great Rory Smith column on Terry, the English, heroes, and Zonal Marking.

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England does not appreciate this. This is a Roy of the Rovers nation, one in which passing was widely regarded as suspicious in football's early years because it was not as manly as charging directly at your opposite number. This is a country where heroes put their bodies on the line, where they hurl themselves at the feet of their foe, where games are there to be taken by the scruff of the neck.

Terry, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and, going back, Bryan Robson are all cast in this mould. They are men of action; they are the ones we place on pedestals and celebrate. Players who do not appear to be doing much - the elder, improving Stam, for example - are seen as indolent, ineffectual.

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But English football does not like [zonal marking]. Because English football struggles with what it cannot see. It does not like players who do not make tackles because they do not fit with the narrative of heroism and triumph that we apply to the game.

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I found the whole "reason" behind Sir Alex selling Jaap Stam interesting.

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