Players Under The Microscope / Gary Speed / 16 November 2007 / 1

Bolton's evergreen midfielder on the Ebbsfleet situation, losing the crowd's support and Scotland's gameplan against Italy

People talk about player power, about managers, about chairmen. But ultimately everybody in football knows it's the fans who have the real power. They are the people who pay your wages whether it's through their money to sit in the stands and go on the terraces, or through their TV subscriptions. And believe me when they turn on you, or your team, it's no fun.

But that said it does seem that fan power has been taken to a new level this week and I'm not entirely sure whether it's for good or bad.

I was fascinated to read about the project for the MyFC website to take over Ebbsfleet in the Conference. It's a very strange sort of concept and whether it will work is a very big question.

Like many things in football it's a great idea in it's theory. You take 20,000 people who are mad about the game, give them a share each in the club, and when they have all paid their £35 a head they get to take decisions on what happens. It's fantasy football turned reality.

But I can see it leading to all sorts of problems if, as they say, they are looking for all those people to make decisions on team selection, on transfers, and on signings. There will be problems. What do you do if as a player you're unhappy at being dropped? Instead of smashing the manager's door down you have to sit down and write 20,000 e-mails! And in all seriousness I think that decision making structure might give them problems in attracting players. If I was at that level and had a chance of going there or another club I would want to sit down with the manager and discuss his ideas - how can you do that with 20,000 people? And how do you let them make a sensible decision on signing a player if you need to keep his proposed contract terms and wages confidential? It's fraught with difficulties.

I should think it will be pretty tough for Liam Daish as the head coach, as well. I can remember playing against him and he was no-nonsense sort of defender. It will be a big learning curve for him to deal with. I guess the one thing is that he probably can't lose from it personally. If the team struggles, well he didn't pick it - if they do well then he'll get the credit the same as all winning managers do! He could end up being the only manager who has to boo the fans every week instead of them booing him!

On that subject it's been odd seeing the apparent leaks from the FA that they might be guided by the Wembley crowd's reaction on whether to keep Steve McClaren in his job or not. If that's right it seems ludicrous to let that information out - it's just an invitation to the non-believers to go along and shout even louder. And in any case I really don't think any organisation should take a decision on that sort of basis.

I know that ultimately it is always the fans who get a manager the sack. Once you've lost the support of the crowd it's very difficult to get it back. But I also think the people who make those sort of decisions need to be stronger and look at a whole variety of factors.

It's one of the prices we've had to pay for the explosion in interest in the game that the phone-in culture has taken over so much. As a player or manager you don't tend to listen to them - if you did you'd end up paranoid because not many people ring in to say nice things! That said I'm all in favour of them because the game depends on people being passionately interested. It's just that you hope that directors and other people in power won't be too swayed by what they hear. The best club directors make calm decisions in their head rather than following their hearts.

One set of fans who can be powerful for good, this weekend, are the Scots. I'm working for Sky covering Wales' match against Ireland on Saturday, which will be something of a strange game because it's a dead rubber. But when that's over I'm looking forward to finding a bar somewhere to see whether Alex McLeish's side can qualify for Euro 2008. I think they can and at [4.4] I think they could be the bet of the weekend. They key will be to get the first goal because if they can do that it will whip up such a passionate atmosphere it will be really hard for the Italians to come back. I'm sure Alex McLeish will be spelling that out to them.

No doubt they'll be sent to bed on Friday having watched Braveheart and Rob Roy to get them in the mood, and then they'll need to play with fire in their bellies but ice in their minds. You have to keep cool and make good football decisions but at the same time get in the faces of a team as good technically as Italy will be. People talk about the team spirit of the Scots, but I think that overlooks that they've got some quality players as well. James McFadden has been in great form for them even if he's not been getting a regular game for Everton - and I really rate Lee McCulloch who has been excellent recently for Rangers as well as for his country.

Sandwiched between Wales and Scotland, of course, is the Israel versus Russia game. I've felt all along that England would qualify because by hook or by crook it seems they always do, but this will be a tall order. Even so I quite fancy the idea of laying Russia at [1.5].

I was looking at Spain against Sweden as another interesting fixture but while I'm pretty sure Spain will win that one I think [1.64] is probably too short a price to be worth backing. But I would quite fancy going for [4.8] that it's a draw at half time before the Spanish go on to win it.

Finally it still niggles me that the second placed team will qualify automatically for this European Championship finals. Four years ago when Wales were runners up behind Italy and ahead of Serbia we had to go into a play-off. Not that I'm bitter or anything!!!!

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1. Terry Jenkins | 16 November 2007

   Agreed. I like the price of Scotland also and i think they can pull it off.

   I will be nervous about the Israel game but i will have everything crossed for a result that will help England

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