England will pay if Beckham fails in LA

NOW reality has overtaken David Beckham's move to LA, his people — well Victoria's, actually — are working overtime putting a positive spin on the mission.

"It was the right time to go," says Simon Fuller, the business brain behind Brand Beckham. "Really, what is the worst that can happen to David's career?"

After this fiasco of a week, not much, it would seem. But to the careers of those around him, there is still some way to fall.

One bad result. That is all it needs to send England's hopes of qualifying for the Euro 2008 finals into oblivion.

And while Fuller will claim that even this would not be the end of the world for a player whose success is now measured in merchandise, network exposure, column inches and proximity to Tom Cruise, for those Beckham has left behind it would be a disaster.

England boss Steve McClaren would be sacked. John Terry would become the first England captain since David Platt not to lead his country in a major tournament. Gary Neville would be finished as an international. For half the team, in fact, this may be the last chance.

By the time the 2010 World Cup comes Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard will be over 30.

So while Beckham may have a five-year plan, for his contemporaries the next four months with England is as big as it gets.

Beckham's management team counsels patience while his American adventure unfolds — but patience with McClaren and his men ran out long ago.

They do not have five years, they have 45 minutes — the time it will take for the Wembley crowd to turn if the score is goalless with Israel in September.

This is why they cannot afford a half-fit glory-seeker jetting in from Hollywood as if England games are merely another staging post on the global celebrity trail. Becks may be able to impress his LA pals just by turning up. But the national team requires more.

It requires his outstanding performance against Estonia to be repeated in every match — because this England team no longer operates with a safety net.

After defeat in Croatia and a dismal draw with Macedonia, there can be no third mistake if England are to reach the finals.

When McClaren watches Becks in action for LA Galaxy in Washington on August 9 he must be honest about what he sees.

If he goes with a player that has been made soft by his American experience — and England fail — there will be no hiding place.

Demanding

Beckham was brilliant in Tallinn but he was still playing club football in one of the most demanding leagues in the world.

The MLS bears no comparison. Beckham will be playing with and against college kids earning an annual salary that would not insure one of his cars for six months.

The moment of truth is here. In the next month, Beckham must show he is capable of maintaining his fitness and competitive edge in the equivalent of League Two with pom-poms.

If there are doubts, McClaren has to ditch him and risk the backlash.

The boss would warrant our sympathy were this not a problem of his making. Those who opposed Becks' recall considered the MLS dilemma — McClaren saw only short-term gains against Estonia.

What is the worst that can happen? For Brand Beckham, NBC won't pick up the option. For the England manager, there remains the threat of a failure that will haunt him all his days

Crazy golf!

THE last time The Open was at Carnoustie, the course was set up so nobody could win.

And, as one American writer said, nobody did.

Paul Lawrie was that year's champion, the last European to win a Major, yet his stock is currently so low that at this year's Scottish Open, no place could be found for him among 20 invitations handed out by sponsors Barclays.

There is a reason for this. Lawrie's victory in 1999 is widely regarded as a fluke.

He has not finished in the top 10 of any other Major, last won a tournament in 2002 and his subsequent Open record is four missed cuts and tied for 42nd, 59th and 52nd place.

Scared of another links course being rendered helpless by technology and driving power, the 1999 Open organisers recast Carnoustie as golfing hell on earth.

Spitefully narrow fairways, wheatfield-length rough, on the first day no player broke par and 57 shot 80-plus.

Did this eventually reward the best players? Of course not, it made the contest a lottery, as often happens at the other Major that takes pride in turning 18 holes into mission impossible: the US Open.

So has the Royal and Ancient Golf Club learnt its lesson? Not by the looks of it.

Earlier this month, during an Open qualifer at Sunningdale, the fourth hole was cut on such a ridiculous incline it became unplayable. Australian Brett Rumford hit his tee shot to within two feet, missed his birdie and was left saving par from 35ft.

The first eight players recorded a five-putt, two four-putts and a three-putt before play was suspended and the hole was repositioned.

Sadly this madness, and that which made a champion of Lawrie, is too often the knee-jerk solution to modern equipment and professionals that can turn an old master into a glorified pitch-and-putt.

Nobody wants to see Carnoustie brought to its knees but nobody pays to see Tiger Woods perform like a 15-handicapper, either.

