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ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: Liverpool must let Luis Suarez walk, Wayne Rooney is key, Roberto Mancini is Mr Average

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Here are five things I can conclude from seeing Manchester United win the title this season:

1) Roy Hodgson moaning about there not being enough English players is laughable. In an injury-hit season, Phil Jones will make more than 20 appearances for the champions – when he’s fit he plays.

The same applies to Ashley Young; over 20 appearances as well for Chris Smalling; over 40 appearances for Carrick; more than 30 games and over 15 goals for Rooney, despite van Persie being the main striker. 

Tom Cleverley has played over 30 times for United this season, Danny Welbeck has played nearly 40 United games, and if you dismiss him because he hasn’t scored goals you’re dismissing a contribution Sir Alex Ferguson has continued to acknowledge in this title-winning season.

Homegrown trio: Danny Welbeck (left), Tom Cleverley (centre) and Ashley Young have all featured prominently

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Seven Manchester United players there, all making a significant contribution, winning title medals and available for Hodgson. What is he moaning about? He even made himself look foolish by making that decision when he got the England job to leave out one of Sir Alex’s key players over the past 10 years, Rio Ferdinand, 'for football reasons'.

Rio has started 24 Premier League games this season. Sir Alex Ferguson is giving Hodgson the foundations, a clutch of winners. Let’s see if Roy can fashion a decent team from those English Premier League champions.

2) Roberto Mancini is distinctly average. Manchester City won the title in 2012, but all it took for their neighbours and rivals to win it back easily was the signing of one player, Robin van Persie.

Mancini responded by over-tinkering with his defence in the early part of the season, criticising Joe Hart, one of the club’s biggest assets, and then letting Mario Balotelli go in January and not replacing him.

Throw in another spectacular failure in the Champions League and Mancini has everything to prove again. An FA Cup final papers over the cracks at City, they have five games left to play but they’ve lost the title already.

3) Wayne Rooney is vital to what Manchester United do, his versatility is so impressive. He can play in a 4-4-2, he can play just behind the striker, or as a lone striker.

He can play wide in the attacking trio of a 4-3-3, and we now know he can be effective in midfield as well. He even chases back and defends when necessary.  He has bad games, that’s normal, but he’s still a quality footballer.

The pressure to score goals for United has been eased with van Persie’s arrival. And that has led to one of his most prolific seasons for England with six goals in five internationals this season.

4) There is an English midfielder who has won five title medals in the last seven seasons, played in three Champions League finals and won one of them, and has been a regular for a team second only in the last five years to a Barcelona team who may well go down as the greatest club side ever seen. He has been trusted by Sir Alex Ferguson in this, the most prolific and successful period in Manchester United’s rich history.

Yet at the age of 31 this player has made less than 20 starts for England, and played in only one match at a World Cup, despite going to two tournaments where we struggled to hold on to the ball. Scott Parker and Gareth Barry have tried and failed for England, while the Steven Gerrard/Frank Lampard conundrum was never satisfactorily resolved.

Meantime, England managers kept failing and kept ignoring Michael Carrick, a player who keeps the ball - exactly what England have been desperate to find for years and years. Incidentally that World Cup finals match he played in was the only knockout game we have won in the last two tournaments.

5) The future is bright at Old Trafford. Nick Powell turned 19 last month. He’s had injuries but he scored a Premier League goal on his Manchester United debut.

He might not be ready right now for Sir Alex’s first team, but it won’t be long. And having represented England at Under 16, 17, 18, 19 and 21 levels, he’s another one for Hodgson to use.

Boy's done good: Young striker Nick Powell (left) has had a promising first season at United

  Not many football clubs can go well over 20 years without winning a league title and still have its greatness unchallenged. Liverpool Football Club has done just that. But Luis Suarez is in danger of wrecking all that.

Two men who symbolise the greatness of Liverpool Football Club are Bill Shankly and Jamie Carragher, and those two provide the reasons why Suarez should never play for Liverpool again.

In his autobiography Carragher wrote: 'Shankly didn’t merely transform the football club, he embodied it, creating an unwritten code of practice that has been stringently followed ever since. He imposed…the modest but confident manner in which the players conducted themselves on and off the park.'

The Liverpool owners would do well to refer back to Shankly’s philosophies.

Role model: Liverpool legend Bill Shankly would not have tolerated Luis Suarez's antics against Chelsea

Stunned: Branislav Ivanovic couldn't believe Suarez had attempted to bite him on the arm

Suarez made a true great Kenny Dalglish look a fool last year when he refused to shake Patrice Evra’s hand, having promised to do so. Suarez apologized and so did Dalglish, but only after the owners of the club intervened.

Suarez said at the time: 'I have not only let (the manager) down but also the club and what it stands for. I am sorry.' Dalglish said: 'All of us have a responsibility to represent this club in a fit and proper manner.'

