Matthew Upson, outstanding for club and country in his two most recent games,
says he found his form under Fabio Capello and his fitness in the Yellow
Pages. Upson, at 29, is playing the best football of a career that brought
him a Premier League-winner’s medal with Arsenal in 2001-02. He was named
man of the match by the ITV panel when England beat Germany 2-1 in Berlin 11
days ago and again when West Ham won 1-0 at Sunderland last weekend. He
attributes the improvement that has seen him leapfrog Jonathan Woodgate, Sol
Campbell and other rivals in the queue for England places to one-on-one
coaching from Capello and to a South African fitness guru who has corrected
his posture and balance by inserting pages from the business telephone
directory in his boots.
Upson’s progress has been frequently hampered by injury since joining Arsenal
from Luton as an 18-year-old. After an impatient wait behind Tony Adams,
Martin Keown, et al, he finally broke into the first team, only for ruptured
knee ligaments and a broken leg to keep him out for the best part of two
seasons. Consequently, he took longer than he might otherwise have done,
necessitating moves from north to east London, via Birmingham, to realise
the potential that persuaded Arsène Wenger to pay £2m to sign him for
Arsenal before he had played League football. Better late than never, and
the ball-playing centre-half is at last establishing himself with England
(he has started the last three matches) and is widely coveted by the top
clubs as the January transfer window approaches.
West Ham’s next three games, at Liverpool tomorrow, at home to Tottenham a
week later, then at Chelsea on could do him a power of good at a time when
everybody at Upton Park could come under the Hammer in the January sales
after the cold caught by owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson in Iceland’s financial
meltdown. “I’m in the best form of my career,” Upson said on Friday. “I’ve
been producing good performances for at least a year but it’s been quite a
turbulent journey.” He signed from Birmingham for £6m in January 2007 as
part of a spree with which Alan Curbishley hoped to take West Ham to “the
next level”. It never happened and Curbishley left two months ago in protest
at the sale of players he had not wanted to leave.
“We had a lot of injuries when Curbs was here,” Upson said. “People have
speculated about why — the training, the medical side and so on — but I’m
only qualified to talk about my own body.” Significantly, he had looked
outside the club for a remedy for his condition. “I found somebody who
specialised in orthotics, Dr Ronald Holder. He lives in Johannesburg, and
comes over to work with me a week at a time.
“When I ruptured my cruciate ligament at Arsenal, the surgery was a success
but mechanically it changed me. I picked up a string of other injuries
because I didn’t understand how balanced my body needed to be for it not to
derail. It wasn’t until I came to West Ham that I started working on that,
which has allowed me to train and play full out. Dr Holder gets everything
symmetrical, using a Yellow Pages. He cuts them out, puts them in your
boots, watches you run and adjusts the thickness accordingly. The
improvement has been fantastic.”
On the managerial switch that saw Curbishley replaced by Gianfranco Zola,
Upson said: “Curbs found things were being done without his knowledge, and
when that starts happening to a manager it damages his position with the
players. If it had been me in that position, I’d have reacted the same way.”
Zola was very different. “He has a method he believes in and will stick to, no
matter what,” Upson said. “He wants to play the game in a way that lets us
express ourselves, and that is entertaining — the way he did as a player.
We’ve not had the best of results so far, but it’s such a change in style
that it’s going to take time.”
As manager, is Zola too nice to succeed? “Just because you smile all the time
doesn’t mean you can’t be ruthless,” Upson said. “It’s all about making
decisions and seeing them through and I think he’s got the confidence to do
that. He lets us know if he’s not pleased. After the first half away to
Manchester United, he had a real go at us.” To date, dressing room morale
was intact, despite the club’s financial position. “Football is very
clinical like that,” Upson said. “Whatever happens in the boardroom, it’s
our job, we’re still getting paid and we have to do it to the best of our
ability. I’m not so sure how we’ll all react in the event of a fire sale,
but until, or rather if, that happens, everyone is fine. We’ve had two clean
sheets on the trot now, whereas before we hadn’t had one all season. That’s
a real positive for us to build on.”
