Is the captaincy important at United? Yesterday Sir Alex Ferguson surprised the press corps when he revealed that Gary Neville will no longer wear the captain’s armband at Manchester United, although he also went out of his way to say that the veteran was still club captain.
Often referred to as “our shop steward” by Rio Ferdinard in his Twitter twitterings, Neville replaced Roy Keane as skipper when the eternally obstreperous Corkster acrimoniously left the club in 1995. Most famous, outside his exploits as a fine right back, for trying to persuade the rank-and-file of premiership players to go out on strike in support of the aforementioned Rio when he was suspended by the F.A.. for a year as a consequence of missing a drug test, Gaz Neville is one of the last old-school working class-rooted, competitors in the beautiful game. Unfortunately, Neville’s career has been badly hampered by injury for the last three seasons.
“I have been looking for someone who is going to be playing consistently every week,” said Ferguson. “We don’t play Gary every week and I am looking for someone who does.”
Yet Rio Ferdinand, who is expected to return this week against Glasgow Rangers, also England’s captain, has the same problems which plague both Neville and Giggs. As of yet, he is not a regular, and if the Gaffer is to be taken at his word, strongly desires a sense of team continuity.
Funnily enough, had fans been asked the captaincy question at the end of last season, their answers might have been very different. Patrice Evra, who has consistently looked like the world’s best left back in the world for the last three seasons, was given the France captaincy at the World Cup. Unfortunately, his tenure was a disaster and his decision to remain loyal to his teammates, rather than compromise with the team’s alienating(and alienated) coach, Roger Domenech, has set him at odds with the French national Football Association, the French press and a disgusted public. The true story of what really happened to the French squad in South Africa has yet to be told. Still, the Gaffer has been very vocal about his support for Evra, even flying to France to voice his support during a government-sponsored F.F.A.. inquest into the incident. United’s captain in a number of games at the tail end of last season, the little dynamo seems to no longer desire the wearing of the armband.
The other logical candidate has been Wayne Rooney. The notion that he ought to be captain because it would help him mature was food for thought for a lot of fans and pundits. Perhaps, some said, Wazza would learn to shut his big trash-talking gob, especially when dealing with referees, if he was given the honour of being appointed skipper. All such speculation has now disappeared, of course. Even the most liberal boys-will-be-boys apologist argument is absurd in opposition to a relentless media barrage which insists that our stay player is a ‘role model’ and must be held accountable for flaunting his posh-school-educated toerag hooker girlfriend in public and humiliating his wife. I’m more upset that he let what he knew was a looming scandal fester in his little noggin enough to hurt his play for England at the World Cup. Whatever you think about the situation, it’s hard to see him being captain again ever. Does the public own a short memory? We’ll see!
Finally, this may have all been a done deal at a point when Nemanja decided to sign a new United contract and ignore the sexy come-ons from Barcelona and Real Madrid. I think the hard grafting Serb really wanted a job that is often thankless. Good luck to him!
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