Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, is concerned at the lack of experience in his squad after conducting the first full net practice of the visitors’ Zimbabwean tour here yesterday.
England will play five one-day internationals – starting next Wednesday – against Zimbabwe on the tour, seen as the start of their preparations for the 2003 World Cup.Six members of the 16-man squad are uncapped while, between them, the captain Nasser Hussain and batsmen Nick Knight and Graham Thorpe hold 178 of the 260 caps shared by the squad.”We’ve picked these youngsters to prove to us that they’re good enough to play in the World Cup,” Fletcher said. “Once this tour is over we will have to say these are the individuals we want and make sure they get that experience I’ve been calling for.”I don’t think there are enough games between now and the World Cup, but we’ve got to make sure we use those games very effectively.” England will play 21 one-day internationals from now to the World Cup, while South Africa will play 31 from now to April next year.”We are the babies in international cricket by a long way,” Fletcher said. “By February this year, before we played Sri Lanka, since the 1999 World Cup England had played 21 one-day internationals. The next side with the least number of games was Zimbabwe with 43. So everyone had twice as much experience as we had, and that’s a huge problem.”* Floodlights may be introduced at Lord’s to enable the ground to stage day-night games and help make up lost time.

Members’ approval would allow the owners of Lord’s to examine installing floodlighting, replacing the entire outfield by a fast-draining topsoil and that “drop-in” pitches will be introduced.. Arsene Wenger’s unsigned contract is bound to sharpen the sense of drift at Highbury after a shockingly irresolute performance in Athens. Arsene Wenger’s unsigned contract is bound to sharpen the sense of drift at Highbury after a shockingly irresolute performance in Athens. Indeed, bad news from Derby this afternoon will no doubt persuade many despairing North London souls that the game might just be about up, especially as it affects the ambitions of the brilliant Frenchman.
He is said to have never looked more depressed than in the aftermath of a game in which Thierry Henry was high on emotion but devoid of performance, and Patrick Vieira was a parody of the midfielder who at his peak is a devastating compendium of both strength and bitingly acute penetration. Such shortcomings in two key players alone would have been enough to bring down any manager’s spirits, but Wenger had so many other deficiencies, both moral and technical, to consider on the cheerless journey home from Greece.

The fact is that the club have lost much in the last year or so. They have lost width, the old certainties in defence, and the relentless drive of Emmanuel Petit. But most of all they have lost an illusion, a rather magical one that, however briefly, underpins all the great achievements in club football.It is one of permanence. The ambitions of the manager, the man who shapes everything, and the players come together in a great bond of mutual interest The sun will never set on their glory. They are a band of brothers, sure in their goals and confident in their leadership. Out of this comes momentum, belief, an ability to build on strengths and rectify weaknesses.

Of course it is an illusion, but for a while it becomes real in the minds and the hearts of the players who have to go out to win the trophies. Busby’s Manchester United had it and Ferguson’s, despite some alarmist reports, may yet have it again, especially if David Beckham and Ruud van Nistlerooy remember to track back at vital points in a big European tie, which they critically omitted to do when Deportivo struck so late and devastatingly for the winner this week. Revie’s Leeds had belief that they would go on for ever, and so did the Spurs of Nicholson, the Forest of Clough and Jock Stein’s Celtic.But we are talking here about a British way of club football, and the time when such dynasties could be formed and held together over a number of years has plainly long gone. Indeed, in these post-Bosman days the notion of a Bobby Charlton or a Johnny Giles serving out the prime of his career with one club is indeed bizarre. Just to emphasise the point, Steve McManaman, currently being paid £65,000 a week for intermittent service for Real Madrid, lectures Michael Owen on the need to move on from Anfield when his new four-year contract expires.It is surely no coincidence that the two outstanding English teams of the 1990s were United and Arsenal. Ferguson brought through the last serious crop of homegrown players and Wenger was intelligent enough to exploit the defensive foundation of George Graham’s championship team. Now Leeds have their hopes with such as Alan Smith and Harry Kewell, and Liverpool can point to Owen, Steven Gerrard, Robbie Fowler and Jamie Carragher, but never before have the practices of big-time football worked against the ideal of stability.Imagine what Arsenal might be today if Wenger had been able to continue to nurse the fragile but haunting talent of Nicolas Anelka, if he still had at his disposal the pace and bite of Marc Overmars on the flank and the consistent zeal of Petit.

All three players expressed their desire to leave despite opulent contracts. Now, as the flame in Arsenal dwindles so low, as Vieira wears the demeanour of a man who would rather be somewhere else, and, despite his protestations, is increasingly dismayed by Arsenal’s failure to seriously compete with United, it is not hard to understand Wenger’s reluctance to sign away the next few years. Wenger knows better than most that Ferguson’s 15-year stint at Old Trafford has become a football anomaly. It just doesn’t happen that way any more.Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello, and Sven Goran Eriksson know that in Europe you have an obligation to move ahead of the bullet Yesterday’s success does not preclude a death warrant today. Terry Venables won the Spanish title under the weight of Real Madrid, and took Barcelona to a European Cup final, but was soon enough fighting for his life at the Nou Camp. Jupp Heynckes was fired by Real Madrid eight days after winning the 1998 European Cup final.