Happy Ending for Neil Roberts, But Not Us

It seems Neil Roberts has called time on his playing career to take up an opportunity at Manchester City.

It's a brilliant opportunity for him, and naturally I wish him well. He's a fine man and will suit a role which appears to require decency and common sense as he's well-endowed with both qualities. His decision casts the ludicrous decision of Brian Little to release him into an even starker light, though.

Little called time on his career in the pyramid when there was plenty more for him to offer. I remember Roberts saying, as our relegation season drew to a conclusion, that he wanted to stay on and fight our cause in the Conference and I was delighted that, although we were likely to lose players, our best performer would make the drop with us. Incredibly, Little didn't see it that way.

There's no slight towards Rhyl ntended-I've developed a soft spot for them and it's good to see them making a strong start to the season when some of the players who took them to the title last year are gone. However, it would be interesting to see if Roberts would decide to stop playing if he received this offer while he was still playing for his hometown club.

We'll never know the answer, of course, although I can't deny that, as I look at a Wrexham midfield which is crying out for someone to take control in the centre of the pitch, I can't help wondering how things might have turned out if our player of the season hadn't been immediately jettisoned by a manager whose reasoning was, to put it mildly, flawed.

I can only wish Little's new club, Gainsborough Trinity, the best of luck. They'll need it!

Man City Podcasts

The Man City podcast is now up at the temporary site (http://finalwhistle.podomatic.com/) featuring Dean Saunders, Wes Baynes and Glyn Hodges.

Get Scouting!

We won't be seeing Carlos Tevez or Emanuel Adebayor, or even John Terry at The Racecourse this afternoon, but it'll still be fascinating to look at City's team. They might all be young lads, but Dean Saunders clearly has contacts at Eastlands as he regularly plunders their reserves for signings-four so far! So watch carefully-a couple of our players for the coming season might be lining up against us today!

If we're playing the percentages, we might look at their right back, of course, as we're supposed to be looking at a Premiership player in that position. Well, so far in their pre-season City have been playing Shaleum Logan at right back, but yesterday he signed for Tranmere on loan.

Hmmm...a Man City right back with first team experience who was available on loan. Have we missed out on a target there?

Fair Play to Fairhurst

All credit to Nathan Fairhurst-he's shown an attitude you don't seem to find too often in the modern game.

We tend to see players putting their short term advancement first these days-hell, Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't cope with losing thirty minutes of me-time against Manchester City last Sunday, could he?

So to see Nathan Fairhurst reject a contract with Preston in order to get first team football three divisions lower is quite something. He talks, most logically, about taking a step backwards in order to take a step forwards in the future, and in doing so illustrates that he has the sort of cool head we need as we continue to look for a way out of the turmoil.

But his signature is important for reasons far beyond that. For me the crucial factor which destabilised our promotion push was when Fairhurst's excellent partnership with Andy Fleming was disrupted to accommodate Andy Crofts.

Fairhurst had really settled into the role and was playing well when he was dropped-in fact the way he was marginalised made me worry that we were destroying our hopes of signing him permanently-a concern which grew when Crofts missed the last two games of the season but Tom Kearney was selected ahead of Fairhurst!

Still, Fairhurst has signed the dotted line, and he may prove to be Saunders' greatest coup. He spoke soon after he arrived of convincing the on-loan players to stay even though they were too good for The Conference. While his temporary signings represented his best pieces of business, I think it's fair to say that by the time the dust had settled on the campaign, Fairhurst was the on-loan player who looked most like he ought to be playing at a higher level. In signing him, Saunders has got the pre-season off to an excellent start.

Giggs' International Commitment

Watching Ryan Giggs play in the Manchester derby reminded me of why I don't miss him in a Wales shirt.

Perhaps it's a fit of unreasonable optimism, fuelled by an impressive performance by Toshack's youngsters last week, but when I saw that Giggs was in the crowd at The Racecourse I couldn't help seeing the irony. He chose not to represent his country any more, and was hardly a reliable attender when he was available. At least he turns up now he's not needed!

The thing about Giggs against Man City was that he was his usual Man United self. Any decision that goes against him is followed by a stunned expression and a volley of dissent, no matter how clearly correct it was; every decision against a team mate when Giggs is in range is followed by the winger chasing an haranguing the ref.

I'm not saying he's the worst offender in football in this regard by any means, although his wounded expression does get under my skin a bit! What gets my goat is that he never seemed to do that when he was in a Wales shirt! I can't help feeling that his behaviour suggests he cared more about his club than his country; even if that's not fair, noticing his less committed demeanour in internationals made me wonder whether it was linked to his subdued performance for Wales compared to what he did for United.

Add in how rarely he turned up for friendlies in the past and the case builds furter momentum. How can he justify retiring from international football early to avoid burn-out? He saved himself countless hours on the pitch as a young man by not attending internationals-he should be fresh as a daisy!

It all made his stage-managed departure from his final international stick in my throat. He was given the privilege of an early substitution so he could enjoy a standing ovation, which shocked me. Quite apart from what I have just said, this was a competitive game. We were drawing at the time, there was still enough time to get a winner and at the time we still had a faint hope of qualifying for Euro 08 (Oh yes, did I neglect to mention he deserted his country aklf way through a qualifying campaign?) Even if our chances were slim, yoru final position in the group determines how tough your group for the next tournament will be, so there was plenty to play for. Maybe we shouldn't have turned what was a mediocre game into a sideshow for saying farewell to a mediocre international career.

To be fair to Giggs he didn't dump on the nation like the shameful Mark Hughes apparatchiks who deserted the scene when John Toshack, a gesture I genuinely admire him for. It's just that every time I see him snarl at a Premiership referee I feel a lot more proud to be Welsh than he is.