Players Under The Microscope / Gary Speed / 02 November 2007 /

Former Leeds United star Gary Speed on the fortunes of his old club, England's World Cup bid and Man Utd's visit to The Emirates

Leeds were my first club and still have a huge place in my heart - and I'm desperate to see them get back into the Premier League as soon as possible, let alone return to the Championship.

So I'll be ever so interested to see what effect the departure of Gus Poyet to Tottenham is going to have on their unbelievable start to the season. I said right from the start of the campaign that it wasn't impossible to claw back a 15 point deficit in a 24 team division, but even I've been amazed at how quickly Dennis Wise has managed to achieve that. I think they'll go into this week's game at leaders Carlisle just four points behind and even if they were to lose - which I don't think they will - that's nothing at this stage of the campaign. Teams have been known to start a winning streak from the relegation zone in November and go up.

But losing Gus will be the first serious test because it's amazing how the dynamic of a dressing room can be altered by things like that. It shouldn't do, of course. And I'm quite sure the message that Dave Bassett will have been giving when he started work as the new assistant this week was that change mustn't have an impact on the pitch. But it isn't always so easy.

Players do look for excuses. As you get more experienced you try to do it less and less, but it happens. We had one of those at Bolton on Wednesday night when we went out of the Carling Cup to Manchester City. The linesman's decision to give the penalty that gave Elano City's only goal was absurd - but then if we were honest we probably didn't deserve more. I don't think we did enough to win the tie anyway.

But you can bet your life that if Leeds lose at Carlisle to two dodgy refereeing decisions having hit the post twenty times it will still be the change of management that gets blamed. Then you'll get a test of the character of the players at Elland Road now.

There's a fascinating balance in any club with the make up of the number one and two. It works best when there's a contrast in personalities between them. Probably the best I played for was Sir Bobby Robson and John Carver at Newcastle, where John was always explaining things in thorough detail while Bobby just gave off his wonderful and inspiring enthusiasm. I think at international level Terry Yorath and Peter Shreeves dovetailed well - as did Mark Hughes and Eddie Niedzwiecki.

Like most footballers I'm delighted to know that England will be bidding for the 2012 World Cup. It seems amazing to me that the country that gave the game to the world has had to wait so long to host the tournament again while Germany have had it twice. The only thing that would worry me is that I've got very little confidence in the process that decides which country ultimately gets it. It seems to be too much about doing deals and favours in secret rooms rather than looking at the real merits of the bids.

Those sort of politics are going to have an effect on the Olympics in this country, certainly. The fear of losing the separate identity in FIFA of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland will almost certainly mean that we won't be able to have a Great Britain football team entered which seems such a shame.

In an ideal world everybody would just put the politics aside and treat it as a one-off, magical occasion that would suffer if there wasn't a team from the home nation. I'd love to see a British team, and I'd also like to see it picked purely as the strongest side. If that meant 16 English players in the squad, or 16 Scottish, then I'd still support that rather than trying to be politically correct and get four each from the Home Nations. I'm not sure how many Welsh players might be good enough because even my evergreen mate Ryan Giggs will have long since retired by then! Maybe Gareth Bale could have a chance if he progresses as everybody hopes he might.

We're travelling down to London tomorrow for the match at West Ham which means we might just get the chance to see most of the Arsenal and Manchester United game before we go. I hope so. I thought that Arsene Wenger's side were superb at Anfield last week.

I know it's at The Emirates where Arsenal have won all ten of their games so far, but I've got a feeling that United at (3.15) could be the bet of the weekend. Even though Arsenal were so good at Anfield, Liverpool still made the best chances - and United will be far more ruthless. With Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney in the sort of form they are showing if they get opportunities they will take them. Rooney especially is starting to score scruffy tap-ins as well as brilliant shots from outside the box, and at (10.5) is still great value to be the top Premier League goalscorer.

When you look at the goals that both teams have scored it ought to be a feast. United have hit four in each of their last four games, while Arsenal have scored 13 in their last four. Ironically in my view it means it is more likely to be tight - and I'm not surprised that Betfair punters agree because the price for under 3.5 goals is only (1.29).

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