Dalglish’s biggest mistake was giving full support to Suarez. In my opinion it cost Kenny his job.Sources close to Fenway Sports Group, owners of Liverpool FC, apparently said at the time that Suarez could rescue his Anfield career and reputation by showing 'better judgement' in the future.

Suarez has blown that chance now by biting Branislav Ivanovic. In front of millions, on a football pitch, during a game, he sank his teeth into the flesh of another man.

In the modern game, with footballers regarded as a commodity rather than a member of staff, Liverpool cannot readily take the option most employers would take and sack him. They can however make sure he never has the privilege of wearing the shirt again by selling him in the summer. 

Time to let Suarez walk alone.

  Arsenal’s shame and humiliation under Arsene Wenger must surely have run its course.

Last season Nasri and Clichy won title medals after being sold off by the Gunners to their so-called rivals. This season van Persie and Cesc Fabregas will pick up title medals after being flogged off.

The shame for Arsenal fans must be immeasurable – Manchester United only needed a goalscorer – so Arsenal gifted them a goal machine in Robin van Persie.

Sadly some Arsenal fans will think the world is a perfect place if they pick up a result this Sunday against a  Manchester United side who will have been in the pub all week celebrating something they can only dream about at the Emirates – winning a trophy.

To the rescue? Alisher Usmanov has the money to stop the rot at Arsenal and deliver trophies

The answer to the problems of the former north London giants (are they still giants? Not in Europe, and debateable if also-rans can be classed as giants in the context of the Premier League) is right under the noses of the club.

Alisher Usmanov owns a 30 per cent stake in Arsenal, but the board won’t let him take over. He is Britain’s wealthiest man, and he’s worth a cool £13.3billion. He lives in a £48million mansion in north London. He was born in Russia, but he’s now a north Londoner. He’s a Gooner.

Seeing Robin van Persie score a hat-trick, including a wonder volley and then dance around Old Trafford after sealing the title will have made even the most hard-boiled Arsenal fan feel a bit queasy.

Time to end the nonsense of non-spending, and use Usmanov.

 

You could only sit back and admire the quality of Wigan Athletic’s football on Saturday. You simply had to applaud some of the magic of Shaun Maloney as the Latics ran the game. And after the full-time whistle you had to wonder how on earth they had lost the game to West Ham 2-0.

Step forward Mauro Boselli. Never heard of him? Roberto Martinez paid £6.5million for the Argentine striker in 2010 and said: 'He’s a goalscorer who lives to put the ball in the back of the net.  He is a natural finisher who can cause havoc in the penalty area.'

Waste of money? Mauro Boselli (right) failed to impress at Wigan and was farmed out on loan

He hasn’t scored a Premier League goal for Wigan. He’s currently on loan at Palermo and he hasn’t scored for them either.

All managers make mistakes when signing players. But Wigan can’t afford to make an expensive mistake like that.

When Wigan splash that kind of cash on a striker they need their man to score goals. Sadly all the good football Wigan play often has no end product. 

If they’re relegated, Martinez might look back at the signing of Boselli as the most expensive mistake he ever made.

  Is Sunderland’s Jack Colback the perfect player? I don’t mean the best player, or the most technically gifted. Let me explain.

It looks to me like he is given a job to do and he does it. Isn’t that a manager’s dream? Don’t they wish all players would do that? Isn’t that what England might need to see out the late stages of a game?

I first saw Colback when he was on loan at Ipswich; it was his first game at Watford and he was cool and calm on the ball. He wasn’t spectacular but he stood out.

On Saturday he stuck to Stephen Pienaar like a clingy child and did a brilliant job.

Perfection? Jack Colback (right) did his job brilliantly for Sunderland as they beat Everton at the weekend

In that game at Vicarage Road nearly three years ago, he played alongside another loanee (the obsession with loans at Ipswich is nothing new). That was Tottenham midfielder Jake Livermore, who has since played for England.

Livermore plays for a high profile club in London; Jack Colback plays for Sunderland. He is also very ginger. I hope neither of these facts holds him back from an international career.

 

Celtic won the SPL title at the weekend. Has there been a more meaningless title win in the history of football?

Stuart McCall should get manager of the year north of the border though. As it stands, his Motherwell side have picked up more points away from home than Celtic. 

That is some achievement in a league that is normally a two-horse race. Except they shot the other horse last summer.

One-horse race: Celtic, rather predictably, won the Scottish Premier League title at the weekend

  More... Suarez feels the backlash: Hillsborough families torn over accepting £200k donation as disgraced forward faces ban which will run into next season Man United 3 Aston Villa 0: CHAMPIONS! It's Robin's Victory Parade as hat-trick takes United to the title - now will Dutchman clean up with Footballer of the Year award and Golden Boot (he's one goal ahead of Suarez)? It was goal of the century! Ferguson hails Van Persie's volley as United wrap up 20th league title SPINELESS! Liverpool's response to 'cannibal' Suarez has been ill-judged and weak










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