The Ian Murray blubathon

Over the weekend our former defender Ian Murray laid into Glenn Roeder during an interview for the Scotsman. It even made my Quotes of the Week. If you missed the interview you can read the whole thing here but the interesting part from a Norwich City perspective was this:

I felt I had to try it down there or I would be sitting in five or six years wondering ‘what if?’ but after Peter Grant left, it was no fun. Playing for Glenn Roeder, it was the first time in my life I felt like chucking it during a game, a lot of the players felt that way. He’s an angry man, not nice to play for.

Oh Ian wasn’t it fun for you after Grant left? I’m sorry to hear that. Like most supporters I’ve tried to block the opening few months of the season out of my mind for obvious reasons, but “fun” is definitely not one of the things it was to watch.

I’ve obviously no idea what you were earning at Carrow Road but I should think a conservative estimate of over £100,000 while you were here isn’t far out. Considering you missed large amounts of time due to illness and injury, by my reckoning that’s over £10,000 per game. Fun indeed.

Fair enough your preferred position is in the centre of defence and you possibly didn’t get the opportunity to show what you could do there – but after your utterly inept performances at left back at Rochdale under the previous manager and particularly at Plymouth under Roeder I don’t think it’s surprising if he is an “angry man”.

The other part of the article that made me chuckle was this bit:

The lure of home and of linking up with new Hibs manager and former team-mate Mixu Paatelainen was too much. Taking a wage cut, he agitated to get the move in time for the Edinburgh derby.

What a hero you are Mr Murray. A cynic might suggest that you rinsed this cash cow for as much as you could get and had to get out before your reputation north of the border was completely blown. Thankfully I’m not though, so I’m sure that’s all true.

Who is England’s number 1?

Fabio Capello takes charge of England for the first time on Wednesday in a friendly against Switzerland, but who will be in goal?

The final squad was announced on Saturday evening and perhaps understandably most of the attention and speculation has thus far centred on the fact that David Beckham won’t be getting the opportunity to pick us his 100^th cap this time round, and on who will be Capello’s captain – for what it’s worth my vote would have gone to Steven Gerrard – but as a goalkeeper myself I’m much more interested in who will be his number one so that’s what we’re going to concentrate on here.

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