To be fair, I consider Gough to be a 'sporting luminary'. He's one of only three men in history to take over 200 Wickets for England on both Tests and ODIs (the others being Botham and Anderson). Can't fault your actual article though. England will never succeed until selection is genuinely meritocratic.

Perhaps I should have said journalistic luminaries; like you I was a big fan of Goughie as an Enlgand cricketer.

Jonathan Northcroft should be on MUTV - his pro United stance is laughable.

But then his editor is Fergie's chum, so what do you expect.

They used to be a respectable paper - but now more like a United fanzine to be honest.

he should stick to writing about cricket....he clearly does not have a clue what hes talking about.

i hate this man united bias the media have, usualy the sothern based ones who grew up in a town with a mediocre football team but wanted to glory hunt instead ...

most of them dont actually know what the hells going on it the footballing world....hence they think bolton is in blackburn....

be interesting to know what the glory hunters stance would be on this....maybe you should re-post it on their board....

To be fair one of my mates is a Utd fan and I spoke to him about this a few minutes ago. He said and I quote ' Mr Northcroft could not find his posterior in a darkened room with both hands without the aid of a map although it is fairly clear that his voice does issue from that region'

It's a family friendly board so I cleaned it up of course but my mate basically thought Cahill's the best English Centre Back he's seen since Rio was in his pomp and Terry was in his prime. He went on to say that he would haved liked to see Gary in a red shirt because he rates him as a replacement for Rio.

He wasn't joking or exaggerating when he said he felt Gary's future England Captain material and that although he does rate Jones as a long term prospect it would be nice to have an all english CB pairing after Vidic and Ferdinand are gone.

We're all used to Southern Media in particular being biased towards the big clubs and Mr Northcroft is sadly only one of a number of offenders in this category. At least he didn't suggest that West Ham were under represented for once. So there IS some progress I suppose.

If Welbeck had been fit I wouldn't have mined him being in the England squad, decent at Sunderland last season, and has scored a few for United this season. Should he start though? Not ahead of Rooney and Bent, who are consistenly the best two English strikers

And anyone who thinks Jones and Cleverley should be starting for England are idiots

Jones played half a season for Blackburn last years but wasn't deemed to be good enough but is part of a poor U21s side and plays 3 games for Utd and all of a sudden he is a world beater

Both Jones and Wellbeck are good players, but are they they the best in their positions for England? no.

If I wanted to hear a load of crap, I'd watch Loose Women. This tool is probably bitter that Cahill had such a good game. There's a lot of non-moronic neutrals who saw the game, they will want Cahill in the team again.

That's why we never win anything. Players are picked on clubs and not ability or the best for the team. Some players aren't always the greatest but compliment the team. England managers have never accepted this but just gone for big team bias. Cahill showed them all on the night. Also typical united fan. Don't forget that attitude is why they are the most disliked club ever.

Nothing shows the big club bias like Capellos comment about Jones where he said that hes only played one premier league game so we have to give him time. Cahill only got the nod once Fabio heard that Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea were interested and/or made bids for him, its rediculous! Barry and Milner only get picked because of City, whereas in fact they are average at best internationally. Capello must still associate Sturridge with Bolton, its the only reason I can think of as to why hes not been given a chance