James Lawton: Seaman shows why he should retire

Last Hurrah 1: David Seaman has talked long and hard about his potential for redemption with Manchester City this season, but often it is the oldest heads who are in most need of a sharp tap of reality.

Seaman has had a magnificent career but someone - and no one is better placed than his friend and advisor Bob Wilson - needs to tell him that sometimes it is wisest to cut your losses. Since last summer, when cringe-making excuses were advanced for his failure to get to the flight of Ronaldinho's brilliant free-kick, Seaman has been clutching at credibility - on occasions rather like a drowning man.

The decisive goal he conceded against his old club Arsenal on Sunday was as painful as anything suffered either by him or his admirers. In his prime he would have engulfed both his team-mate Sun Jihai and the challenging Robert Pires, and the ball would have been locked in his grasp. Instead, he went in knees first. It was a parody of his old authority.

What they will make of such gaffes on his new celebrity vehicle, the TV panel game They Think It's All Over, is a wince-making thought. Seaman is not noted for razored wit, or the thickness of his skin, but he will presumably be given time to settle in.

Unfortunatly, time is in short supply at the business end of a Premiership game. So is sentiment. Seaman will be 40 in a few weeks' time. It is no age for the world to be wondering if you have lost your nerve.

England ill served by sentiment

Last Hurrah 2: Alec Stewart, like David Seaman, has reason to look back on the bulk of his career with the greatest of pride.

Scrappy, accomplished, a professional to his toes, Stewart has been a superb servant for both Surrey and England. But nothing has served him, or the England selectors, less well than this last summer. It has been a monument to the belief that individual gratification is more important than the requirements of a team.

Never has the need for English cricket to move on been greater. But Stewart's declared ambition to complete his international career at The Oval in the final Test against South Africa has been rubber-stamped by the selectors.

The fact that his wicket-keeping has been poor and that in the last, disastrous Test at Headingley he batted as though caught in somebody's headlights has plainly done nothing to budge the selectors. Why not? Because it is felt Stewart deserves a gloriously sentimental farewell.

The Australians would scoff at such a notion. They believe that every time you play for your country you are privileged, and that the gift is renewable strictly on the basis of form. That's why they are the best in the world and why England are a laughing stock.