The word positive invited England back into the conversation. Consistently
overlooked by Steve McClaren, Upson was recalled to the colours for
Capello’s first game and has improved steadily ever since.
He said: “International football is something you grow into, you need to
understand what’s required of you. In a Premier League game, you can be
outstanding just by defending solidly. At international level you need a bit
more, and that comes with confidence that you can succeed there, which takes
time. I’ve had five opportunities with England in seven months, and I feel a
lot more at home now.”
The fear of failure so evident under McClaren, especially at Wembley, had been
“drummed out of the team” by Capello, Upson felt. “Once you let fear in, you
are history. Under the new set-up, players are starting to really believe
that we could be — that we are — the best in the world. You have to believe
that if you are going to a World Cup. Capello tells us we’re the best and I
think he believes it.” Had not Sven-Göran Eriksson sought to instil the same
belief during his reign? Upson smiled. “I don’t think you could find more
contrasting characters. Sven was very laid back and did very little on the
training ground. Capello knows exactly what he wants and gets his point
across much more forcefully. Unlike Sven, he likes to keep a barrier between
himself and the players.
“He is approachable, you can go and speak to him and ask him about football.
He’s fine about that, he’ll sit down with you and talk, no problem, but in
terms of his relationship with the players he’s not a friend, he’s the boss.
He expects, and commands, a lot of respect. He’s a very impressive man, very
focused, and he’ll do whatever it takes for us to win something. That’s what
he’s there for.”
Upson has been starting for England in the absence of either John Terry or Rio
Ferdinand and admitted he faced a herculean task to split them when both
were available. “It’s going to be very difficult but one of the things I
like about this manager is that it appears he will pick his team on form and
that’s all you can ask for as a player — to be judged on how you are playing
and what shape you are in. I’ll hang in there and try to keep getting in the
squad, which is improving me as a player every time.
“I think I can do the job as well as Rio and JT. If I didn’t believe that,
there wouldn’t be any point me being there. I’m still improving and I always
learn something every time I join up with England.”
Such as? “My body shape when the ball goes wide and I’m defending crosses.
Capello highlighted that in training. I’ve been too focused on the ball and
not enough on where the attacker is around me. It’s quite a common thing in
the Premier League, you’ll see goals conceded every week by defenders
getting attracted to the ball and getting caught out by a run in behind or
across them. Italian defenders keep track of the man as well as the ball.
Capello has told me that if I want to play at international level, I need to
be better at that.”
Something, presumably, you don’t find in the Yellow Pages.
Credit crunch starts to bite
- Liverpool and West Ham are enjoying very different seasons on the field. Off
it, they both face severe financial problems. West Ham's worries are
growing. Icelandic owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson is believed to be looking
urgently for a buyer for the club after losing about £250m in the collapse
of Icelandic bank Landsbanki. To make matters worse, last week the High
Court denied West Ham the right to take the Carlos Tevez affair to the Court
of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, so they may soon face a massive
compensation bill from Sheffield United. The Yorkshire club, relegated at
the end of the 2006-07 season while the Hammers stayed up, largely due to
the efforts of an ineligible player — Tevez — are expected to press a
compensation claim of up to £40m. The London club’s troubles could lead to a
‘fire sale’ in January, when they could sell off more of their prize assets,
such as Matthew Upson and England goalkeeper Robert Green unless a buyer
arrives in time to bale them out
- Liverpool’s problems are almost as pressing. The club owes £350m to two
banks — the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia of North Carolina, both have
which have been hit by the credit crunch. Liverpool are due to repay the
cash in January but have an option to extend the loan until July. After that
the club would find it difficult to extend or refinance the loan, leaving
American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks to raise the cash . . . or sell
up
