STEVEN HOWARD
Published: 03rd June 2012
RIO FERDINAND may not be the easiest person to rub along with.
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Highly opinionated, manipulative and very aware of his power base within football.
He hardly covered himself in glory with his seeming refusal to accept responsibility for the missed drugs test which led to his eight-month ban from the sport back in 2004.
That has always been a sticking point between him and the FA.
But this morning he has every right to feel he has been kicked in the teeth.
Not for the first time, either.
And it has left him asking the FA and Roy Hodgson exactly what he has done to be treated so shabbily by the country he not only captained but represented 81 times in a 14-year international career.
Ferdinand, 33, has been through the mill over the last few years — starting with the knee ligament injury he picked up in the very first England training session at the World Cup in South Africa.
A less determined player might have called a halt to his England days there and then.
But Ferdinand fought back to regain the captaincy he had lost in such unfortunate circumstances just four months later.
Within another five months, though, he had been replaced as skipper when Fabio Capello reinstated John Terry.
The Italian didn’t even have the decency to tell him of his decision.
Now Ferdinand has been knocked back again, with Hodgson calling up Liverpool rookie Martin Kelly to replace Gary Cahill.
No wonder he and his advisers have a bee in their bonnet.
By ignoring him, the new England manager has also reactivated suspicions that Ferdinand may well have been left out of Hodgson’s original squad on political grounds.
That, with Terry due in court to answer allegations of racial abuse against Rio’s brother Anton just after the European Championship, it was deemed impossible by the FA to include both the Chelsea skipper and the Manchester United defender in the same squad.
And that to prevent a split in the England camp, one had to be sacrificed.
That would still appear to be the case, after Hodgson chose to replace Cahill not with an experienced like-for-like defender but Kelly, a full-back with just one two-minute England appearance as a late substitute against Norway nine days ago.
Ferdinand’s reaction to this snub — while some will view it as typically petulant — will ensure that all the talk at Hodgson’s first Press conference on arriving in Krakow this week will be about his omission.
On naming the squad, Hodgson said Ferdinand had been left out for footballing reasons.
If you accept that, you then deduce it was because Hodgson believed there were better centre-halves around.
At the time, that made some sort of sense, since England were well stocked with central defenders in Terry, Cahill, Joleon Lescott and Phil Jagielka. Yet that situation has now changed dramatically.
Cahill is out of the Euros following the broken jaw sustained in a collision with keeper Joe Hart against Belgium on Saturday — the result of a callous push by the shameful Dries Mertens.
Later in the game, Terry limped off with a hamstring pull — just as midfielder Gareth Barry had done following his abdominal injury against Norway. A scan may have revealed no deep-seated problem. But soft-tissue injuries like hamstrings are notoriously difficult to manage.
It’s quite conceivable Terry could aggravate the injury in the opening 10 minutes against France in seven days time and be ruled out of the rest of the tournament. How clever would Hodgson and the FA look then?
In a shocking week that had already seen the withdrawal of senior players Frank Lampard and Barry, you might have felt England could have done with all the experience they could muster.
But instead of recalling Ferdinand, a player with 443 Premier League appearances, they have gone for a 22-year-old with just 22 league starts.
A player who can step in at short notice without the pressure getting to him — and one capable of offering much-needed support for beleaguered skipper Steven Gerrard. But Ferdinand has been overlooked again. And, once more, not even granted the courtesy of a phone call.
No wonder he tweeted in exasperation yesterday: “What reasons?????!!!”
As in, what reasons this time?
Originally, it was felt the former England skipper might not be able to manage the three games in nine days against France, Sweden and Ukraine that he could have faced at Euro 2012.
Yet on closer examination it was discovered he had played three in 10 for United against Blackburn, QPR and Wigan between April 2 and April 11.
He then completed a fourth in 14 days against Aston Villa.
It also transpired that last season he had started 30 league games, just one fewer than Terry.
Yes, at the time Hodgson named his squad Ferdinand had played only one of the last 10 England internationals because of a variety of aches and pains. But as the season reached a climax, he appeared to be managing his fitness comfortably enough. Certainly, it hasn’t been easy for Hodgson.
The scan that revealed Chelsea defender Cahill had broken his jaw in two places brings to a staggering ELEVEN the number of players now unavailable — nine through injury plus Michael Carrick’s decision not to join the squad and Micah Richards choosing not to be on standby.
In fact, there are now just nine survivors of Capello’s 23-man squad for South Africa — Hart, Rob Green, Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson, Terry, Gerrard, James Milner, Jermain Defoe and Wayne Rooney. And Rooney misses the first two games anyway.
Hodgson continued to make the best of a bad job with England’s 1-0 win over Belgium at Wembley on Saturday.
Two games, two victories and no goals conceded. But, as ever with England, it’s all about coping with better teams at major tournaments.
Surely, would Hodgson not have had more of a chance of doing that with Ferdinand?
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