Out of Africa

After a bit of a slow start, the African Cup of Nations really burst into life last week with Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Cameroon all, to greater and lesser extents, providing their moments of magic.

While most neutrals – me included – were rooting for the hosts, it has to be said that the best overall team were the fellas we’re going to be meeting in the World Cup. The pace, skill and unpredictability of players like Patrick Mboma, Samuel Eto’o and Salomon Olembe will be uppermost in Mick McCarthy’s mind when we play our opening Group E match in Nigata.

As impressive as they are going forward, I still think Cameroon look very, very naïve at the back, with players making the sort of rash challenges round the box that lead to free-kicks, penalties and red cards. I’m not suggesting that our lads go looking for fouls, but if we run at Cameroon with pace, chances are someone’s going to make a silly mistake. It was their downfall 12 years ago against England, and it could be their downfall again in Japan.

There’s one area in which the Africans are clearly superior to us – celebrating goals. Robbie Keane’s summersault looks pretty pathetic compared to that Nigerian lad’s gymnastic routine – the one where he does five straight overhead flips – and the only way we’re going to match Cameroon at dancing is if we add Michael Flatley to the training staff!

Meanwhile, on the Ireland front, Lee Carsley’s move to Everton is an example of players jockeying for World Cup position. I think things are beginning to get very interesting here. On current form, Clinton Morrison and Richard Sadlier have both leapfrogged over David Connolly in the striker’s queue. Then there’s John O’Shea who I’ve been really impressed with this season. He’s a big lad who, even when others around him are wobbling, doesn’t get ruffled. The other thing I like about him is his ability to stride forward and trouble defences. A lot depends on whether Alex keeps picking him for Man U, but with those qualities, I’d be very surprised if Mick doesn’t give him a run-out in our friendlies.

Somebody told me during the week that Ron Atkinson’s come up with this marvelous conspiracy theory about the Irish taking over at Celtic and Man U, and engineering it so that Alex Ferguson stays at Old Trafford until Martin O’Neill’s ready to leave Parkhead – whereupon they’ll hand his job to Mick McCarthy!

Personally, I still think that the man most likely to succeed Alex is Sven Goran-Erikkson, no matter what happens in the World Cup or Euro 2004.

If that’s the thinking in the Old Trafford boardroom as well, it makes perfect sense to stick with the guy they’ve got for a bit longer. I wouldn’t be one of Alex Ferguson’s confidantes but, as the season’s drawn on, I have a sense of him becoming more and more reluctant to step down. He’ll have seen Bobby Robson at Newcastle and thought, “He’s not going at the end of the season, so why should I?”

It’s the same addiction to football that has seen Graham Taylor doing a u-turn and returning to management at Villa. I know he had the piss royally taken out of him when he was in charge of England, but as a club manager he was really good. For one thing, he was prepared to sign a certain Paul McGrath from Manchester United when his name was mud – and to double his wages! If he hadn’t given me that chance then, well, my career would’ve probably ended a lot earlier.

It’s unfortunate that he won’t get a chance to coax the best out of David Ginola who, lazy git or not, is a brilliant signing for Everton. He’s like Paolo Di Canio in that, on-song, he can do things that no one else in the Premiership is capable of. I imagine that Walter Smith will be giving him the same pep talk Graham Taylor gave me: “Leave the baggage you’ve bought with you outside the ground, and put in the sort of performances that you, me and everybody else knows you’re capable of.”

Another player who could do with that sort of lifeline right now is Dwight Yorke. To be honest, I don’t believe the yarn that it was his refusal to leave that scuppered the Di Canio deal. But knowing Alex Ferguson as I do, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s left in the reserves until his contract expires. Dwight needs to put his off-the-pitch indiscretions behind him, find another club and prove his critics wrong. Having been at Villa with him when he was the best striker in the division, I’m confident he can do precisely that.

Alex Ferguson’s got some sorting out of his own to do in relation to David Beckham. If it was up to David, I think he’d sign a new contract tomorrow, but when agents and advisors get involved, it becomes less and less about football and more and more about money. Make no mistake – if Alex feels he’s being messed around, he won’t think twice about packing Becks off to Italy or Spain!

It would be fun being a fly on the wall, watching that one evolve.