While his recent club and international performances are obviously deserving of praise, I think the English media are overdoing it with claims that David Beckham’s now the best player in the world. He isn’t, not by a long shot. But there is a lot to admire about his game.

He’s certainly worked hard to improve in areas, which until recently were very poor. A couple of seasons ago you hardly ever saw him helping the defence or winning the ball back, but now he covers every blade of grass and never shies away from a tackle. In the heat of the battle, that makes a big difference.

What he’s always been is one of the best passers of the ball in the game. His accuracy over 40, 50 yards is breathtaking but, in terms of overall ability, he’s still a bit behind Luis Figo, a fit Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Zinadine Zidane.

For me, Zidane is the best player in the world. When he’s up for it, that is. I’ve seen a couple of games where you think, “Mmm, he’s going through the motions a bit.” But most of the time, he’s got bite and commitment, as well as amazing skill.

Somebody asked me the other day whether I thought David Beckham was more important to England than Roy Keane is to Ireland, and I said “No”. Not because Keano is necessarily a better player, but because there’s no one else in the squad who can do what he does. He’s so integral to the team that if he’s missing, things start to unravel a bit.

England have that little bit of extra depth, which means that losing Beckham would be a blow rather than a disaster.

I’ve only met David a couple of times, but he strikes me as a genuinely nice lad who’s done brilliantly well to bounce back from his 1998 World Cup sending off. The abuse that he and his family had to put up with at certain grounds was shocking. A few eyebrows were raised when Sven handed him the England captaincy, but he’s dealt brilliantly with that too.

I don’t think there’s anyone around at the moment, though, who’s in the same league as Diego Maradona. I played against him once and despite being skinned by him on numerous occasions, it was an absolute joy to see what he could do, at close range.

Did he have any weaknesses? Apart from taking cocaine, no! His balance and movement were so perfect that you were doing well to get a tackle in. The frightening thing is that if he hadn’t been dabbling in drugs, he might’ve been even better.

I wasn’t at Old Trafford for the Deportivo game, but even watching on the telly, you could feel Fabian Barthez’s pain! One mistake is bad enough, but two is unforgivable. He’d have gone into the dressing-room afterwards, held his hands up and said, “Sorry lads!”

Knowing Alex as I do, I imagine he’d have let things go on the night, but called Fabian in the next day and said, “Look, sometimes you’ve got to let the defenders defend.” It’s great that he’s such a character and wants to be involved all

the time, but sometimes his concentration seems to go.

The biggest Paul McGrath blunder actually wasn’t my fault! It happened when I was at Aston Villa: I got a call from Mark Bosnich and the other-centre back, Ugo Ehiogu, to leave the ball when Villa were playing at Queen’s Park Rangers. I ducked, unaware that Daniel Dichio was a couple of feet behind me and ideally placed to find the back of the net. None of the so-and-sos owned up to it at full-time, so it was me who got bollocked by Ron. Why I chose to listen to those two eejits, I’ll never know!

Team-wise, the two biggest ‘mares I was involved in were the 5-1 defeats suffered by Aston Villa against Arsenal and Man U against Everton. I generally prided myself on keeping the goal tally down, so they really hurt. God knows how West Ham were feeling after Blackburn destroyed them 7-1.

There were two things which put football into perspective for me this fortnight. The first was the news that Liverpool manager Gerard Houlier was undergoing emergency heart surgery.

Inevitably, people are going to look on the downside and say that football management’s not for men over a certain age. But the likes of Gerard live for football and he’s a really good manager. Bobby Robson’s got enough money in the bank not to ever have to work again, but there he is in an ultra-high pressure job at Newcastle, and doing well too.

Alex Ferguson worries me sometimes the way he goes red-in-the-face during games, but that’s him totally immersing himself in the play.

Still, he’s only got to make it to the end of the

season!

The second thing was about a different kind of life and death issue, where the Chelsea players had to decide whether or not to go to Israel for their UEFA Cup tie against Hapoel Tel Aviv. This is not something I usually say about Ken Bates, but the way he left it to the Chelsea players to make their own minds up reeked of common sense. I can understand the supporters who’d travelled feeling betrayed, but you’ve got to remember that these guys have wives and families.

If there was a 100% way of guaranteeing somebody’s safety, you wouldn’t have had that Israeli minister getting shot last week. I was talking to my wife, Caroline, about it and we agreed that I probably would have gone, albeit with serious reservations.

The villains of the piece, really, are UEFA, who should have postponed or moved the match. I wonder how many of their high-ranking officials were in the stands watching?