By Myles Palmer
Robbie Fowler is England’s Puskas.
He is a really, really gifted footballer, on the same level as Gazza or Zidane or Raul.
Robbie is 25 now and he is on the way back. He is far more talented than Shearer or Cole or Heskey or Owen.
Yes, he is a scally and he had a lot of injuries.
So it became fashionable to say that Robbie being rehabilitated by Gerard Houllier meant that the greatest goalscorer since Jimmy Greaves was not his old self or a new model Robbie either.
That he was was no longer the cheeky, razor-sharp natural genius and neither could he ever become an ultra-aggressive Umbro-robot like Shearer and Owen.
Lets face it, most England players are sliced white bread. They play bread and butter football. And on a good day they play toast and butter football.
Even Beckham is not great, he’s just a good footballer, a good quarterback, a good delivery man, nothing more.
But now and again, every six years or so , the England team becomes interesting.
As it did when Beardsley came into the side in 1986, when Gazza announced himself in 1990, and when Scholes arrived in Le Tournoi in 1997.
Beardsley, Gazza and Scholes added a bit of marmalade and that made the toast taste better.
Now Robbie Fowler can do the same.
I’ve heard a whisper that he has been on fire in training. He is playing out of his skin. They had a training game on Thursday, bibs against the rest, and the score was 4-0.
Guess who scored all four goals?
That’s right. Robbie Fowler scored all four goals.
If he is now 90% as good as he was when he was firing hat-tricks past Schmeichel and Seaman then Robbie Fowler is England’s MVP- and that includes the gingernut from Salford.
Robbie can PLAY as well as score goals and he would fit in beautifully with Andy Cole.
A dream-ticket : Cole and Fowler go together like gin & tonic, like Morecambe & Wise, like Eminem and chainsaws.
Arsene Wenger is in Paris for the France – Japan game.
Maybe he will watch England – Finland on TV if his game is a night kick-off. If he does and Fowler destroys the Finns, he might wish he had managed England. Because he wanted to work with Fowler.
Wenger can’t get him. So he wants to sign Francis Jeffers from Everton in the summer.
There again, a rather dreary Hold The Back Page last night reckoned it was Owen and Cole.I don’t fancy that combo at all. But England should scrape a win anyway.
We shall soon see if Robbie gets a game.
Have a good weekend!
23 March 2001.