 61 passes per game (85% success). Never in his career before this season had Parker shown the maturity to get on the ball at his present rate and the intelligence to make the simple, smart delivery to his teammate.

More impressive, Parker this season ranks #1 in the EPL in tackles. He is making 6.3 tackles per game, for the first time beating out the all-star combo of Javier Mascherano and Jon Obi Mikel.

Parker is the aggresive and intelligent midfielder that no opponent ever wants to play against. He is the player who is not only never afraid to go in to the tackle, but who is always in the right place to make the tackle. Offensively, he makes sure gets into space to get onto the ball and consistently makes the right decision when in possession, keeping the ball in West Ham's play and contributing probably more than any other player to his team's success this season.

Scott Parker is everything Gianfranco Zola says he is. He has matured into the outstanding player on his team one of the outstanding players in the EPL and deserves an England call-up.