The hitmen who didn’t quite cut it at international level
In light of in-form Sunderland striker Darren Bent’s omission from Don Fabio’s latest England squad, Spoiler correspondent Alex Perry has compiled a list of English strikers who failed to sparkle on the international stage. Who knows, Darren, if you keep “banging them in” you may get a chance to avoid joining this list…
Chris Sutton
410 club appearances / 88 goals
1 England appearance / 0 goals
Alan Shearer’s other half in Blackburn Rovers’ deadly strike force, Sutton was the joint top-scorer with Dion Dublin and 18-year-old Michael Owen in the 1997/98 season, and thus a shoo-in for the upcoming World Cup squad, surely? Well, no, because Sutton had decided a few months before that playing for an experimental England ‘B’ team wasn’t for him and Glenn Hoddle decided Sutton’s single goalless cap in an England shirt was enough.
Robbie Fowler
409 club appearances / 172 goals (and counting)
26 England appearances / 8 goals
You couldn’t pick up a newspaper in the nineties without reading about “England’s most natural finisher”, scoring 30-plus goals three seasons on the bounce. Fowler went to Euro ‘96 in the form of his life, but he was never going to unsettle the Shearer/Sheringham partnership that did so well in that tournament.
Persistent injuries, the “Spice Boy” lifestyle and controversial goal celebrations meant Fowler was restricted to just 26 England appearances and just one competitive goal - against Albania in a World Cup qualifier.
Matthew Le Tissier
443 club appearances / 162 goals
8 England appearances / 0 goals
A goal in every two-and-a-half games is an unbelievable return
The boyhood teams of some the game’s biggest names
Generally speaking, Premier League footballers are well advised to be discreet about the team they truly support. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of David Bentley, a supposed lifelong Arsenal fan who suddenly professed to be a boyhood Spurs fan upon switching to the north London side. With this imprudent declaration in mind, Spoiler correspondent Ben Baker has rounded up ten footballers whose loyalties don’t necessarily lay with their employers…
Andrei Arshavin
Despite only recently joining the Gunners, fan favourite Arshavin has never hidden the fact that Barcelona are and always have been his team of choice. He has said he was devastated when a move to the Catalan giants never fully materialised when he was at Zenit and has even stated that he would love to play for Barca since he has been at Arsenal. Now if that isn’t a ploy to gain a bigger contract…
John Terry
Mr. Chelsea didn’t make it to Manchester City in the end this summer. Many Chelsea fans will like to think that it is because he is Blue through and through. However, Terry was actually a Manchester Utd fan growing up. Could this be why he couldn’t bring himself to join the Citizens?
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
The baby faced assassin made a name for himself at Manchester Utd,
Robbie Fowler’s North Queensland Fury recently suffered an embarrassing 5-0 defeat to Gold Coast Utd, with four of those goals coming from Shane Smeltz, a man who was playing non league football at AFC Wimbledon not so long ago.
As a means of venting his frustration, the former England star dished out an impressively acrobatic face kick to an unsuspecting opponent. Amazingly, this went unpunished.
The latest transfer gossip, rumours and damned lies…
Gareth Barry could leave Aston Villa for free Aston Villa are planning to offer their long-serving midfielder a lucrative new contract in a final effort to persuade him to stay but if he declines, Martin O’Neill is willing to lose him for nothing in exchange for one more season.
The Spoiler truth-o-meter: The logic behind such a move would be that they can’t afford to lose another leader following captain Martin Laursen’s retirement and it would give them more time to find a perfect replacement. It’s estimated that keeping Barry last summer cost Villa £8.5 million this season so they may be willing to take another loss.
Glen Johnson to Liverpool The Daily Mail claim that Rafael Benitez is willing to spend £15 million to bring Portsmouth full-back Glen Johnson to Anfield. The logic behind the hefty
Here’s something C-Ron won’t be doing anytime soon…
In 1996, Robbie Fowler won the FIFA Fair Play Award thanks to an incident at Highbury, where he was awarded a penalty but tried to persuade the referee that Arsenal keeper David Seaman had not fouled him. Such good sportsmanship is rare in the beautiful game these days, but Rapid Bucharest midfielder Costin Lazăr has reminded us that integrity in the face of a goal scoring opportunity still exists.
During a Romanian Liga 1 match with Otelul Galati last week, the Romanian was awarded a penalty, but refused to take it as he did not believe he was fouled. Unlike Fowler, Lazăr was able to persuade the referee that he had made the wrong decision, and a drop ball was awarded instead.
Those who assumed Cristiano Ronaldo spent all his money on sports cars, hair gel and hotpants had better think again - the Manchester Utd winger is sinking his riches into property.
At one point, Robbie Fowler was became the wealthiest sportsman in Britain thanks to his obsession with snapping up property, and after buying another four homes and a Portuguese hotel, it looks like C-Ron could be disgustingly rich in no time:
Portuguese idol Ron, 24 tomorrow, plans to put £8million into a hotel boasting sea views on Porto Santo, an island near his native Madeira.It is a shrewd move for the winger, who already owns a £4million mansion in Cheshire and a string of pads abroad.
He already owns a villa and a flat near Lisbon, has bought a house in Madeira for his mum and invested in boutiques for his sister.
At a time when property values are decreasing, this seems like a very sensible long-term investment. Plus, he’ll finally be able to stay at a hotel where they don’t mind him and his female guests checking in for just a few hours…
There could be a lot of goalscorers up for grabs next month
Benni McCarthy and Jason Roberts combined for three goals in 27 minutes for Blackburn yesterday while Roque Santa Cruz watched on, meaning the Paraguayan striker now has a worse goal-to-start league ratio than every Rovers striker bar Robbie Fowler this season.
New boss Sam Allardyce has promised to act on Santa Cruz’s comments earlier this week about joining a bigger club so Blackburn may for the first time give serious consideration to the possibility of selling him to raise funds.
With Michael Owen, Robbie Keane, Jermain Defoe, Craig Bellamy and Dean Ashton’s futures also up in the air, there could be a lot of strikers moving next month and The Spoiler wants to know which one you would most like to see at your club. Tell us what you think with a vote and comment below:
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