Breeze

Overly harsh courses produce unlikely champions, the same way that a sub-standard pitch causes upsets in the early rounds of the FA Cup — by levelling the playing field, not elevating the game.

Trick golf does not benefit the best players. It benefits the streaky, the guy with the luck to tee off in the two hours when the wind drops, while a superior golfer is left searching for his ball in waist-high rough.

The beauty of links courses is that Mother Nature can ruin a scorecard with greater efficiency than any greenkeeper.

A stiff breeze off the Firth of Tay will sort the wheat from the chaff at Carnoustie more reliably than a fairway reduced to the width of a bowling alley.

So this week, course and players should both be given the chance to show what they can do.

Alternatively, if the R & A likes crazy golf so much, why not go the whole hog and put a windmill in front of the flag? It amounts to the same thing.

Tevez is owned by one man, not Man U or West Ham

THERE appears to be some confusion, so let us get one thing straight about Carlos Tevez.

He is owned by Kia Joorabchian.

The Premier League know it, but will not admit it. West Ham know it, but cannot admit it. And Manchester United know it, but will pretend otherwise, so the rule-makers hear what they want to hear.

And, eventually, a deal will get done, because it always does. That has been the Premier League's job since its inception. Oiling the wheels, making it happen.

The mistake was trying to enforce regulation. The day it did that, the entire edifice collapsed — as tends to happen with structures built on sand.

Tevez's career is controlled by a third party, and he is far from alone. For years, the Premier League has been making these deals legitimate — removing a paragraph here or there, maintaining the pretence that registration and ownership is the same thing.

Take Yakubu. When he moved from Portsmouth to Middlesbrough, his agent, Pini Zahavi, received £3.64m.

Reality

Now, is there anything Zahavi could have done to justify such an enormous sum — or was he more than just the middle-man? The main man, perhaps?

There are various forms of third-party ownership. The money for the bulk of the Leeds players was provided by city investors, due a payback in the event of a sale.

Recently, Zahavi bought Collins Mbesuma for Ports-mouth. He settled the transfer fee and the agent fee, a total in excess of £1m. Still, no doubt at Premier League HQ a piece of paper demonstrates that Portsmouth have the only say in his career.

Everybody plays the game. Last season, Sir Alex Ferguson said he did not sign Tevez because he was not sure of the conditions of his transfer.

Ferguson has now conquered these fears. Despite the legal bun-fight that still surrounds Tevez he is prepared to dispatch a team to Venezuela to cut a deal.

This time, it will be beyond reproach. So is there a big transfer fee for one of the world's best strikers, earning £4m a year? No, not exactly. Is he a permanent signing? Not as such. What happens after two years? Search me.

So, who controls Tevez really? The same guy that always has; the words change, the reality does not.

Next season, Manchester United will hold Tevez's registration, as did West Ham. Holding something else will be Joorabchian, who moves South American footballers around like chess pawns.

Liverpool hatched a similar arrangement over Javier Mascherano.

He became their player: sort of. A fixed-term loan deal allows his contract to comply with Premier League rules, while Mascherano remains tied to the company that is, in essence, his boss.

Bucks

This is football's new reality and it is perfectly legal. But let us not pretend that the two Tevez deals are a world apart.

Joorabchian wanted to lease his players to Manchester United as a first option last year. United did not want two untried Argentinians.

So they were put in the shop window at unfashionable West Ham — with the proviso they could be moved on at any time, just in case a big club liked what it saw. It is this clause that caused the breach of rule U18.

Now Mascherano is at Liverpool and Tevez is at Manchester United, instant escape routes are no longer needed. Yet the third-party owners will not let the players go.

They are on fixed loans, with an option to buy on expiry. Then we will see who forks up the biggest bucks.

The bottom line? Tevez is no more the property of United than he has been of any club since Joorabchian got involved.

He will sign on loan, not from West Ham or Corinthians, but from an agency that buys the rights to South American players and tenders them across Europe.

But if football wants to pretend otherwise, go right ahead. It has worked well so far, hasn't it, chaps?

Wenger does not need Madrid

ARSENE WENGER seems a reasonable individual. So why on earth would he want to work for the collection of nutters that are in charge at Real Madrid?

Money? He can get that at a lot of clubs. Fame? He's not that shallow. Opportunity? The way Madrid operates — is he serious?

