International – Becks still readers’ favourite

Eurosport – Thu, 14 Feb 10:22:00 2008

David Beckham has emerged as eurosport.yahoo.com readers’ preferred choice for the right midfield berth in the England team after winning nearly 40% of the 19,000 votes in our poll.

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• Poll: Who should play on the right for England?

The LA Galaxy midfielder – now apparently known as ‘D-Beck’ thanks to showbiz pal Snoop Dogg – won the vote by a clear margin from Shaun Wright-Phillips, David Bentley and Aaron Lennon.

New England boss Fabio Capello is a man who famously takes little notice of popular opinion and if the results of the poll are anything to go by, that’s probably a good thing.

The Italian’s dispassionate decision to deny Beckham his 100th cap for the time being will not have gone down very well with the 39% of you who selected Goldenballs as your preferred choice for the number seven shirt, while a quarter of our voters were unimpressed that Chelsea‘s Shaun Wright-Phillips had to settle for a place on the bench in the friendly against Switzerland.

In fact, in a kind of inverse reflection of reality, the man who took all the plaudits for his performance on the right in that game – David Bentley – garnered a meagre 19% of the votes.

Propping up the pile like some freakish circus balancing act is the diminutive Aaron Lennon – at 5’5″ the smallest player in the Premier League and with 17% of the votes your least favourite English right midfielder. Until Jermaine Pennant receives a call-up, presumably.