Micah Richards demands sea and sympathy

There will have been plenty of his favourite tipple, rum punch. “This is my very first time here and I love it, mate,” he said, in a respite from the pool parties.

No time to stop for a minute, stare out over the Caribbean sea and reflect that he looks a dunce.

Because had Richards said a simple “yes” to going on England’s standby list, he would not have been carousing in Caribbean nightspots but preparing to travel to Euro 2012 instead of Martin Kelly.

He would have had a decent chance of playing in his first leading tournament, perhaps coming on for Glen Johnson, given the first-choice right back is a little rusty. He could have impressed Roy Hodgson and given himself a chance of an England future. But pride got in the way. Foolish pride.

What is it with sensitive England players being far too high and mighty to be on a standby list? We might begin to understand it from Michael Carrick, who has never looked like he enjoyed playing for his country. Yet even his refusal seems odd given Carrick would now be one small strain of Scott Parker’s troublesome Achilles from the starting XI.

Peter Crouch also declined to be among the reserves and while he might claim that, at 31, he is too long in the tooth to be filling in, let us hear no more pleading for sympathy next time he is overlooked.

Least explicable of all is Richards, whose apologists continue, laughably, to talk of the defender being “snubbed” by England when it is indisputable who did the rejecting. Only the reasons are unfathomable.

We are told that the call came from Stuart Pearce rather than Hodgson, but so what? For the record, the England Under-21 head coach also rang two other players about being on the standby list because he knew them better than Hodgson. They seem to have had no problem answering the simple question: do you want to play for England or not?

The Richards camp say that he was given only three hours to consider whether to join the squad reserves. Yet to say “yes” could have taken three seconds. Now there is a complaint that Hodgson sent a terse text of disappointment the day after Richards’s rejection. What did the defender expect? The England manager to be crying down the phone, pleading for a change of heart?

Richards has done plenty of complaining about being ignored by England. Now, from a foolish fit of pique, he has turned down the opportunity.

An insult to put him on the standby list? Plenty of judges would rank him behind Kyle Walker and Johnson at right back, and he does not have Phil Jones’s versatility to play in three positions.

He has enjoyed a decent, championship-winning season with Manchester City but his bullish physique has raised longstanding questions about his flexibility. Lack of self-awareness must now be the biggest concern.

Compare his tantrum with the case of another England player who had once planned a holiday in the Caribbean before a significant tournament. Phil Neville was sitting on a beach in Barbados in May 2006 when the call came that Nigel Reo-Coker would have to drop off the World Cup standby list through injury.

Neville, at 29 and having already won most of his 59 caps, was invited to make up the numbers in training and to sit on the bench at the Madejski Stadium for a B international against Belarus.

The Everton defender had little to no chance of making the tournament but he did not think twice about leaving his wife and kids on the beach to answer his country’s call. “At 29 years old, people said I should have told [Sven-Göran] Eriksson to get lost,” he said some time later. “But that is not in my make-up. To get the call to come back from Barbados, even if it was only for training, was the best three days of my summer.

“I didn’t think the manager was right in not selecting me but you’ve just got to keep fighting because you can’t move to another country. It’s so special playing for this country that it’s worth the fight.

“I could not have turned down the chance because if somebody did get injured and I had stayed in Barbados, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”

How long will Richards regret it for? That depends on if and when he ever gets back into the reckoning, which has to be doubtful given that Walker will return after the tournament. Now that Richards has shown such questionable commitment, will Hodgson give him another chance?

At 23, Richards might just have blown his best chance of playing for his country in a leading tournament. As an over-age player for the Olympics, he can hardly count on that.

It is all so odd from a player who has complained so long and so loud about being ignored by England. Only recently he said: “If I was to get on the plane, I would be the proudest man.” Yet there he was in Jamaica, hanging round a pool and declaring his philosophy on life to a local paper.

“Whatever it is that you’re doing, give it 100 per cent or don’t do it at all,” he said.

Richards chose not to do it at all with England. Let’s hear no more tiresome complaints from him about snubs.

Parker must use his head

As Scott Parker throws himself into another meaty challenge, admiration for his courage and endeavour has to be tempered with alarm. No top international midfield player should ever be required to stretch themselves so far.

Parker has worked assiduously to earn the chance to play for England at his first significant tournament but an Achilles problem has taken a yard off a player who was never the quickest before injury.

This summer, we will praise the way Parker risks his own body by hurling himself into desperate blocks while reflecting that it should never be necessary to make tackles with your head. It is hard to remember Claude Makelele doing that.