Players Under The Microscope / Gary Speed / 14 September 2007 / 1

The Bolton midfield dynamo on this week's internationals, playing out of position and Ron's revenge

It was late on Wednesday night when I realised another sign that I've moved over from just being a player into the management ranks.

I got back home from working in the Sky studios to talk about Wales' excellent win in Slovakia and was immediately combing through the Teletext and the internet for news on the other internationals. And I wasn't looking so much for the scores as to know how the six or seven Bolton players who had gone away had got on, and whether any of them had got injured!

Thankfully it seems we had a pretty clean bill of health to take into our trip to Birmingham tomorrow, but it was another little reminder of how your view of things changes once you are no longer just a mere player!

As far as the home countries are concerned the international results have given everybody a lift this week. Wales might have been a bit disappointing against Germany but the win away from home was excellent, and as for the Scots - wow! England have had a good week too, and I think a lot of that is down to the way Steve McClaren dealt with his injury problems.

His answer was not to shuffle his squad around but to pick people who are in form for their clubs in the positions they have been playing for their clubs. It might not sound like rocket science, but sometimes the simple and obvious thing can be the hardest to do.

I think the temptation when you pick an international team is to try and get all the best players into the starting eleven, and maybe it sometimes takes a week like this one to remind you that it can work far better to just get the ones who are in form for their clubs doing the same jobs for their country - especially when like England you have so many good players to pick from.

I don't think anybody likes playing out of what they see as their best position. You do it, of course, because the team comes first and when it's your country you will play anywhere you are picked. But especially for England where performances are picked over and criticised so heavily you could be in a situation where you can't really win. You feel you are doing your best for the team, but you still get pulled apart for any mistakes.

I played the last few of my games for Wales at left back to help the side, and at various times I played on the left and in the centre of midfield, and even at centre half for them. With Leeds I think I played in every position on the field except goalkeeper at one time or another. When you are young it can add to your education to move around and it makes you a better player - when you get to my age you just want to stick with what you know best!

Of course like all things in football it depends on the result. If you play out of position and the team wins it's fine. You feel you are contributing. If you're getting beaten every week I think the natural tendency of players is to look to blame everybody else and that gives you an excuse for what's going wrong. It's another reason why it's always better to pick players at what they do well.

Steve McClaren certainly did that because Gareth Barry and Micah Richards have both been in top form for their clubs so I wasn't surprised that they made such an impact. I was pleased, though. I might be a proud Welshman but it's good for the game as a whole when the home teams put the feelgood factor in.

Of course Barry will feature in Sunday's live TV game for Villa at Manchester City, and will doubtless feel he has a point to prove against Sven Goran Eriksson who didn't pick him for England. Villa are 3.3 to win at Eastlands and that might just be good value as Martin O'Neill's side showed how they are improving by beating Chelsea.

Manchester United's price to win at Everton tomorrow is, inevitably, not quite so attractive at just 1.88 but that could still be a sound investment, especially as they'll have both Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo available again. Ronaldo scored for Portugal in the week, and I might normally wonder whether the couple of games would add some fatigue. In this case I think it will possibly have just sharpened him up - because of his suspension for getting sent off at Portsmouth it's more than a month since he played a Premier League game and the two international matches will have put some match fitness into him. United have stuttered a bit and have clearly missed Ronaldo so I'd expect to see him straight back in the side.

Probably the biggest game of the weekend is the North London derby. With the pressure Martin Jol has had it might seem to be the fixture he needs like a hole in the head. I'm sure he'll look at it the other way as a chance to win the game and get the boardroom completely on his side. I feel for Jol - I think he's done a great job over a couple of years and has got the club going in the right direction. And I think his attitude to this game will be that he'll aim to take the pressure away from his players and treat it as just another fixture. That said, you have to fancy Arsenal to win it and I'm not surprised they are 2.6 favourites. They've been in excellent form so far and Cesc Fabregas in particular has been really strong in midfield.

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1. 'Mystic' Mike Norman | 15 September 2007

   Hi Gary,

   Nice to hear your valued comments every week.

   Unfortunately, you wont be best pleased to know that I have Bolton as struggling this season and 'Little Sam' being a good bet to be the first Premiership Manager to lose his job - though the value has well gone now.

   Not that you want your manager to lose his job, but hopefully at some point, this will mean you can take over as I think your wealth of playing experience will make you a cracking manager. You have also played under some fantastic managers in your career and doubtless you will have learnt a lot.

   Good luck on getting on the scoresheet this season, as your record of scoring in every Premiership season since it started is quite remarkable, and one to be proud off.

   I look forward to reading your comments in the future. I do a lot of football related articles on here, and if you ever have any feedback for me, good or bad, then please feel free to comment.

   All the best,

   Mike

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