Live Football

England boss Fabio Capello wants the FA to offer Stuart Pearce a new contract.

Original post by WP-AutoBlog Import

England boss Fabio Capello wants the Football Association to offer Stuart Pearce a new contract for the rest of the 2010 World Cup campaign.

Original post by WP-AutoBlog Import

If it’s possible to have a Group of Death in a two-group competition, Stuart Pearce’s men are in it
pa href=”http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/APBru4Az6YCoxHVpKn7RaDrJdxc/a”img src=”http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/APBru4Az6YCoxHVpKn7RaDrJdxc/i” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

Original post by WP-AutoBlog Import

divimg alt=”" src=”http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/87926?ns=guardianpageName=Football%3A+Campbell+pushes+his+way+into+Pearce%27s+planningch=Footballc3=The+Guardianc4=England+football+team%2CCzech+Republic+football+team%2CFootball%2CSportc5=Football+World+Cup%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Stuart+Jamesc7=2008_11_19c8=1120079c9=articlec10=GUc11=Footballc12=Englandc13=c14=h2=GU%2FFootball%2FEngland” width=”1″ height=”1″ //divpThe preparations for next summer’s European Championships started last night, according to Stuart Pearce, and this was a performance that suggested everything is going to plan. Having used the occasion as an opportunity to experiment, the England Under-21 manager had good reason to be satisfied with the result as an under-strength line-up overcame a combative Czech Republic side through goals from the in-form Fraizer Campbell and Aston Villa’s Craig Gardner./ppHow many of these players appear in Sweden in June remains to be seen but Pearce was able to take encouragement from the fact that he has such competition for places. No one was more impressive than Campbell, with the 21-year-old striker, who has scored three times in his last two games on loan at Tottenham Hotspur, registering his first international goal and generally making life as uncomfortable as possible for the Czech Republic./pp”I thought he played well,” said Pearce. “He’s quick, darts in behind and is a constant threat. If he carries on the way he is, Manchester United and Tottenham will have a player on their hands.” Pearce also singled out the contribution of the Wolverhampton Wanderers central defender Richard Stearman, the sole debutant in the England starting line-up on a night when an inexperienced side extended the manager’s run to one defeat in 22 matches./pp”It took us an hour to knock them off,” added Pearce, whose goalkeeper, Peterborough’s Joe Lewis, was taken off on a stretcher in the first half with his ankle heavily strapped. “We probably needed to show a touch more devilment and grab the game by the scruff of the neck early on. But we wanted to get a win, keep a clean sheet and for three or four players to come in and do well and I think I got that out of this performance.”/ppCampbell capitalised on Jan Halama’s weak header before lobbing Jakub Divis, Gardner’s 25-yard free-kick doubled England’s lead and a third should have followed two minutes later but Jamie O’Hara telegraphed his intentions with a weak penalty after Jakub Heidenreich bundled over Campbell. There should have been another England spot-kick within seconds after the same two players clashed but Campbell was harshly booked for diving./pdiv style=”float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;”ullia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/england”England/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/czechrepublic”Czech Republic/a/li/ul/divdiv class=”guRssAdvert”a href=”http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Footballcountry=nldspacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227057980222111901285839760″img src=”http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Footballcountry=nldspacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227057980222111901285839760″ border=”0″ //a/diva href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk”guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href=”http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html”Terms Conditions/a | a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html”More Feeds/a

Original post by Stuart James

divimg alt=”" src=”http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/4355?ns=guardianpageName=Football%3A+Pearce+pleads+to+play+his+best+youngstersch=Footballc3=The+Guardianc4=England+football+team%2CPremier+League+%28Football%29%2CArsenal+FC+%28Football%29%2CAston+Villa+%28Football%29%2CFootballc5=Premier+Leaguec6=Stuart+Jamesc7=2008_11_18c8=1119511c9=articlec10=GUc11=Footballc12=Englandc13=c14=h2=GU%2FFootball%2FEngland” width=”1″ height=”1″ //divpStuart Pearce said he would be “throwing two years of hard work out the window” if he were unable to pick his strongest squad for the Under-21 European Championships in Sweden next summer. He was responding to suggestions that he will face opposition from a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/premierleague”Premier League/a managers nearer the tournament, but he is determined to select the best players eligible, including Theo Walcott./ppArsegrave;ne Wenger has said that he sees no value in Walcott dropping down to the Under-21s following his progress for the full national team, and the a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/astonvilla”Aston Villa/a manager, Martin O’Neill, has expressed concerns about player “burn-out”. /ppHowever, England’s Under-21 manager, who suffered withdrawals on the eve of the tournament last year, is confident that “players will vote with their feet” and make themselves available despite any pressure from their club managers./pp”The most important thing for me is for England to win the trophy, so it would be folly to go there with a lesser squad - I couldn’t even contemplate doing that,” said Pearce. “We did it last time and got to a semi-final and we had left countless players at home. If the Germans, the Italians and the Spanish are all going to leave their top players at home, then maybe we might. But they won’t.”/ppPearce, who will use tonight’s friendly against the Czech Republic at Bramall Lane as an opportunity to experiment, added: “If you want me to spend two years picking the best possible squad I can to qualify and then throwing all that out the window to pick a squad that is nowhere near my strongest … I just can’t get my head around it. I was a Premiership manager [with Manchester City] and I supported all my players to go away on international football. That’s the mentality I’ve got. /pp”The support to the international side is paramount. England haven’t won a great deal at senior, Under-21, Under-19 and Under-17 level for many years and if we keep leaving our best players at home we’re not going to. For me, this [tournament] is an important learning curve for the senior team. I think this will add to what Fabio and his squad are doing.”/ppWhether Pearce receives cooperation from managers closer to the time remains to be seen, though he has no doubt that the players who secured qualification will want to be on the plane to Sweden. /pp”The most important thing is that I think the players will want to be there,” added Pearce. “I think the players themselves will vote with their feet to say: ‘We want to be part of the squad, because I’ve done everything I possibly can to make sure that we qualify.’”/pdiv style=”float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;”ullia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/england”England/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/premierleague”Premier League/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/arsenal”Arsenal/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/astonvilla”Aston Villa/a/li/ul/diva href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk”guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href=”http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html”Terms Conditions/a | a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html”More Feeds/a

