Ruud not rewarded for his talent

A new chapter in the career of striker Ruud van Nistelrooy is looming with the Dutchman set for a transfer to Hamburg. There is no doubt that he has made scoring goals a clinical art form, but his career has been blighted by injuries and Sam Wallace in the Independent feels Van Nistelrooy has not picked up the silverware that his talent merits.

As Ruud van Nistelrooy completes the last transfer of his career this week he will surely reflect that, as a striker who has scored so many goals in his career, he has not won as much as his talent deserved.

The right man in the right place at the wrong time – the story of Van Nistelrooy's life. At Manchester United he scored 150 goals in 219 games but his five years there fell between two epic eras at the club and all Van Nistelrooy had to show for it was one Premier League medal and one FA Cup winners' medal. Less talented players at Old Trafford have won much more than Van Nistelrooy ever did.

To complain about winning only three league titles in England and Spain might seem ungrateful but the big players measure out their success by the big prizes and Van Nistelrooy never got close to winning the Champions League. He is the competition's second-highest goalscorer of all time and has never been further than the semi-finals.

Arsene Wenger made his standard gambit by shuffling his pack for the FA Cup clash with Stoke. It backfired as Arsenal were beaten and James Lawton of the Independent feels the move could have an impact on their challenge for Premier League and Champions League glory.

It was a self-inflicted wound at a pivotal point of a season of promise in which the FA Cup offered itself as probably Arsenal's best chance of ending the trophy drought of recent years.

There was another familiar victim. It was the old tournament itself and any sense that it might not necessarily be doomed to the status of a cup of convenience, somewhere you commit yourself wholeheartedly only when all else is lost.

This was the third successive season in which Arsenal made an inglorious exit which brought heavy questions about their ability to settle down to some serious accumulation of lost glory. In 2008 a brilliant run in the Premiership began to unravel after a humiliating 4-0 thrashing at Old Trafford, one in which, of all people, Nani was able to strut around like some Latin reincarnation of George Best.