Ben Herd / Ben Herd / 15 October 2008 / 1 Comments " class="free-bet-btn" rel="external" onclick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/G4/inline-freebet');" target="_blank">Free Bet

The Shrewsbury full-back refuses to alter his approach to the game despite collecting a fourth yellow card of the season and says the booing of Ashley Cole is "understandable."

From now until Christmas, us mighty Shrews won't be the only ones in competitive action, as the nation receives its annual dose of The X-Factor. I must admit, my missus has got me hooked on it.

Personally, I take great comfort knowing that there are tone deaf people out there worse than me. Fortunately, pop stardom never appealed to me, although I did win a karaoke contest when I was five, singing Bryan Adams' 'Everything I Do'.

I'm not aware of any of the lads being crooners, although Chris Humphreys thinks he's a bit of an R'n'B star. The worst singer at the club has to be our skipper, Ben Davies, you should hear him singing in the shower - let's just say, he likes a bit of Tom Jones!

To be fair, on the long away journeys so far this season, Sean Thornton has been the most vocal to get the coach driver to put X-Factor on. I've been asked by Malcolm from Islington, if I could look into my crystal ball and pick out a winner: I like the look of Laura, and she's not a bad singer either!

Getting back to the proper Saturday competition, we suffered our first home defeat of the season. After over 13 hours of league football, we finally conceded a goal, and then a second which was an assault to our keeper who required over 15 internal and external stitches. I'm fast becoming a marked man it would appear from the officials, as I've now clocked up four bookings in as many games - one away from suspension!

Anyone who has seen me play wouldn't say I was dirty player, just hard and fair. I haven't really given too much thought to how this threat of suspension will affect my style of play. It won't make one bit of difference, I will continue to be a pain to play against for wingers.

I wonder if the boos aimed at Ashley Cole will affect his future performances in an England shirt, especially at Wembley. For me, the booing is understandable. However, I don't condone it, especially when it has an effect on the team as a whole.

Ashley Cole hasn't exactly endeared himself to England fans. Where do you start? The tapping-up saga, claims that he was insulted at being offered "only £55k a week", complete disrespect to Mike Riley plus his private life being splashed all over the tabloids. Thankfully, the fans at Shrewsbury have always been first class to me and all the other players who have pulled on the blue & amber shirt since I've been at the club.

I wonder if Cole would have made the same mistake against a team like Brazil? Trying to put myself in Cole's boots, I just think that because he was playing against a lesser opposition, he became sloppy and lost concentration, which in turn led to the mistake. In essence, it had become too easy for Cole.

After playing Simon Cowell with Ben Davies, I suppose it's only fair that I big him up now. This season has seen the manager go with a different formation, it's more of a triangle up front, with Holty (Grant Holt) and Hibbo (Dave Hibbert) being the main strike force, with Benji just behind - a sort of Teddy Sheringham role. Or on the continent, the Francesco Totti role. Basically, the position enables the player to roam all over the pitch. As a defender, this scenario does cause some headaches, who's responsible to pick up a 'Totti'; is it the centre-halves getting dragged out or the central midfielder doing a job.

Personally, my thoughts are the centre midfielder should act as a screen to restrict the ball into feet. This stops the centre-halves being exposed by going into positions they shouldn't really be venturing into.

Speaking of centre-halves, Serie 'A' has traditionally produced the best, and one of them could arguably be Marco Matterazzi. He's in action this weekend as Inter head to Italy's capital, Roma. Totti's guile and ingenuity comes up against one of the meanest centre-halves in Matterazzi.

So my bets this week are to back Under 1.5 goals at [3.35] and put in a sending-off to happen at odds of [2.2].