Like Bernd Schuster of Getafe, Wenger's name is strongly linked with a move to the Bernabeu — and his rational insightfulness is certainly what the place needs.

But we all saw what happened to the last sane man that tried to run Madrid like a proper football club.

He was sacked this week, 11 days after bringing the Liga title home for the first time in four years.

The fate of Fabio Capello shows why Wenger would be mad to swap an uncertain future in London for a downright unstable one in the Spanish capital.

Capello, a manager with nine league titles, six domestic cups and one European Cup win on his CV, was treated like a cast-off candidate from The Apprentice.

The most telling information was that the boardroom decision to fire him was unanimous.

Not one rational voice could be heard. Nobody who believed that winning the league was no mean feat for a coach in his first season and a more pleasing aesthetic style could be built from there.

Most ridiculous of all was the suggestion Capello was sacked for his treatment of David Beckham. He dropped him when he was playing badly and picked him when he was playing well.

And that tidy piece of man-management helped propel Madrid to the title.

Of course, he had to go, didn't he?

Capello got a lot right. He sold Ronaldo to AC Milan, where he does not play in the important games, and replaced him with Ruud van Nistelrooy, the top scorer in La Liga this season.

He identified Madrid's problems as fitness and defensive frailty and in both areas the team improved.

Yet this was not enough for president Ramon Calderon, his sporting director Predrag Mijatovic and a boardroom team of nodding dogs.

On the evidence of a report compiled by Mijatovic, in the job for all of 12 months, Capello was sacked.

And this is the wisest path for Wenger?

This is fulfillment for a mind so incisive he reinvented a football club of 110 years standing, its methods and reputation?

To be assessed by a loon of a president with one eye on his next re-election campaign, and his inexperienced sidekick, who has never coached or managed and spent the two years after his retirement as a players' agent.

Arsenal may have issues right now, but there is more of a solid foundation there than among the basket cases at the Bernabeu stadium.

And it is Wenger's own creation — not the flakey whim of a president who fears he will be ousted if he does not deliver the latest fashionable name, regardless of what is best for his club.

Yes, Madrid have more money to spend than Arsenal — but that was also true last year, when Wenger dumped them out of the Champions League because he had a team and Madrid had a fading collection of superstars, trading on fame and marketing power. It could be a difficult season for Wenger (right) at Arsenal.

It may well be his last.

But it will certainly be his strangest if he exchanges the club he has built on a rock of rationality for one that, by his standards, might as well have landed from Mars.

Sharks starting to circle Arsenal

THIERRY HENRY'S departure should set alarm bells ringing — but at Tottenham, Newcastle, Aston Villa and West Ham.

So if Martin Jol genuinely believes Darren Bent is worth £15million, this is the weekend to start writing cheques.

If there is a residue of uncertainty around Michael Owen's future, Sam Allardyce has to clear it up.

Does Martin O'Neill want David Nugent? Get in quick before it is too late.

And while Eggert Magnusson imagines there is even a remote chance of keeping Carlos Tevez, now is the time to sit down and talk telephone numbers.

The long-term significance of life without Henry is daunting for Arsenal, but even short-term it places a situation vacant sign over one of the four Champions League places.

Without Henry, Arsenal are vulnerable. Their rivals must strike before the Emirates club regroups.

At first glance, selling Henry makes business sense. He is 30 in August and £16million is a lot of money.

There were suspicions last season that his thoughts were elsewhere and Arsenal endured that pain once already with another captain, Patrick Vieira.

In hindsight, Vieira should have left a year earlier — so nobody can blame Arsene Wenger for refusing to make the same mistake twice.

Yet those Arsenal fans claiming Henry will not be missed are in denial. He scored 226 goals in 364 games for the club.

Ignore the fact many of those goals were among the most perfect and beautiful many will see in a lifetime watching football and calculate what Arsenal will miss in quantity, not quality.

That is what counts — the sheer number of times Henry came to the rescue.

He scored once in every 1.6 games for Arsenal. To compare, Didier Drogba is widely regarded as the best striker in the Premier League — and his ratio during his Chelsea career is 2.1.

This is why for any club with ambition, the next year is huge. Arsenal have been under threat for some while now.

Tottenham came within one match of toppling them two years ago and with the new money coming into the Premier League there will never be a better opportunity to rearrange the established order. After that, who knows?

Arsene Wenger has been talking about 2008 as a fork in the road for some time.

