Richards due for England call of duty

The City kit manager and former Latics star writes every week for Chron Sport
MICAH Richards has to be in the next England squad.

He was overlooked for the recent friendlies against Spain and Sweden, but after the displays he has put in recently — he scored and won the penalty in our 3-1 home win over Newcastle United on Saturday — I don’t see how he can be ignored any longer.

Talking to Micah about it, I think he is surprised more than disappointed over his absence from manager Fabio Capello’s thinking.

But the national team management must have seen how he has been playing of late. With the form he is in, I can’t see him missing out again. As a team, we were fairly comfortable in preserving our unbeaten record by seeing off Newcastle.

There is no question about it, we have a host of great players. In every game we go into, we feel we will win. It is a completely different mentality to the one we used to have. At one time, we would go to a place like Liverpool — who we travel to in the Barclays Premier League on Sunday — and win before losing to one of the lesser sides.

You don’t get the feeling that will happen any more. Looking around the bench on Saturday, the quality is clear to see. Now, it is a case of keeping everyone fit and free from suspension.




THE Napoli game tonight is one that carries a great deal of importance for both sides.
We are two points clear of them in Champions League Group ‘A’ and so we would probably class a draw as a good result in keeping our noses in front when it comes to qualifying for the next stage.

They need to win the game to realistically keep alive their hopes of pipping us.

I have to admit Napoli impressed me a lot when they played out the 1-1 draw with us at the Etihad Stadium in September. We needed an equaliser to get something from the game then and they only had one league game under their belt at that stage.

They have dipped a little since then. But speaking to Mario Balotelli about them, he says that any side which goes to the Stadio San Paolo and gets anything out of the game will have done extremely well to do so.