Psycho left his mark on me... let's hope he does the same with England

By Robbie Savage

Published 22:57 23/02/12

Why Rafa is not the gaffer Chelsea need

No anthems is a national disgrace at Carling Cup  

I hope Stuart Pearce leaves as big an impression on England as he once did on me.

I was playing West Ham with Leicester just over a decade ago when Psycho and I decided to go for a 50-50 ball. He got there first, I caught him in the chest and to be honest, I thought I'd killed him. He lay there for ages, winded.

Then Pearce dragged himself to his feet, pulled his shorts up around his midriff and looked me straight in the eye with a look that said "next time, you're mine".

And when next time rolled around, I was.

Stuart has laid another kind of marker down with his England squad to face Holland on Wednesday. I like some of it - never picking Micah Richards was a shocking blind spot of Fabio Capello's - and can't understand other bits.

Fraizer Campbell hasn't yet earned an England cap for me, whereas Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looks so explosive I'm shocked he's not in the side , even if it was at the expense of team-mate Theo Walcott.

Some of the other players he has left out, like Frank Lampard, Jermaine Defoe, Michael Dawson and Michael Carrick, will almost certainly be back for the Euros when Harry Redknapp gets the England job, though I don't think any will start.

But going straight back into not just the squad but the team should be Rio Ferdinand, who has come back to form and fitness with United recently and will be needed in Poland and Ukraine as a steadying influence on his club team-mates Phil Jones and Chris Smalling, either of whom should partner him at the centre of defence.

**

Wolves are a great club and Jez Moxey is a good man, so it distresses me to see them still without a manager nearly two weeks after sacking Mick McCarthy.

With Alan Curbishley, Brian McDermott,  Gus Poyet and now Walter Smith all out of the running, you have to doubt the wisdom of firing Big Mick without having a successor in place.

The club is run on a tight budget, which would naturally deter some managers. A inability to spend now the transfer window is closed will put off others.

What Wolves need now is an available big-name manager with Premier League experience and a huge personality to lift the players.

When you add all that up, I think the best person to replace Mick McCarthy is... Mick McCarthy.

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