Pray our one-man show goes on

IT DID occur to me after filing my Becks-dominated column last week that it read like some kind of football obituary — and so, sadly for the lad, it now seems to be.

You’d have to be pretty blackhearted to chuckle too loudly at his fate, although some will be tempted, given that he could be accused of having spent the last few years subjugating his various employers’ needs to his maniacal desire to be ready for Ingerlund. He thus joins Owen and Hargreaves on the bench of crocked ‘Red’ oldies, upon which he may yet be joined by Rio, should his back continue to crack alarmingly (Yes, I know Hargreaves isn’t actually THAT old but, boy, doesn’t he seem to be?)

Amusingly, England’s ranks are now thinning so fast that even Gary Neville is being whispered about as a late contender, which is something you’d have got aliens-to-land odds against just three months ago.