DAVID BECKHAM says he has proved he can still play a vital role for England – even though he has no chance of keeping up with the lightning-quick pace of Theo Walcott.
Walcott, 19, announced his arrival at international level with a stunning hat-trick in the 4-1 win in Croatia and kept his place on the right side of midfield against Kazakhstan on Saturday.[>
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The FA used his face to advertise the Kazakhstan game and it subsequently sold out. Arsenal man Walcott has now been tipped to replace Beckham as England’s most valuable asset, both on and off the pitch.[>
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But Beckham demonstrated that he is not ready to hand over the baton just yet with an impressive substitute display at Wembley on Saturday.[>
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He received a standing ovation when he replaced Walcott with 11 minutes remaining and was cheered every time he touched the ball.[>
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He also made an impact on the match, producing the free-kick from which striker Wayne Rooney scored his second and England’s fourth goal in their 5-1 success. “I’m pleased that I came on and got involved,” said Beckham. “It’s one of the things you have substitutes for – to come on and create goals and chances.[>
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“Thankfully I managed to create a couple against Kazakhstan that helped the team. But it does not matter about individual performances too much.[>
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“Theo has been great and he played well again – and you see what a good player and how big a threat he is.[>
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“Once he gets the ball and runs at players, no one can get near him. He deserves to be where he is because he’s an exceptional talent. A couple of people have asked whether I have been working on my pace to try to challenge Theo. But no, I definitely haven’t been – because I never had it in the first place.”[>
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Walcott started brightly against Kazakhstan, creating an early chance for Emile Heskey and causing plenty of trouble for the visiting defenders.[>
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He did not manage to make a major impact in the second half but is sensible enough to realise that he cannot always expect to grab the glory.[>
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“The main thing was the three points,” said Walcott. “That was the target before the game, to get nine points from the three games and we did that as well as scoring plenty of goals.[>
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“I was getting a lot of joy early on in the first half. The second half slowed down a bit but the main thing was that the team played really well. The fans are probably going to expect me to score a hat-trick all the time but it’s obviously not going to happen in every game. You just have to work hard and try as hard as you can in every game.[>
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“Every player can have days where it doesn’t quite go for you, when it’s not going to be your day and I’ll take my positives out of this game, learn from the negatives and, hopefully, take it into the Belarus game.[>
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“I’ll just keep working hard, keep training well and hope that Mr Capello picks me in the England team.[>
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“What happened in Croatia hasn’t changed me at all – it has just been the same old Theo.”[>
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Walcott started the game on Saturday on the right side of a front three, but was moved back to the right wing as part of England manager Fabio Capello’s half-time change.[>
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Steven Gerrard did not have a lot of success in either the 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 formations, but Beckham dismissed theories that the partnership with Frank Lampard failed once again.[>
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“I thought it was fine,” said Beckham. “Obviously, the manager decided to change it in the second half and we just had to break them down.[>
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“If we had done that in the first half, then we would have got a couple more goals. The expectation was that we would go out there and win 5-0. But we didn’t get the early goal, which meant we had to keep on plodding along and keep creating chances.”[>
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Beckham felt experience was crucial against Kazakhstan after the goalless first half. “That was the key to the win,” he said.[>
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“We always knew that it would be frustrating until we did get that first goal because the expectancy was there for us to win the game by five or six goals.[>
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“At half-time, there was no panic because we knew we had enough to kick on. It will be a tough game on Wednesday but we have another result in the bag and now we move on.”[>
