Roy Hodgson named his England squad to face San Marino and Switzerland last night yet made a glaring omission a year on from doing the right thing and calling up Newcastle’s Jack Colback.
Instead of granting a second chance to the in-form Geordie midfielder, forced to pull out of the squad with injury a year ago and an ever-present in all four of Newcastle’s Premier League games this season, Hodgson has named Fabian Delph, who has played 16 minutes of substitute football with Manchester City.
Hodgson had rewarded Colback’s excellent start to life at St James’ Park a year ago playing for his boyhood club after a dream move across the Tyne from Sunderland on a free transfer. Cruelly, after jokingly referring to him as “The Ginger Pirlo” in his press conference, Hodgson was forced to dispense with the 25 year-old Geordie’s services when he picked up an injury in training on the eve of the game.
Another solid start to the 2015/6 season – Colback has led Newcastle’s passing stats in three of their four League games with a 90% average passing accuracy according to Squawka – the Killingworth-born player is looking the part once more as the Magpies midfield terrier.
Colback, like Newcastle, has had the hardest start of the Premier League midfielders facing two Champions League teams in Man United and Arsenal plus two teams who finished 7th and 8th respectively in Southampton and Swansea.
Stern tests, yet playing at his best against the best is Colback’s best trait; as a 96% passing rate against Chelsea as Newcastle ended Jose Mourinho’s Europe-wide 23-match unbeaten start to last season proved.
Colback was instrumental in that match; turning defence into attack by forcefully stopping Eden Hazard in his tracks before running 30 yards with the ball and slotting it through to Moussa Sissoko, who set up Papiss Cisse to score the winner. He also helped himself to four goals last year in 35 Premier League games scoring against Burnley, Stoke, Everton and Spurs.
Whoever he is playing against, his competitive nature kicks in and he more often than not triumphs when the odds are against him, perhaps a trait learned from mentor Roy Keane at Ipswich.
This was evident for Sunderland in the derbies against Newcastle with The Blacks Cats as he helped the red and white underdogs to a string of victories. He starred in red and white in impressive Sunderland wins over Man City, Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea plus battling points against Liverpool and Arsenal.
After Colback missed the England boat at the start of the season due to that unfortunate injury, Fabian Delph featured usually whenever Jack Wilshere has been out with only limited success, ditto Spurs’ Ryan Mason.
Delph was completely out of his depth and anonymous against Italy while Colback, continuing the upward trend of his career, would be at his competitive best against the likes of Germany, Holland and Spain in next season’s tournament as he was in wins against Chelsea and Man City last season.
Colback scored more, passed more, created more and tackled more than his nearest England rivals.
There’s another very important reason why Colback should be called up – as a Geordie he follows in an important, undervalued national tradition.
England, who won the World Cup in 1966 with the Geordie Charlton brothers, Jack and Bobby, have never been past the Quarter-Final stage of a major competition without a Geordie in their line-up or won a recent knock out stage game.
Durham-born and Newcastle-bred Sir Bobby Robson was manager in 1986 and 1990 and guided England to the Quarter-Finals and Semi-Finals of the Mexico and Italy World Cups respectively. His team in 1986 was struggling until he brought in Geordie boy Peter Beardsley to partner Gary Lineker and the forward pair flourished with a little help from fellow Northerner and ex-Magpie Chris Waddle.
It was the emergence of Geordie genius Paul Gascoigne in 1990 which sparked England’s genuine tilt at the trophy as the Tyneside trio Gazza, Beardsley and Waddle shone. Famously, Sir Bobby spoke to Gascoigne before the World Cup Semi-Final against West Germany and told him he was up against the “best midfielder in the world” Lothar Matthaus – Gazza replied, “No I’m not – he is.”.
England failed to qualify for USA ’94 when a Geordie-less Graham Taylor-led line-up failed to qualify.
It was back to Geordie-led heroics literally when Alan Shearer scored twice and Gazza was magnificent as England smashed Holland 4-1 on their way to Semi-Finals of Euro ’96 with the All-Time Premier League Top Scorer winning the Golden Boot.
Michael Carrick is England’s only Geordie currently and was in the line-up when England last won a knock-out match in a major tournament – a 1-0 win in Ecuador at Germany 2006.
With Fabian Delph injured and statisically a worse player in every department than Colback, as Paddy Power’s inventive Ordinary Allstars video graphically demonstrates, if Man City wanted the best England midfielder, they should have tried to buy Colback.
Not that there was ever any chance of that as Colback brings another fantastic trait to the table – loyalty.
He is a Newcastle’s and own Geordie hero and only got through the “job” of playing for Sunderland to put himself in the closest shop window possible to St James’ Park.
It worked spectacularly with an eye-catching, goal-scoring Man of the Match performance in the 3-0 derby win when he scored and famously shushed a Gallowgate End that had been haranguing him (both at the match and on social media). Manager of the moment Alan Pardew who signed him remarked:
“I know Sunderland’s results last year, you only had to see his (Colback’s) name on the team sheet and they seemed to get a result, so that tells you something.”
A diamond in the relative rough of the North-East, Colback is not one to shout from the rooftops yet is deserving of an England call-up and could prove an absolutely vital asset to the nation in tournament football where others may falter in headier waters. Over to you, Roy.
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