Robert Green did himself no favours with nervy performance for England against Slovenia

By Paul Smith in

Published 21:54 05/09/09

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West Ham’s Robert Green was presented with the perfect opportunity to stake a real claim for the number one jersey yesterday, writes Paul Smith .

The man he is looking to replace, Portsmouth’s David James, looked on from the comfort of his living room armchair after he was omitted from Fabio Capello’s 24-man squad suffering some discomfort with a knee injury.

Capello is keen to see Green and Manchester United’s Ben Foster advance their claims for the role.

While James is still in possession of the shirt, England’s Italian coach is open-minded about whether he will remain his first choice going into the World Cup finals in South Africa next summer.

Sources close to him claim Foster is far more of a threat than Green and is widely considered to be the long-term successor to the Pompey keeper.

And if Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson had followed the letter of the law, Foster would have been given an early and unexpected opportunity to push those claims.

With barely three minutes on the clock Green came to collect a Slovenian through ball and clearly handled it well outside his area.

The offence went completely unpunished much to the relief of Green.

Even the 39-year-old James who worked tirelessly to rid himself of the unwanted calamitous tag has stopped short of adding that one to his collection.

Green’s immediate reaction to the mistake wouldn’t have pleased Capello either as he looked fragile and uncertain in the minutes that followed as Slovenia threatened his goal.

Foster looked on from the England bench and must wonder if he had inadvertently been responsible for Green’s selection ahead of him.

He has been given an extended opportunity of first-team football at Manchester United because of Edwin van der Sar’s broken finger.

But his own injury problems – including the bruised knee that kept him out of the friendly match away to Holland this month – have helped Green to be considered in the short-term ahead of him.

With England leading 1-0 at the break Capello made four outfield substitutions.

His decision to leave Green on the field merely indicated that he would retain his place in the side ahead of Foster for the crucial World Cup qualifying game against Croatia at Wembley on Wednesday.

It was hard to establish the criteria for Capello’s assessment, as Green was as much of a spectator as James was.

On the odd occasions he was called into action you wondered whether he was doing more damage to his chances than good.

There is nervousness about Green that does not breed confidence.

And when Slovenia breached his goal with four minutes remaining you were left wondering whether he was about to burst into tears.

He wasn’t largely to blame for the goal that came about from poor defending but there was no doubt he could have done a lot better.

Whether Capello takes the decision to bring Foster in on Wednesday now is largely open to speculation.

But it would be hard to see how Green and his chances of establishing himself ahead of James in the long-term could have impressed him.

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