It is unimaginable that Cesc Fabregas would stay if the manager left — and without Champions League football how many of this talented team would follow?

Arsenal is breaking up because it is an edifice built on the vision of one man.

Wenger is more important to Arsenal than even Sir Alex Ferguson to Manchester United.

The day Ferguson retires, United will still be the biggest club in the Premier League and among the most marketable in the world — and there will remain an attraction in that. But when Wenger leaves he takes with him the philosophy on which the modern Arsenal was forged.

His influence is so pervasive there is no real Arsenal identity without him — for all its history, minus Wenger, Arsenal may as well be a new club.

It will not have the clout of Manchester United nor the spending power of Chelsea.

It may be hunted down by rivals with increased financial capacity, its status coveted greedily by ambitious managers and owners that bought into English football with one eye already on the Champions League prize.

Henry's genius kept those sharks at bay. Now there is blood in the water and they are circling. And those that are not, should be.

Blades know nothing about playing fair

THE Campaign for Fairness in Football gets its day in court tomorrow.

High on publicity and puffed up with righteous indignation, Sheffield United will hit town to demand reinstatement to the Premier League at the expense of West Ham, for a breach of the infamous rule U18. It is only fair, they will argue.

So let us look at what else Sheffield United would appear to believe is fair — because now it gets interesting.

Sheffield United think it is fair that they can sell striker Steve Kabba to Watford for £500,000, yet keep him.

Sheffield United think it is fair that he should play against three of the teams that were in the relegation mix in the last month of the season, but not them.

Sheffield United think it is fair that they should paint themselves as whiter than white, while officially admitting entering into an arrangement contravening the third party interference ruling that is at the heart of tomorrow's arbitration hearing.

Sheffield United have some serious questions to answer.

Ethics

Like at what point were they going to explain the strange circumstances surrounding Kabba's deal.

Like how they account for official club information stating Kabba could not play against his former club because of a clause that was part of his permanent transfer and would, therefore, be illegal.

Like how they can keep up the pretence that there is one set of villains in this story, West Ham, and all the other characters display the business ethics and demeanour of the lovechildren of Bob Cratchit and Mary Poppins.

In reality, they are motley crew, this Campaign for Fairness in Football.

Mohammed Al Fayed, chairman of Fulham, is a supporter. His transfer market activities were believed so fair that in January 2004, his club was temporarily suspended from the international market by FIFA over unpaid debts on the Steve Marlet deal.

Similar action was threatened over the transfer of Louis Saha. "I am a man of principle," he says.

Then there is Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan. He would know much about the boundaries of fairness having been fined £5.5m by the Office of Fair Trading for fixing the price of England and Manchester United shirts at his company JJB Sports.

Finally, spearheading the movement is that vested interest on legs, fair-minded Sheffield United plc chairman Kevin McCabe, who wants to re-referee the match after it has been played, to achieve the precise result needed for his team to win.

It is no longer suggested that West Ham should merely have points deducted, because a two-point penalty would not save McCabe's club.

A very specific punishment is required now — three points — the amount needed to keep Sheffield United up on goal difference and send West Ham down. McCabe has sanctimoniously demanded the league be adjusted on moral grounds in June, forgetting the skeleton in his own cupboard — 5ft 10in of striker, sold by Sheffield United to Watford on the condition he could not come back to haunt them.

March

Kabba played 14 out of 15 games for Watford immediately after his move. He played in a 1-0 win against West Ham, and 1-1 draws with Wigan and Manchester City.

But he couldn't feature in the defeat to Sheffield United on April 28 — because, according to Sheffield's website, his former club would not let him.

Manchester United insisted on a similar arrangement when goalkeeper Tim Howard moved to Everton — but at least chief executive David Gill did not march on Parliament bleating about fairness, when all the time his club had bent the rulebook until its spine snapped.

West Ham's actions over Tevez were wrong and the club was found guilty and punished.

Yet what is equally wrong is to pretend this is a rogue institution, out of step with its compatriots, when the merest scratch at the surface reveals an industry that is rife with suspicious discrepancies and transgressions.

Fairness, it seems, begins at home which, if he is to leave the Premier League with his credibility intact, is perhaps where McCabe and his fellow campaigners should stay tomorrow.

New improved Becks - faster, fresher, stronger

ONE David Beckham, the supporters sang — but that is not strictly true.

