The papers and media are full of the story about Jamie Carragher seemingly on the verge of retiring from international football in order to focus on playing for Liverpool, but is he right to quit the England set up at this stage of his career?
As far as I’m concerned, damn right he is!
Over the last few years ourselves and Chelsea have had the best defences in the Premiership. Carra has consistently been the rock at the heart of our defence during this time, just as John Terry has been for the chavs, but while Terry is quite rightly an England regular, Carragher has been consistently overlooked at international level and I think it’s a damn shame.
At 29 the Reds vice captain is at the height of his powers and has just signed a new four year deal at the club. He regularly plays out of his skin against the best strikers in Europe for us in the Champions League and has just played in his second final of the competition in three years. He has also played outstandingly well in countless other finals/semi finals over the years and in the Premiership he is consistently among our best players every single week and never gives less then 110% on the pitch.
That such a player should find himself continually left out of the England team by successive managers for the last 8 years just beggars belief. I just don’t think that you could possibly ask for more from a centre half then what JC consistently delivers week in, week out in a Liverpool shirt, but even on the far too few occasions that he has been given a starting place, its often been in his less favoured role of full back.
In the pecking order of England centre halves, Carra finds himself behind Jonathan Woodgate, Ledley King and Rio Knobhead at the moment, when it comes to partnering Terry. In the case of Woodgate and King, both are good players but both are also incredibly injury prone and neither plays anything like the amount of high profile games at their clubs, as JC does for Liverpool. As for Ferdinand, don’t get me started on that dickhead, I think he is the most incredibly over-rated defender in the history of the game and I’ve no idea why he even gets into the England squad much less the team, for a player such as Carra to find himself behind such a jerk is just ridiculous!
So I think our Jamie is perfectly right to have come to the conclusion that if he hasn’t done enough to convince these clowns by now, then he’s just wasting his time. As a Liverpool fan, I suppose I should be very happy to see one of our finest players quitting international football to focus and perhaps prolong his career at the club, but I find myself feeling extremely disappointed for the player on a personal level.
In over 30 years supporting the club, I have absolutely no trouble in saying that I have never seen a more dedicated and committed professional footballer in a Liverpool shirt then Jamie Carragher and I’m so proud that he’s a Red. I think its an absolute disgrace that such a player has never been given anything like the international recognition he so richly deserves and I think all those involved should hang their heads in shame.
But enough about my opinion, what does the player himself have to say on the subject? Well I had this absolutely classic piece of vintage Carra sent into me here at Kopblog HQ, that I simply had to share with you guys. Apparently it was posted up by some guy over at the RAWK website and someone kindly sent me the link.
A radio show on Talksport Radio in the UK was discussing this very subject on Monday. The programme was hosted by Adrian Durham and co-hosted by former Newcastle player Micky Quinn. Durham was having a right go at Carragher throughout the show, while Quinn defended JC for his decision. Durham said he reckoned that Terry, Woodgate and Ferdinand etc were all better players then Carra anyway, but that any player retiring from the England team in their 20’s needs to have ‘œa strong word with themselves’ and this just proved that Carragher was a ‘œbottler’.
However, unfortunately for this clown Durham, our Jamie happened to be listening in at the time and decided to phone into the show with a few choice words of his own. Just listen to the presenter absolutely shit himself when he hears that his next caller is Jamie Carragher. What followed was pure gold and anyone still in any doubt as to JC’s legendary status after listening to this, really needs shooting! [Link to zip download]
Gerry Ormonde (Kopblog.com)
