Source: Daily_Mail
Piers Morgan: It's all over for captain John Terry. Now Fabio Capello should turn to Wayne Rooney
John Terry is finished as England captain. You can fight, booze,womanise and be photographed standing naked on top of London'sMillennium Eye singing 'Ave Maria' and still keep the biggest job infootball.[LNB]But bed a team-mate's partner and it all gets a little too tricky. You can't dip your pen in company ink and retain authority. [LNB]Picture the scene: last five minutes of a World Cup semi-finalagainst Brazil in June, it's 1-1, a player goes down injured and Terrycalls his boys together for one last great rallying cry.[LNB]'Lads, we've got to stick together, dig deep, stay close, trust each other, stay loyal...'[LNB]To which Wayne Bridge snorts in disbelief, shouts 'You hypocritical, lying, cheating *******', and smacks him on the nose.[LNB]Image problem: John Terry should bestripped of the England captaincy[LNB]No, if England coach Fabio Capello doesn't sack him, then he'll beforced to go soon enough anyway because Fleet Street's most mercilesshounds will rip the Chelsea star to pieces until he does. It's the lawof the media jungle. Just ask Tiger Woods.[LNB]Which leaves us with the question of who should replace him. On strictly moral grounds, it's not easy.[LNB]Most of the England squad have been guilty of sins of the flesh beit bedding lap-dancers behind girlfriends' backs, committing adulterywith my cousins (Rebecca Loos...), hiring hookers, or simply breakingpeople's skin open in bars. But based on strictly on-field criteria, Ithink the choice gets simpler.[LNB]Because I've always believed the best player in a football teamshould be the captain. Football isn't like cricket, where you arerequired to make hundreds of tactical decisions over five days. Theonly thing an England football captain needs to do is lead out histeam, inspire them for 90 minutes, terrify the opposition with his merepresence, and be a good role model and ambassador.[LNB] More from Piers Morgan On Sport... Piers Morgan: Surely it's time to put the awful Gary Neville out of his misery23/01/10 Piers Morgan: Thierry Henry's the Arsenal old boy Arsene Wenger really needs16/01/10 Piers Morgan: Here's to Alexander the Great - not Coyle the betrayer09/01/10 Best of British: Morgan on Sport award for the Football Personality of the Year26/12/09 PIERS MORGAN: Ashton's a good guy, he doesn't deserve such a cruel fate12/12/09 Piers Morgan: My team of the decade... and there's no place for you, Keano05/12/09 PIERS MORGAN: Chelsea star Nicolas 'Le Sulk' Anelka shows my Dad was right all along28/11/09 Piers Morgan: If we're going to string up footballers, let's start with real villains, like Roy Keane21/11/09 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE And is there anyone else right now who ticks as many boxes as Wayne Rooney?[LNB]He's ferociously passionate about playing for his country,well-loved by his colleagues, revered by the fans, and is almost assaintly off the pitch these days as he is devilish on it.[LNB]Rooney is a player right at the top of his game. A hunting, predatory, world-class striker without a weakness. He's a ruthless finisher as witness his four-goal haulagainst Hull. And his shooting rate is going through the roof. In his30 Premier League games last season he had 163 shots, scoring 12 goals.In just 22 this season, he's already had 176 shots, scoring 19 goals.[LNB]He's unusually unselfish - a real team player, like Thierry Henry,who seems to derive as much pleasure from an assist as a goal. [LNB]He's relentless, running around like an amphetamine-fuelled bulldoguntil the final whistle in every game he plays. He defends and runsback as hard as he attacks.[LNB]He is increasingly disciplined. Yes, he's had 79 yellow and fourreds in his explosive eight-year career. But just five yellows and noreds this season suggest a new maturity and self-control.[LNB] Explosive: Rooney scores the winner against Manchester City[LNB]He is behaving himself off the field, too. No more granny prostitute stories, no nightclub fights, no nothing. He has become the consummate professional stay-at-home-after-training dad and husband.[LNB]When Manchester United walk out at the Emirates this afternoon, every Arsenal fan, including me, will look at Rooney first and wonder how the hell we're going to stop him. [LNB]I reckon he'd make a brilliant England captain.[LNB] [LNB]Time to end all the silly bans, FergieSir Alex Ferguson's treatment of the media plumbed new depths last week.[LNB]First, he banned Sky Sports from his Press conferences for having the audacity to ask him a question about the very public acrimony surrounding the Manchester City game.[LNB]This would be the same Sky Sports which, of course, effectively pay much of his wage packet and those of his United players every year.[LNB]Then the old grizzler really got his tail up, banning five Sunday newspapers for reporting his claim that Carlos Tevez should have been suspended from the second leg. [LNB]Ferguson had said it, I hasten to add, he just didn't want them saying he had.