bwin Sportsblog - Football - Not a good sign for English football

The arrival of Joe Cole at Liverpool will have angered a few Chelsea fans I am sure as Cole was a very popular player at Stamford Bridge. But Ancelotti's comments yesterday struck a chord with me when he cited his reasons for letting Cole go to Liverpool in return for Yossi Benayoun. While he conceded that Cole was quicker than Benayoun, he also said that Benayoun was better tactically. This is yet another sign that our top players are not as good as we think they are. Cole would be a regular in the England side were he fit but Ancelotti also said that Benayoun would be more receptive to his methods. If that is correct then it appears that Chelsea have struck a good deal but football is played with the head at the highest level and you need more than just pace and trickery. Messi at Barcelona is a prime example, people tend to only see his mazy runs and fancy footwork but his positional play and link play with people like Iniesta and Xavi is exceptional for someone so young. This is a big flaw with our game because the speed of it means that strategic and tactical finesse is sometimes sacrificed. But I do not like it when a top manager says that one of our supposed top players cannot understand his methods. This is even more so when the team that he is in won the title last season so it isn't because other players were not understanding what he wanted. I think Joe Cole will be happier at Liverpool and he will certainly get more games under Roy Hodgson who had Fabio Capello not had two years left on his £6m/year contract would have certainly been England manager by now.