TicTacWoe

Kuyt's been very good in the world cup so far, makes the odd blunder but deserves a lot of credit. Wonder has Roeder made his mind up about him yet...

he looks a bit "special"

If both are fit and playing I can see a bloody fight between Barton and Cattermole when we play them.

the only way we'll finish above them is if they have a really poor season, as has been said it doesn't matter. I don't think we'll go down though, I'd say we'll finish something like 15th or 16th. Wolves, Blackpool and West Brom are all worse than us and we're not far behind Stoke, Bolton, Wigan, West Ham etc Birmingham might be in for a tough second season also.

And I'm not liking this Jlloyd Samuel stuff that's being mentioned again here one bit. Such a low caliber player who's getting worse each season.

Would obviously rather Wilshire but wouldn't say no to Lansbury either http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premie...senal-youngster

I really think Argentina v Germany has the potential to be a classic, Uruguay v Ghana could be good too wouldnt have much hope for Brasil v Holland reckon thatll be cagey until something happens late on.

Thing with Schwarzer is it's easier for his mistakes to go unnoticed at Fulham whereas the likes of Almunia and Fabianski have every error highlighted and scrutinized, I don't think he's much of an upgrade for Arsenal basically and he's nearly 38 too. ...and Fulham will replace a 38 year old with an older man! you saying that got me thinking, average age of first choice PL goalkeepers Arsenal 33 Aston Villa 39 Birmingham 27 Blackburn 30 Blackpool 29 Bolton 35 Chelsea 28 Everton 31 Fulham 37 Liverpool 27 Man city 34 Man utd 39 Newcastle 35 Stoke 34 Sunderland 27 Tottenham 29 West Brom 24 West Ham 30 Wigan 29 Wolves 38 thats all the teams and the age of their No 1 keepers, the average age is nearly 32 and thats brought down a bit by scott carson cause WBA came up and Portsmouth with David james went down Yeah, theyre able to go on far longer now when they keep themselves fit, and the likes of Friedel and James only really hit their peak in their early-mid 30s, it's hard to see Friedel or james retiring for any reason other than lethargy or wanting to let the younger keepers having go as they seem to be in fairly good shape. Funny how goalkeeper age demographs are being discussed in a thread about the possible sale of Liverpool

Thing with Schwarzer is it's easier for his mistakes to go unnoticed at Fulham whereas the likes of Almunia and Fabianski have every error highlighted and scrutinized, I don't think he's much of an upgrade for Arsenal basically and he's nearly 38 too.

I know he wasn't as consistent in the PL as the europa league but Gera has impressed me on the whole since joining, would be a decent squad player for Liverpool if Hodgson goes for him.

still would have done better than Heskey mind you

It'll be interesting to see if he goes after any Fulham players too, the likes of Hangeland and Gera or even Hughes would be decent signings for them.

I don't he has been training hard since the inj, unless he looks like that normally which I doubt. Again I'd have to ask questions of Capello regarding how Rooney was set up for this world cup. But how do you now play him? It wasn't just Rooney either, Barry looked well off the pace while the likes of Lennon and even Ashley Cole to some extent didn't seem to have the speed that they've shown in recent seasons, surely due to their injury hit seasons.

It's quite hard to see how anyone could get them into the top 4 next season with the squad they have, Man City and Spurs will be stronger, Man U Chelsea and Arsenal should all be fine so I can only see Liverpool competing with Villa and Everton for the Europa league places.

Ozil, Sweinsteiger, Sanchez, Forlan, Suarez, Tevez, Messi, Sneijder, Lucio, Maicon, Eduardo (portugese keeper)

Well the other guy I mentioned Smalling is with Man U but I take your point re Jones

He's looked class so far, was just saying in another thread it'll be interesting to see how the likes of him and Smalling get on next season as there isn't a whole lot of young centre backs coming through for England otherwise.

Tell you what if he doesn't play his arse off next season Man U could be in serious trouble. probably won't happen like but you never know.