For England, this last year, there have been two David Beckhams.

The guy that played superbly in Tallinn on Wednesday and looked as vital, influential and committed to the cause as at any time in his 96-cap career.

And the guy that played in the World Cup last summer, half-pace, half-fit, a spent force in a team built to cater to his every whim — which is why Steve McClaren's first act as England manager was to leave him out.

So, before McClaren heads to a faraway beach, it is worth placing a discreet call to Madrid. To thank Beckham for what he did in Estonia and to utter two very important words: never again.

Never again turn up unfit. Never again arrive unprepared. Never again hang around that halfway line in the manner of a man that takes his country and his manager for granted.

Debt

Beckham looked like the answer to McClaren's prayers in Estonia — but which player will turn up in September?

Which Beckham will McClaren get after two months in Major League Soccer? Which Beckham will be on the field when Israel put 10 men behind the ball at Wembley and it needs every ounce of wit and imagination to break them down?

Which Beckham will fly to Moscow? Which Beckham will arrive when it is all or nothing against Croatia?

It is time for McClaren to play hard-ball. Far from saving his skin, he owes the player nothing. Beckham, by contrast, owes everything.

McClaren gave him a second chance he scarcely deserved and the Estonia performance was a small return payment on a massive debt.

The display in Tallinn, bursting with energy, proved beyond doubt that Beckham had under-performed in 2006 and 2004. It also suggested he has been short-changing England for years.

In the circumstances, as part of the coaching staff he let down then, McClaren would have had every right to keep the door closed, no matter how impressive his performances for Real Madrid. He did not — and Beckham's form in two matches for England vindicated that decision. But next season is a step up again.

Russia has the best defensive record in Europe. Only Germany have scored more goals than Israel and only that pair plus Norway have scored more than Croatia.

McClaren must insist on levels of fitness that Beckham has not sustained in over five years. He must make it clear that Beckham still has a point to prove and his country owes no favours.

He turns up right as he did this time or he is dumped again — with no hope of a third chance.

Wag

Beckham's attitude to his return was superb; his football even more so. The cross he put in for Peter Crouch's goal was the best from an England man all year. Yet Beckham has always had this talent — and too often it has been absent when it mattered most.

McClaren is more aware of it than anybody. Last summer, he witnessed first-hand how complacency affected Beckham. That is why he ignored him for six months.

What he cannot afford to do now, is slip back into the cosy relationship Beckham enjoyed with Sven Goran Eriksson, automatic selection, come what may. The tail cannot wag the dog and McClaren must leave no doubt over what is required. Total commitment. Total fitness. Everything we saw in Estonia and more.

Unless he gets that, Beckham will fail when it matters — and so, too, will England.

For a player that has been marketed as blatantly as soap powder, the message is clear. Next season, McClaren needs the new, improved Beckham. The old one just won't wash anymore.

Check Sunday's print editon of the News of the World - we'll publish a selection of the best online comments in the paper

Outstanding, unselfish - No, not Becks, I mean Lamps

THE man in the posh seats had his little moment. First mistake of the game, his voice echoed across the cosseted comfort of Wembley's Corinthian Club.

"Lampard, you tosser!"

You pay your money — in this case £82,955 over 10 years — and are entitled to your opinion. At least he was polite enough to wait for the action to start. Not everybody did.

The verdict was in on Frank Lampard before a ball had even been kicked.

No matter that he hardly put a foot wrong. No matter that he was acknowledged by both managers as England's most significant player, along with Steven Gerrard. You heard right, both managers. Not just an indulgent Steve McClaren.

Dunga, who might know a bit about defensive midfielders having played and captained as one when Brazil lifted the World Cup in 1994, also cited Lampard for special praise.

Simple

He named Lampard and Gerrard equally as the architects of the best England performance of 2007.

Yet the Chelsea man left the field as he entered, to jeers from those who in the next breath fawn over David Beckham, as football increasingly becomes an extension of our bankrupt celebrity culture.

That is the way it is now. Beckham good, Lampard bad; Beckham saviour, Lampard tosser.

We are a simple folk. We can recognise a well-taken free-kick, but no longer appreciate nuances like guarding the back four, breaking up play or keeping two of the greatest players in world football, Kaka and Ronaldinho, relatively quiet for 90 minutes.

