His talent for getting young players to believe in themselves has been visible again in the team’s

His talent for getting young players to believe in themselves has been visible again in the team’s recent upward mobility.But it will come to nothing if he does not hammer home a few of the old truths that might just get lost in all the coaching jargon. One of them – which every great old player knows – is that when the ball goes dead a good team comes alive.. Arsene Wenger will have a group of inexperienced attackers to choose from for Arsenal’s Carling Cup semi-final first-leg match against Middlesbrough at Highbury tonight. His diatribe against the referee Mark Halsey for allowing Thierry Henry’s quickly taken free-kick was palpably absurd – a classic display of football’s habit of blaming everyone but yourself.Arsenal were awarded a free-kick, something which was meant to give them an advantage. Henry was told by Halsey that he could take the kick quickly. He did so, and Villa were in a pathetic state of preparation Juan Pablo Angel was lacing up his boots More than half the team had taken their eyes off the ball And Henry struck it home; advantage given, and taken. The Collins Concise Dictionary offers “an association or union of persons, nations etc, formed to promote the interests of its members”.

That may have been the definition that buzzed at the back of Dave Bassett’s brain when he made the revolutionary suggestion that the rich should work to help the poor, for everyone’s long-term benefit. Looking back, he probably feels it would have been as profitable to yell at the moon.. Sam Allardyce’s claim on behalf of the League Managers’ Association that it was outrageous of the Football Association to appoint Trevor Brooking as head of development despite his lack of coaching badges is, I’m pleased to see, being received with something less than universal approval. He and Manchester United do as they please, which is why any upbraiding of Saha seems so futile. If football wants its clubs and players to behave with decency, if it wants to check the decline into irredeemably rapacious greed and self-interest, it has to start to make a few enforceable rules It has to say that contracts mean something It has to stamp on poaching and enticement. It has got to look at the role of agents.Indeed, it is at times like this that everybody concerned needs to remind themselves of the precise meaning of the word “league”. He refused to honour the terms of his contract with Forest, who at the time were fighting against massive odds to stay in the Premiership.If their circumstances had been different, they might have been tempted to let Van Hooijdonk rot in his inactivity.

Instead, Van Hooijdonk got his move, and an appeal by the Forest manager, Dave Bassett, that the Premiership should set up a fighting fund so that clubs could in future stand against such blatant blackmail having been greeted with thunderous silence.So that was some of the groundwork which went into Saha’s rejection of even a hint of loyalty to the Fulham club which had brought him from the relative obscurity of Metz, to where he was returned by Newcastle United after a loan stint, and given him a spectacular pay rise. Saha said that Fulham’s reluctance to sell him to United was base ingratitude. There had been no appreciation of what he had achieved for the club. A bizarrely one-eyed view of events? No doubt, but who is most to blame? The grabbing players? Or the amoral clubs?Sir Alex Ferguson has got his way – again.