Ricketts In, Savage Cries

Monday, 14 March 2005, 0:00
2 mins read

Ricketts Called Up – Savage Buggers Off

Sam Ricketts has every chance of being given his first competitive start for Wales after he was named in John Toshack’s squad for the forthcoming double header with Austria, starting in Cardiff a week on Saturday.

The bad news from the Swans perspective is that it means that Ricketts will miss both the Macclesfield game at the Vetch on March 25 together with the Cheltenham game on Easter Monday which could add to the woes of Kenny Jackett who faces up to the possibility of being without Lee Trundle for the same games following his red card on the weekend.

Ricketts was an impressive debutant in the friendly win over Hungary last month and clearly did enough in front of the watching Toshack last weekend to suggest that he could make the grade at full competitive level. With Wales’ World Cup dreams already pretty much dead there is every chance that Ricketts could play in one, if not both internationals as Wales start to look towards Euro 2008 already.

Meanwhile, big girl’s blouse Robbie Savage announced his retirement from international football today co-incidentally just after he was told he was not being included in the squad for the coming games. Toshack said on the call he made to Savage "I told him I wanted to have a look at something else. He said he was retiring anyway and the line went dead."

But Savage had a differing view of things as he winged, flicking his hair back "He said he’s leaving me out of the next couple of squads and I did say that it made my decision for me," Savage told BBC Radio Five Live.

"The man obviously doesn’t like me. But obviously I’m devastated."

Clearly Savage felt he was so devastated that he had to retire immediately from the squad because his ‘talent’ would be so missed that it was ‘humiliating’ to be left out of the squad.

Savage was against the appointment of Toshack after the resignation of Mark Hughes mainly because the great man had the cheek to criticise the performances of Savage and his Welsh team mates in the past. As he proved in his move from Birmingham to Blackburn recently Savage is clearly a man who has become more and more spoilt the longer his career has progressed and it is possibly about time he should realise that had he been born English then the nearest he would have got to any level of international football would have been watching it from the stands.

Wales is better off without the man who spent most of his career running round like a headless chicken and moaning away when anything doesn’t go his way. At least he can console himself that he is now where he wants to be at Blackburn that is of course until he gets the idea in his head that somewhere else is better.

Good luck to Sam in the double header and at least Wales can have other footballers that they can be proud of and forget the fact that Robbie Savage ever played for his country.

Wales squad to play Austria in World Cup Group Six qualifiers on 26 March in Cardiff and 30 March in Vienna: Coyne (Burnley), Jones (Wolves), Price (Ipswich), Delaney (Aston Villa), J.Collins (Cardiff), D.Collins (Sunderland), Page (Cardiff), Gabbidon (Cardiff), Edwards (Wolves), Partridge (Motherwell), Ricketts (Swansea), Roberts (Tranmere), Davies (Tottenham), Fletcher (West Ham), Williams (West Ham), Koumas (West Brom), Earnshaw (West Brom), Giggs (Man Utd), Robinson (Sunderland), Bellamy (Newcastle – on loan to Celtic), Hartson (Celtic).

Images courtesy of Getty Images, Athena Picture Agency and Swansea City Football Club.

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