A brilliant new scientific method has been devised to assess the ability of footballers. University eggheads believe that this approach might just revolutionise football management and punditry. Dr Zytuz Xuvv (pictured), Senior Lecturer in Clinical Conjecture at the University of Middlesex explains all:

“This new system is called the ‘Player Name Integer-Conversion Interface’. Based on a simple but ingenious principle, this tool accurately assesses the ability of footballers and may thus aid squad and team selection. Quite simply the player’s skills are quantified according to each of the letters in their name. A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on. The sum total is then divided by the amount of letters in the name to provide a ‘Player Name Integer-Conversion Interface Mean’. For example, Joe Cole’s name adds up to 65 (J=10, O=15, etc) we divide this by the number of letters in his name (7), and his ‘mean’ therefore equals 9.3.

“Psychologists have proven in clinical trials that humans become hardwired at an early age to have more reverence and respect for letters lower in the alphabet. A, B and C are the first letters we learn so they seem a bit easy and familiar, whereas letters like V, W, and Y have a more daunting quality bequeathed by their submergence in the nether regions of the alphabet. Humans are therefore likely to show greater respect to those individuals who have a large preponderance of letters towards the end of the alphabet in their name. These ‘Deep Alphas’ accordingly develop into the most talented and confident individuals in society.

“Based on these principles the following players should comprise Sven’s starting XI this summer:

GK - Paul Robinson  11.7
LB - Phil Neville  11.3
CB - John Terry   14.6
CB - Wes Brown   14.9
RB - Luke Young   14.6
LM - Owen Hargreaves  11.5
CM - Dennis Wise  12.1
CM - Steven Gerrard  12.0
RM - Shaun Wright-Phillips 13.1
CF - Wayne Rooney  12.7
CF - Darius Vassell  12.5 

“Based on this scientific calculation, David Beckham is the player Sven should exclude first from his plans. He scores just 6.9, well behind the next worst Michael Carrick who rates at 8.1

“The accuracy of the ‘Player Name Integer-Conversion Interface’ is unequivocally proven by the fact that it captures England’s perennial ‘left-side problem’. The average score of the left-sided players is 11.4 compared with 13.85 for the right-sided players. The England team is therefore about 18% more effective on the right flank.

”If your readers would like to send in some calculations of player names from other nations, or from past World Cups, we should be most grateful to receive them.”

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