[LNB] Old grizzler: Sensitive flower Fergie would be well-advised to open up to the Press[LNB]He still refuses to talk to the BBC, years after they examined his son's business dealings, sending out his breathtakingly dull sidekick, Mike Phelan, instead, to bore the nation.[LNB]The enduringly supine behaviour of the media over this disgraceful despotic behaviour does them no credit. Rather than lying down like harpooned geese at the first whistle of his hairdryer, they should get together and ban Ferguson and United from the airwaves and newspapers until he signs a written, legally binding, undertaking to allow everyone into every Press conference and fulfil the managerial duties that everyone else has to do.[LNB]But given that Lord Lucan will be found living on the moon before that happens, it falls to me to stand up to him on behalf of my neutered colleagues.[LNB]Sir Alex, it pains me to keep saying this but you're a great manager. But by regularly banning the media, you show yourself to be a pathetically thin-skinned, narcissistic, paranoid, cowardly, obstinate old bully. Get over yourself, you big Jessie. [LNB]PS: I'm aware that by writing this, Sir Alex will want to ban me immediately. But the beauty is that he can't. I am unbannable.[LNB] [LNB]Robinho is a selfish, greedy, mercenary. Of that, we're all agreed. But what exactly did Manchester City fans expect?[LNB]High class hooker: Robinho[LNB]The guy was signed within one hour of the club's Arab billionaireowners buying the place, purely because they wafted such a ridiculouslylarge cheque in front of his snorting, grasping nose that he wasprepared to sacrifice Champions League football, and any vestige ofprinciple, to swallow it.[LNB]Robinho was the high-class hooker in this deal and City chairman Garry Cook the pimp. And now the Brazilian is being off-loaded back home for whatever scraps Santos can afford - his reputation, and once-glittering career, in tatters. [LNB]The whole unedifying business reminded me of that wonderful Winston Churchill anecdote, when he asked a beautiful socialite: 'Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?'[LNB]'My goodness, Mr Churchill,' she replied, 'well, I suppose, we would have to discuss terms!' [LNB]'Would you sleep with me for five pounds?' he countered. 'Mr Churchill! What kind of woman do you think I am?'[LNB]'Madam, we've already established what kind of woman you are, now we're just haggling over the price.[LNB] [LNB]Coyle 0, Herod 1'Last year it was God, this year it was Judas,' declared Owen Coyle last week, in response to Burnley fans venting their wrath at him during the first encounter with his new team, Bolton.[LNB]'If you're going to get Biblical then I should be Moses,' he insisted, 'I led them [Burnley] out of the wilderness.'[LNB]Permit me to suggest that King Herod might be a more appropriate Biblical figure for Mr Coyle to compare himself with.[LNB] A leader who embarked on a colossal building project that excited and enthralled his chosen people, then descended into vanity, arrogance, treachery and cruelty turning on his own family and being responsible for the massacre of the innocents.[LNB] [LNB]By lunchtime today, Andy Murray will have either won or lost the Australian Open final.[LNB]But whatever the result, his performances during this tournament have shown me that he's now got what it takes to be the world's No 1 tennis player. [LNB]And that's guts, determination, stamina and a persistently nasty little streak that indicates he has absolutely no desire to be the 'thoroughly nice chap' that every British tennis fans seems desperate for him to be.[LNB]Keep growling, Andy. It's what makes you a winner.[LNB] [LNB]Have your sayYou are the most annoying, arrogant, self-righteous person I have never met, but a ****** good journalist! Has anyone ever tried to smash your face in over something you have written about them?[LNB]PHIL MATUES[LNB]Piers says: 'Mike Tyson tried but went down like a sack of spuds. I'm harder than I look.'[LNB]IF you have watched Arsenal 2,000 times in 40 years in 23 countries, then you have hardly missed a single game home, away or abroad. I suspect you are telling a porky.[LNB]STUART (ex-pat, USA)[LNB]Piers says: 'I didn't say I was actually AT every game, I said I have WATCHED them. Do pay attention, Stuart.'[LNB]You claimed in last Sunday's article that your knowledge of football came from watching 2,000 Arsenal games. At Boothferry Park, my team Hull City's ground, we had the same corner flags for 30 years and they still knew nothing about football.[LNB]GEORGE CHADWICK[LNB]Piers says: 'Even a corner flag would know Hull are terrible.'[LNB]I'm told that Gary Neville thinks very highly of you, too. [LNB]T ROBERTS (Manchester)[LNB]Piers says: 'Gary Neville thinks? Blimey, that's genuinely shocked me.'[LNB]Email Piers at: piers.morgan@mailonsunday.co.uk [LNB]
