By Daniel Taylor
Paul Scholes is receptive to the idea of speaking to Roy Hodgson about the possibility of ending his eight-year exile from the England team. The Manchester United midfielder is not closed off to the notion of rejoining the squad and would speak to Hodgson with an open mind if the new manager wanted to investigate bringing him into his Euro 2012 plans.
Scholes quit the national team in 2004 after becoming disillusioned with the way Sven-Goran Eriksson was playing him out of position and the amount of time it meant being away from his family. Steve McClaren subsequently failed to persuade him he could still play a significant part in the England set-up, and Fabio Capello’s last-minute attempt to bring him back for the 2010 World Cup was also unsuccessful.
However, Scholes rejected the chance to be involved in South Africa only partly for football reasons. Then, like now, the midfielder was open to the idea but Capello did not do enough to convince him. More than anything, Scholes was unimpressed that Capello did not contact him personally, instead using his assistant Franco Baldini to put in the call.
The late nature of that call, just before the England squad was finalised, did not help either, making Scholes believe England’s then manager was not totally set on the idea.
Whether Hodgson has any interest in trying to revive Scholes’s international career, currently stuck on 66 caps, remains to be seen. The England manager names his squad on Wednesday and has an extensive list of other issues to deal with, such as establishing the fitness of Scott Parker and Darren Bent and trying to pick a way through the John Terry-Rio Ferdinand issue. Both centre-halves can expect a call now the season is finished and Hodgson, as suspected, will quickly learn that their relationship is beyond repair as far as Ferdinand is concerned.
Scholes will be 38 later this year and officially retired last summer, saying at the time he could not keep up with the pace of the game. However, he has slipped seamlessly back into the Manchester United side after informing Sir Alex Ferguson he was ready for a comeback in January.
Even if Hodgson did contact him, there are other issues at play. United want Scholes to continue playing for another year and at this stage of his career he would have to establish whether a month-long summer tournament might affect him at club level. Ferguson would almost certainly want his player to have a less demanding summer but, equally, Scholes has shown before that he is his own man.