Original post by Stuart James

divimg alt=”" src=”http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/91735?ns=guardianpageName=Football%3A+Capello+looks+to+younger+options+ahead+of+prestige+friendly+with+Germanych=Footballc3=guardian.co.ukc4=England+football+team%2CGermany+%28Football+team%29%2CFabio+Capello%2CFootball%2CSportc5=Football+World+Cup%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Dominic+Fifieldc7=2008_11_14c8=1118185c9=articlec10=GUc11=Footballc12=Englandc13=c14=h2=GU%2FFootball%2FEngland” width=”1″ height=”1″ //divpFabio Capello is due at Upton Park tomorrow afternoon to cast his eye over a quartet of Portsmouth players and the West Ham goalkeeper Robert Green as he finalises his squad for next Wednesday’s prestige friendly against Germany. Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, David James and Glen Johnson will all be present, with the England coach having indicated that he hopes to experiment with a more youthful side for the game in Berlin./ppThe likes of Gabriel Agbonlahor of Aston Villa and the Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart, omitted from Stuart Pearce’s under-21 squad for the game against the Czech Republic on Tuesday, are in contention to be included in Capello’s 23-man party to be named tomorrow night. The Italian attended Tottenham Hotspur’s Carling Cup game against Liverpool in midweek to chart the recent progress made by Darren Bent, who scored five goals last week to swell his tally to 11 for the season to date, and Tom Huddlestone./ppBoth of those players, rejuvenated under Harry Redknapp at White Hart Lane, are expected to be included though it remains to be seen whether David Beckham will have the opportunity to add to his 107 caps. The former England captain was due to be presented as a Milan player to a news conference on Thursday morning, the day after the game in Berlin, but that event has now been put back with the Rossoneri apparently unsure as to whether Beckham will be able to attend an early morning briefing./ppEmile Heskey, re-born under Capello in recent internationals, is hamstrung and absent while Ashley Cole is unlikely to be considered as he continues his rehabilitation from his own thigh injury. There remains the possibility that the Italian could choose to omit experienced players such as James, Capello’s No1 since he assumed the reins at the turn of the year, in order to try out younger options./ppThe last time England played in Germany they won 5-1 at Munich’s Olympic stadium en route to qualification for the 2002 World Cup finals. “It’ll be very tough to do what we did last time,” conceded Rio Ferdinand. “Even then I remember they could have gone two goals up early on. But, after that, it was a fairytale to be honest. There’s some new faces of course since 2001 but we still have the nucleus of a pretty decent team. We are ever improving at the moment and we’re on a steady graph in the right direction./pp”If we can continue doing what we’re doing, then we’ll be okay. We got a very good result in Belarus in the last match, which could have been a bit of a banana skin. If we got to Germany and put on a similar type of performance and get a few goals, then it would be a very good result. But the main thing is we can’t get ahead of ourselves. Too many times, especially under the last two managers, we’ve got certain results and then everyone has put us down as world-beaters and said we are going to win the World Cup and bring it home. That’s not been the case. And it wasn’t after the 5-1 match. I think we’ve got to make sure we stay relaxed and calm, keep playing our football and then hopefully results will look after themselves.”/ppstrongEngland (possible 23-man squad):/strong Hart (Manchester City), Carson (West Bromwich Albion), James (Portsmouth); Ferdinand (Manchester United), Terry (Chelsea), Johnson (Portsmouth), Bridge (Chelsea), Brown (Manchester United), Wheater (Middlesbrough), Lescott (Everton), Upson (West Ham United); Gerrard (Liverpool), Lampard (Chelsea), Wright-Phillips (Manchester City), Downing (Middlesbrough), Barry (Aston Villa), Walcott (Arsenal), Jenas (Tottenham Hotspur), Young (Aston Villa); Rooney (Manchester United), Defoe (Portsmouth), Crouch (Portsmouth), Agbonlahor (Aston Villa)./pdiv style=”float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;”ullia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/england”England/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/germany”Germany/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/fabio-capello”Fabio Capello/a/li/ul/diva href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk”guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href=”http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html”Terms Conditions/a | a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html”More Feeds/a

Original post by Dominic Fifield

Steven Taylor has said that Stuart Pearce’s cajoling can help England U21s win the Euro 2009

Original post by Sachin Nakrani

Stuart Pearce’s side narrowly won through to next year’s European U21 Championship after a hard-fought 2-2 draw against Wales

Original post by Sachin Nakrani

Stuart Pearce’s continued role as England U-21 manager may depend on his charges beating Wales in their European Championship playoff

Original post by Stuart James

Arsene Wenger has warned Stuart Pearce that picking Theo Walcott for the U-21s could damage his confidence

Original post by Sachin Nakrani