The Malaysian Insider

NOV 16 — Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard saw their reputations enhanced as England’s reserves suffered a 1-0 friendly defeat against Brazil in Qatar at the weekend — without even playing.

The midfield dynamos, who both missed out on the fixture in Doha through injury, were highly conspicuous by their absence as Fabio Capello’s side found themselves comprehensively outplayed by their South American opponents.

NOV 14 — Franz Beckenbauer echoed the thoughts of many when he responded to the suicide of German international goalkeeper Robert Enke.

As the news of Enke’s death broke earlier this week, former World Cup winning captain and coach Beckenbauer stated: “I feel endless loss and sorrow. When you receive news such as this, all other problems seem small.”

It’s hard to disagree. Enke had battled with depression for six years, having suffered the death of his two-year-old daughter from a rare heart condition. In the face of such shattering personal tragedy, how can we take sport seriously? How can we legitimately give any meaningful consideration to the frivolities of grown men running around a field and kicking a spherical object between two sticks?

NOV 9 — It was the biggest game of the season so far — the Reds travelled to face the Blues in a titanic clash that attracted enormous levels of interest across the globe.

But that’s enough about my team Southampton’s thrilling 3-2 victory at Bristol Rovers in the first round of the FA Cup; let’s talk about Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United! (Yes, I’m a Southampton fan even though I worked at Reading for more than 10 years. Remember Southampton? They used to be quite good, thanks to Matt Le Tissier, but I won’t get too many opportunities to mention them in this column considering they’re now near the bottom of the third tier, so please forgive the rather forced intro...)

NOV 7 — Given time, football teams invariably start to reflect the personality of their manager.

It’s probably an unconscious process; managers don’t sit in their offices and think, “You know what, I’m a cheerful, laid-back, carefree kind of guy. So I want my team to play relaxed, happy-go-lucky football. Hey, it’s only a game!”

No, it doesn’t work like that. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that, given the opportunity to mould, shape and develop a team, a manager will choose to select players, a system, a style of play and a general attitude that corresponds to his own personality.

NOV 2 — Tottenham striker Robbie Keane has made himself look rather foolish. Speaking to the media ahead of this weekend’s north London derby, the Republic of Ireland international claimed: “If you look at the last four or five years, Arsenal have always got ahead of us slightly. But now I think it's certainly even and if you look at the squads, I think that our bench is probably a little bit stronger than theirs.”

Keane was left to eat those words after Arsenal’s 3-0 convincing victory at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday demonstrated they are still miles ahead of their near neighbours. Even though Spurs were reasonably successful in stifling their stylish opponents for the opening 40 minutes, Harry Redknapp’s side were always on the back foot and it was a question of when, not if, Arsenal would open the scoring. And after two defensive errors in the space of 90 seconds handed the Gunners a 2-0 half-time lead, the game was over.