Keown, master of the marshalling arts, backs war on divers

England World Cup folklore will, no doubt, record that he was last man in; the gnarled features of Martin Keown preferred by Sven Goran Eriksson to the fresh-faced innocence of Matt Jansen in the original squad. Yet, you just wonder.

Eriksson has a propensity for balls switched swiftly out of defence to his pacy front-men. He likes his defenders to be versatile, seeking openings as much as denying them to the opposition. But the Swede is wily enough to know that every team needs a Keown. At some stage in this tournament he will want a Batistuta or a Larsson man-marked. He will want someone to maintain a closer contact to the opposition's attackers than an Oxford Street pickpocket, a character to block and to commit himself to a last-ditch tackle when others have failed in their duties. Then the Arsenal veteran will come into his own.

Keown doesn't have much time for conspiracy theories; like the one that Tord Grip insisted on his inclusion after watching him perform in the climactic game at Old Trafford between the champions and the champions-elect.

"A bad game might not have helped me, but I believe the manager would have made up his mind a long time before that about who was going and who wasn't," Keown insists. "Anyway, I was just focused on trying to win the title rather than thinking about anything else."

Nevertheless, he was a man possessed that night with an absolute desire to claim that championship medal, particularly after having played little part in the FA Cup final element of the Double four days earlier.

At times, the man so familiar for his eye-bulging and contortions of the facial muscles he ought to sit as a gargoyle model, was in danger of losing his composure at Old Trafford, notably when he was convinced that Ruud van Nistelrooy had dived. Not surprisingly, Keown greets with approval the reports that referees have been instructed to clampdown on "diving" in this World Cup. "It's great," he says. "There's nothing more frustrating than when someone dives and the ref waves play on. And if he points to the spot, I get booked or sent off."

However, it will have been his sheer obduracy in not allowing a United man past that will have taken Grip's eye rather than any display of dubious temperament. "A lot is said about centre-forwards being instinctive finishers," he says. "Some of us are instinctive defenders. Forwards can smell a chance. I can smell danger. It comes from experience and understanding opponents." And he knows Gabriel Batistuta exceedingly well. "If I'm up against him, I'll look forward to it," Keown says grimly.

He would appearadmirably suited to a confrontation with the potentially abrasive Argentines. "I seem to be getting a bit of a reputation, don't I?" Keown says ruefully. "All I know is the game still has to be played within the rules. I like to think I play in an honest fashion, though if it gets physical then I can also look after myself."

Keown, 36 at the start of the next Premiership season, won the first of his 42 caps against France in 1992. However, he didn't feature in France 98 and, when he was omitted from the initial squad to face Paraguay in the final home friendly, it was assumed a similar fate was to befall him. But Sol Campbell and Ugo Ehiogu were injured in their FA Cup semi-final, and Keown was called back in. "If it hadn't been for those injuries maybe it would have been difficult for me to have got into the squad," he says. "But I was unlucky in the first place when I broke my leg at Blackburn because that opened the door for others. Then suddenly the door opened for me again."

Eriksson can only pray that other casualties heal as obligingly as Keown. "The bone snapped right the way through," the Arsenal defender recalls nonchalantly. "But I was running within six weeks and playing within eight weeks. The physios at Arsenal kept me believing. It was mind over matter. I knew that I was going to have to play with a bit of pain, otherwise I wouldn't be in action again this season."

And certainly not in his first World Cup.