Lost boy shines out of the hole
The Scholes verdict
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Your support makes all the difference.Once, when Beckham-mania was climbing towards its higher Himalayan proportions, Paul Scholes was asked how he would cope if he had the same attention as a person he had known as a friend since he was 14. "I couldn't," he said with a shudder, "I couldn't."
Scholes is shy like Beckham is famous. He prefers to go about his work without fuss or clamour, welcoming a microphone with the same enthusiasm that Roman emperors had for strangers with daggers. Not the least punishment for him in the last week has been the public scrutiny invited by his transformation from a quiet, model professional into a quiet rebel.
Quite how astonished Sir Alex Ferguson was when Scholes, of all people, defied his instruction to play against Arsenal last Monday is anyone's guess, but you can be sure he was. This, after all, was a footballer who had grown up the Fergie way. A fine of £100,000 will not have helped heal the rift that has grown because of Ferguson's employment of Scholes as a subsidiary striker in Manchester United's 4-4-1-1 formation. He does not like the position, he is unsure where he should be and, in a world where confidence is everything his has descended into "the hole" which he is supposed to be filling.
For Scholes to protest by refusing to play against Arsenal is as loud a sign of desperation as his personality would allow and his worries have an international dimension, too. He may have been one of England's most effective performers in his 40 games, but if he cannot get into his club's first team his prospects of retaining his lofty position in Sven Goran Eriksson's estimation are not enhanced.
He was a troubled man training with England at United's complex at Carrington last week and he cannot have been helped by the presence of the manager with whom he is at loggerheads watching behind the glass.
"He has been smiling," Eriksson said, discounting suggestions that club problems had affected Scholes, and it is a fair bet that the redhead, with a temper to match in his formative years, regarded the team and the tactics with quiet satisfaction here yesterday. He was in his preferred position, with two strikers and double the passing options ahead of him.
The hesitant figure in a red shirt looked a wholly more comfortable one in white, as he filled a role with which he was thoroughly familiar, linking play behind Kevin Phillips and Emile Heskey. No longer did he have a marker hard up behind him but was free to break late into the opposition area, arriving after defences have been prepared.
Perhaps the bust-up with Ferguson helped lift the tension, because he was a far happier figure than during his last international, when he and Steven Gerrard both under-performed at the core of England's team. This time he looked so at ease that he achieved more in the first five minutes than he had in his last five matches for United.
"I want you to drop hand grenades all over the pitch," Kevin Keegan used to tell Scholes when he was England manager and within two minutes yesterday the player had the pin in his hand, his shot blocked only by a lunge by a Swedish defender. Soon afterwards he was racing down the right ahead of his strikers to receive a long throw-in from Gary Neville. He looked like a man relieved of doubts, a player doing things that come naturally.
That manifests itself most potently with his quick mind and feet in the most crowded areas of the pitch and he almost prised apart the Swedes with a double dose of invention after 16 minutes. First he adroitly stuck out his chest to divert the ball to Heskey, then followed up with a pass to Nicky Butt. Both were instinctive pieces of skill, both had the opposition guessing.
Scholes is a good long passer, too, and it was his 40-yard ball to Phillips that discomfited the Swedes enough to give Heskey and Trevor Sinclair the space to earn England's penalty. The kick could have been handed to him – he has scored from the spot for United – but, true to their preferred positions in life, it was Beckham who thrived in the glare.
Scholes was replaced by Frank Lampard yesterday, but only after 85 minutes and long after he had made a point with a performance that confirmed his importance to England.
That was the easy part. Now he has to explain himself to Ferguson.
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