They really lack a cutting edge though, can't see them finishing enough chances (if they get them) to beat Brasil. They should have destroyed Switzerland but only got one goal, similar story against Honduras

Yesh, me too. Same here, some very technically good players as always and I sort of feel they deserve a world cup for all the great teams/players they've produced through the decades.

Out of interest who is he? Also add the likes of Phil Jones from Blackburn to that, he looked absolutely top drawer for a young centre half in the games he played in the season just gone. That Shelvey lad liverpool signed from CHarlton could be good too. was going to mention him, mate of mine, blackburn fan, rates him really highly 7 games for blackburn last season and 2 MOM performances in there, definitely one to watch Aye and I think two of his best games were against Man U and Chelsea on top of that. On the subject of young centre backs it'll be interesting to see if Smalling gets many games at Man U next season with Ferdinand's increasing injuries.

In a nutshell. And they will get games eventually, either at their current clubs (in the case of Rodwell most likely) or in the case of someone like Gibbs, at a mid table club when he eventually gives up trying to dislodge Clichy from the Arsenal side which is basically what happened with Upson. Simply playing a lot of games won't turn them into world beaters though as Upson evidenced yesterday. And the next generation? Where do they come from?? See this is another concern I have - private take-overs of English football clubs. West Ham have always been considered a club to blood the youth of this country and have brought a massive proportion of the current England setup through their ranks - Johnson, Terry, Ferdinand, Lampard, Defoe, Carrick all came from their academy. But that was under the old ownership - can you honestly see the likes of Gold and Sullivan continuing in that vein? Or will they buy cheap from abroad for a quick buck?? Concerning to say they least. I'm not saying that there shouldnt be some sort of cap on the number of foreign players I just think it has little to do with Englands poor performence in this world cup where as I've said before, they have one of the best squads on paper at least. I'm unsure as to how bright or grim the future of English football is but this is a thread about yesterdays game and I think the reasons England played shit are far more to do with- Capello playing a bad system and making poor subs The players looking completely off the pace, most likely because of the intensity of the EPL and lack of winter break Lack of squad unity due to a high proportion of the key players being pricks

In a nutshell. And they will get games eventually, either at their current clubs (in the case of Rodwell most likely) or in the case of someone like Gibbs, at a mid table club when he eventually gives up trying to dislodge Clichy from the Arsenal side which is basically what happened with Upson. Simply playing a lot of games won't turn them into world beaters though as Upson evidenced yesterday.

This is the damning indictment for me. The best 'English represented' clubs in the Premier League are Spurs and Man City and both of those are considered some way off the pace. English (and by that I mean home-grown) football talent has gone way off the boil ever since they disbanded with the foreign player limitations in the European competitions. The spine of the team that played yesterday Cole, Terry, Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney have all been regular top perfromers in champions league sides for the last 5 seasons, the rest come from teams who have come close to champions league football bar one or two exceptions (James + Upson). There's no team where every starting player comes from a top club-with the exception of Spain to some extent. Brasil have players playing in Greece and Turkey in their starting 11, Argentina have a Newcastle player for gods sake and a keeper playing for a mid table dutch side etc I think you're missing my point to some extent. Granted those (the spine) are playing at the top of their gameand have been for the past 5 seasons or so but where is our diversity? 15-20 years ago we had a nucleus of a side but we had plenty of resources to call upon should it be required. Think of the strikers available around the time of Italia 90 - first choice was obviously Lineker and Beardsley but as well as that we had the likes of Tony Cottee, Alan Smith (no, not that one), Steve Bull, Les Ferdinand, Ian Wright to name but a few. I know, it was the same in euro 96, some of the strikers who were left out of the squad were fantastic and you only have to look at the likes of Le Tissier/Ferdinand who won fuck all caps for the country. At the same time though, I think people have been far too quick to pour scorn over the current squad, I honestly believe this squad of players were right to be aiming to get into the semis as player for player only Spain, Argentina and maybe Brasil are better. The likes of Holland and Germany are inferior overall but are better organised and play as a team. I really think a lot of the blame lies with Capello for what happened yesterday.