Javier Mascherano could not entirely subdue Kaka in Athens. Michael Carrick failed miserably in Milan. Even the great Claude Makelele has had his work cut out with Ronaldinho when Chelsea have faced Barcelona over the years.

Yet in the unlikely role of midfield destroyers, Lampard and Gerrard excelled.

Unfortunately, we now arrive at these matches with our speeches and insults honed in advance, so while Gerrard was rightly Man of the Match, Lampard, a short-head behind him, got the bird.

What did he do wrong? Well, he poorly controlled a pass from Beckham in the first-half and sent a shot way over the bar in the second — although it must be hard to get your technique right with so many people on your back.

Critics

And where has this vilification taken us? Nowhere.

The most prolific central midfielder in the Premier League has looked a nervous wreck around the penalty area for England recently — and, boy, has that eye for goal been missed.

Since 2004, Lampard's contribution to the score-sheet has been as important as Michael Owen's. He was the top scorer in England's last World Cup qualifying campaign with five.

He once enjoyed a run of six goals in 10 internationals. England fans made him Player of the Year in 2004 and 2005.

And then what? A poor finals tournament — and join the club there, Frank — and he became public enemy No1.

Friday night was a new low, his myopic critics even refusing to recognise his outstanding, unselfish performance against Brazil.

For £82,955, we should know more about football than this. Why go, otherwise?

Becks call proves McClaren is wrong manager

IF Steve McClaren genuinely believes his England team are incapable of winning in Estonia without David Beckham, only one conclusion remains: He is not the man for this job.

If he has so little faith in the methods of his last year, no confidence in his players and such an absence of belief in the motivational and organisational skills of his coaching staff that he has to go running back to Beckham to pull him through against the 110th ranked nation in the world, then the detractors are right and he is in way over his head.

According to FIFA, Estonia are slightly better than Syria but not quite as good as Hong Kong.

According to McClaren, though, they are too much for the Premiership champions and European Cup winners that pack his midfield.

Which is a pity as it is that little group of players McClaren will ultimate rely on to get England through next season,when the folly of this U-turn is exposed and Beckham is enjoying his lucrative semi-retirement in Los Angeles.

Whatever the England manager says about monitoring Beckham in America, this is the panicky, short-term move to end them all. A career in Major League Soccer is no more compatible with international football in Europe than a three-point plug is with the sockets in a Malibu beach house.

If McClaren had thought the decision through for longer than it took to see the road-sign marked cheap popularity, he would have realised this.

The MLS season does not stop for European Championship qualifying fixtures — because no current European international of note has ever been in action over there. Doesn't that tell you something?

Yet, if we take McClaren at his word and consider this as a viable solution to England's problems, how will it work?

Next season, when Beckham is 12 hours away by plane, what are his chances of arriving in peak condition, considering he has already struggled with the physical intensity of England's last two competitions?

Take Saturday, October 13, when England play Estonia at Wembley. Beckham has a commitment with LA Galaxy on Sunday, October 7 in Houston, Texas, for a match scheduled to kick-off at 8pm, GMT.

Flight time from Houston to London is between nine and 10 hours and the first post-match scheduled service will arrive at London Gatwick at 9.55am on Monday morning, getting him to the camp at mid-day.

So no training for Beckham until Tuesday, at the earliest, unless 21 players change schedule to suit one. Supreme athletes, such as boxers, add a day of transatlantic acclimatisation for every hour spent in the air, which is why fighters get to Las Vegas several weeks before an event.

To fully shake off the jet lag effect of the Houston flight, then, Beckham would be ready to play on Thursday, October 18, which is unfortunate as that is the day he will be heading back to Califonia, after the second match of England's double header the night before.

Don't worry, though. It is only away to Russia.

The defining match of England's qualifying campaign is scheduled for November 21 against Croatia — one month after the MLS season ends, unless LA Galaxy are involved in isolated play-off fixtures. Will Beckham be match fit after three months in a sub-standard league, and then a month off? Who knows? Certainly not McClaren.

Just as the ship was steadying he has embarked on a voyage into the unknown. Beckham could, of course, reach the play-off final in November, which would give him the crowning game of his MLS season in

Washington DC three days before the Croatia fixture, and one day to prepare after a long-haul flight.

But, obviously, McClaren has factored this problem into his decision-making and will not be forced to go running back to the players he has previously rejected for the biggest match of his career; he would look such a fool otherwise.

