There was a petition to get Tom Cleverley removed from Manchester United just after the January transfer window had passed. You can look at it here. Now there’s a petition to get Tom Cleverley off the England National Team for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
The message on the petition reads:
“We believe for the reputation of this proud footballing nation that he should be prevented from participating in this summer’s international showcase.
“Whilst England are considered to disappoint at major tournaments, further embarrassment could be avoided by not having his inept performances undermine the rest of the team’s efforts.”
Meanwhile, The mother of Hull City midfielder Tom Huddlestone is furious after her son’s England snub. So does the embattled and polarizing midfielder (Tom Cleverley took so much abuse from United fans online that he actually had to shut down his Twitter feed) actually belong on the team or not?
Sportsmatrix published a post about Tom Cleverley and whether or not he should be in the England team. The post looks at his performances for United this season so far.
Here’s an excerpt:
Most commentators and fans are unanimous in their damnation for Tom Cleverley’s role in Manchester United’s shocking season. Tom Cleverley came out in defence of his role in the team claimed that the making of him the scapegoat for United’s season was grossly unfair. Now opinion and emotion are never good benchmarks for the real picture so we looked at the stats to see what they would reveal. To make it more interesting we also looked at the stats of two other English midfielders who had not been picked for the squad for the game against Denmark – Swansea’s Jonjo Shelvey and Aston Villa’s Fabian Delph.
Starting from the beginning with the bread and butter of an attacking midfielder – attacking actions. Out of the three players, Tom Cleverley ranks in the middle of the three players in terms of both quantity and quality. Interestingly, Shelvey far outranks the United man when it comes to good attacking actions.
Read the whole piece here.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent analyst on news talk radio; with regular segments on ESPN,NBC, CBS and Fox. A former NBC Chicago and Washington Times writer, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)