They will need to be a very generous lot at LA Galaxy, too.

Including the friendly with Germany on August 22, Beckham's England commitments next season would remove him from five of 19 league games, including both local derby matches with Chivas USA. Still, you don't get much for £127m these days. Maybe McClaren believes it is possible to spend autumn in orbit around Heathrow and LAX and still arrive firing on all cylinders for England.

Maybe he has forgotten that a much younger Beckham found it hard to balance his hectic lifestyle and his football, and was sluggish and half-fit at Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup.

Or maybe, for all his bravado after a horrible night in Barcelona, McClaren is now responding to the loudest, ugliest voices in the stadium, who were still howling for Beckham's reinstatement even after the third goal went in.

Maybe he is so unsure of the players at his disposal and his ability to inspire them that he is falling back on the oldest trick in the book — the spurned star with a point to prove.

But considering what is at stake, and given the inferior nature of the opposition, it would be astonishing if Beckham does not play well against the Estonians — and then, for the sake of consistency, McClaren is stuck with him.

Stuck with appeasing the phone-ins, fan clubs and media cheerleaders, dragging him back across the Atlantic, as the demands of his club football decrease and the challenge for England grows greater.

Next season brings home and away meetings with Russia, a final reckoning against Croatia and a test of character at home to Israel, who will put 10 men behind the ball and hope to send Wembley into a frustrated fury.

And what is McClaren now offering? The same midfield that looked so ponderous two summers ago. No pace on the flanks. No players that get behind the full-back. And a not-so-secret weapon who is at his best when the game stops.

McClaren has been through some rough times this season and the knives were out far too early, but against Andorra, in a vile atmosphere and with backs to the wall, some thought we saw the green shoots of recovery.

With Joe Cole and Michael Owen coming back, there was the hope England had turned a corner.

Now McClaren has opened a door to the past. He thinks he cannot win in Tallinn without Beckham.

And maybe he cannot; but there are a lot of managers that could.

Berber must stay for good of Prem

DIMITAR BERBATOV has had a cracking season and should go to Manchester United.

Roy Keane's transformation of Sunderland is merely an apprenticeship for an Old Trafford move.

Micah Richards must abandon Manchester City for Chelsea's reserves — to be joined by Reading captain Steve Sidwell — while each day Michael Owen continues to spend at Newcastle United, or Benni McCarthy at Blackburn Rovers, is wasted.

Shifted

And then, when we have successfully shifted every ounce of talent to the same two clubs we will wring our hands and ask why our Premieship is so uncompetitive.

Berbatov holds the key this summer. If he is allowed to tread the same path as Michael Carrick from north London to Manchester we may as well put the ‘house full' signs up around the Champions League places now.

Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal — that is the way it is always going to be.

No point in striving to improve, no worth in ambition. We lie in our bed forevermore.

If a player whose club finished fifth for the second season in succession is said to be wasting his time, there truly is no hope for change.

Tottenham are on the brink. Had the club not sold Carrick to United a year ago, they could have moved ahead of Arsenal already. Next year, if key players are added to Martin Jol's squad, this may happen. There is hope of a £250million buy-out and major investment from America.

Yet speculation takes place amidst the presumption that Berbatov has to look to Old Trafford to have a hope of success in English football.

The same with Owen, McCarthy, Sidwell, Richards, Carlos Tevez — even Keane.

Having revived Sunderland (24,377 saw them lose at home to Plymouth on August 12 and 44,448 watched the final home game against Burnley on April 27), it is now presumed he is on a beginners course that will end with graduation at Old Trafford.

Yet Sunderland are a big club. Not the biggest but still one with a grand history and fan base that would stand tall in any league in Europe. Why should Keane not believe he can make his mark there? Why should every career choice be a stepping stone to United?

Tottenham, Sunderland, Everton, Manchester City, Newcastle, West Ham, Blackburn: these are good places to be.

But the crushing financial force of the Champions League has, in our minds, relegated them to football's hinterland.

Chasm

Instead of fighting back, we pander further by treating the gap between the elite and the contenders as if it is a chasm and not, as last season, two points.

With clubs targeted by serious investors abroad, traditional supremacies may be challenged.

In this climate, our Premiership should become more competitive. What keeps it unhealthy is our resistance to change, built on the false presumption that United deserve 22 great players and Spurs none.