It's all gone Pete Tong

United youth puts the spotlight on Danny Drinkwater's loan spell at Huddersfield town. I saw him or once or twice on sky and i thought considering his age and size he did quite well. He is obviously nowhere near our first team yet, but then neither was Cleverley after his first loan spell at Leicester and i'm expecting him to be in the first team squad next year so Drinkwater still has time.
http://manunitedyouth.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/a-look-at-the-loanees-danny-drinkwater/#more-3342

England are on the brink of world cup disaster after an even worse performance last night, against Algeria, than they gave against USA in the opener. What kills me, i have to say, is that everybody is so shocked. Look at that team, is that really something to shock and awe opponents.As i have said before you can go through that team and squad and pick gaping big holes in it at will.
He has taken three goalkeepers, two of whom are definitely not real international class and have both prone to the unforced errors at club level in Green's case and at all levels in James case. The one keeper with no real big howlers in his career so far, short admittedly, and the keeper in form is the one goalkeeper that he hasn't played so far. It would seem the maxim if your good enough, your old enough doesn't seem to apply in Capello's universe.
The back four is nowhere near strong enough, and the fact it would have been better with injury prone Rio in it tells me just how poor his understudies are. Terry has carried on his indifferent Chelsea form into this competition and wasn't much better than Carragher last night. It's a good job Abramovitch is loaded, because if the Glazer's had beeen persuaded to give him a new contract worth £15ok a week and one year later saw his form deteriorate to this level somebody would be getting the sack. Ashley Cole is the only quality defender that England now possess. In four years from the last world cup when England had as good a defence as there was in the tournament that some decline.
Midfield has become the age old problem of how to fit Gerrard and Lampard in the same team. If Capello was worth the millions he is being paid he surely would have worked that out in the qualifiers. As we have seen, and under different managers it is not playing them together in central midfield and it's not playing Gerrard on the left. Has Capello really showed any better tactical nous than the ridiculed Sven or even Steve McLaren, not so far. It is obvious that the only way to fit them both into the same side is to play 4-3-3 with a holding man behind them. I'm not saying that will suddenly release them both and England will go to demolish all before them because it patently will not. What this world cup has confirmed to me is that England have 4 quality players in that squad and that is it.
Rooney up front doesn't look fit to me, his body language as well as display was something i have never seen in the red of United, that's for sure. He looked like he was protecting his ankle during that last 15 minutes. If i am right, i hope Slovenia put England out of their misery next week, so we can get Rooney right for next season. The last thing we need next season is to lose Rooney for a lengthy period of time because he has aggrevated that ankle injury for the lost cause that is England's world cup hopes. Fergie must be looking on anxiously, as if we lose him for the opening of the season our title hopes could evaporate in the first couple of months of next season. We're not going to be splashing out any money this summer and we all know it.
Add Gerrard, Lampard and Asley Cole to the list of top players and then look at the rest of that squad. Heskey that can't get into the Villa first team. And being kept out by John Carew, a decent player but himself hardly a player to strike fear into the oppostion. Defoe a decent premier league striker but not international quality and not a team player to boot. Then Crouch, who though i don't rate, has been unlucky not to start this wrold cup. Not that i would start with him in my wildest dreams, but if Capello is going toplay 4-4-2, Crouch has got more going for him than Heskey, an ability to put the ball in the net amongst others.
As for midfield the fact that the return of Gareth Barry was being welcomed back as if that would put every thing right says it all. He is a decent premier league player who will do a job, nothing more, nothing less. He is not Claude Makelele or Owen Hargreaves even. If Carrick had put in a half reasonable season at United i don't see how Capello could have left him out with his ability to play it short or long and protect the back four. But he was so poor, attrocious even in the last months of the season, that he was very lucky to even have been on the plane. What does that say for English strength in depth in the middle of the park.
As for the wide men, yet another headache i'm afraid. Just as the Lampard-Gerrard engima gets passed down from England manager to England manager, so does our lack of a class left winger or even left sided midfilder. Yet again i will have to question Capello's judgement. I think he was right to not take Walcott, he didn't play well for Arsenal and didn't deserve to go. But there is no way Shaun Wright Phillips should be there either, he is just not international standard at all, in fact he was just embarrassing when he came on against USA. Along with Carrick, he was a very lucky man to have been picked. What makes that worse though was that City do have a wide man who could have done a decent job, Adam Johnson did enough in the short time he was at City last season to have shown he could have done a job for England. He is not world beater, he puts a decent cross, a pretty essential skill to have in a wide man you would think. And moreover unlike Wright-Phillips he doesn't give the ball away for fun. Who knows, even though he seems to prefer to play on the right nowadays, maybe he could have done a job on that problem left hand side. And that leaves Lennon, he has potential as he has shown when giving Evra a couple of chasings for Spurs, but his final ball has always been too hit and miss. I would persist with him in this world cup and beyond because there is nothing better, but unless he gets more consistency to his final ball he will never fulfill his potential.
My simple way of juding a team is how many players would i like to see in the red of United. And when i look at England, i don't see many. Scholes would walk into that side, and i have to say that if all those years ago Giggs had decided to go for England instead of Wales so would he. And i mean the starting eleven, not just the squad, that is a daming indictment.

We all agree, United are better than England
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/wayne-rooney/7840004/Wayne-Rooneys-unreliable-England-team-mates-bring-out-the-worst-in-striker.html

Rooney blasts England's fans, good on you lad. As United's messageboards have been saying we will have another world cup scapegoat playing for us. United against the world.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/rooney-nice-to-hear-your-fans-booing-2004847.html

Andy cole asks Capello to earn the millions he is being paid, because he hasn't so far. He doesn't have a world cup winning squad in my opinion, but he has a decent enough squad to have got out of this group easier than this. That's if they do get out of the group, and i certainly wouldn't be putting any money on that. I can see Slovenia's front men causing England's shaky back four big problems in that last game that Slovenia need a result out of, just as much as England do.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/andy-cole-i-understand-rooneyrsquos-anger-itrsquos-time-for-the-manager-to-earn-his-millions-2004589.html

Alan Smith thinks Capello has problems to address.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/england/7839513/England-v-Algeria-Fabio-Capello-has-many-problems-to-address-but-at-least-not-in-goal.html

David Pleat bemoans the lack of balance that meant Ashley Cole couldn't get forward.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/england/7839513/England-v-Algeria-Fabio-Capello-has-many-problems-to-address-but-at-least-not-in-goal.html

Tom Hyde in the Telegraph on the highs and comedy lows of Raymond Domenech. I think i would attribute that single high of reaching the world cup final in 2006 to Zidane who seemed to take over the coaching and tactics of the team on the pitch. Their performances since seem to back that up.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/france/7837299/Raymond-Domenech-profile-France-coach-another-sort-of-human-comedy.html

Robert Skidelsky asks who governs, financial markets or democratically elected goverments. We all know that after the hope that the one good thing that may come out of the credit crunch, the taming of the markets, it's the markets that are the masters again.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c3604b8-798c-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html

Will Hutton on dispatches earlier in the week attacking the banks conduct.


Frank Furedi stands up for permissiveness with an article that sounds almost as much a definition of social liberalism. If anything he is not strident enough in supporting permissivness for my tastes.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9006/

Gary Gibbon of channel 4 on more lib dem uneasiness.
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2010/06/17/spending-cuts-what-will-lib-dems-tell-their-constituents/
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/06/party-members-lib-coalition

And John Harris carries on in the same vein
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/17/liberal-democrats-prepare-for-bumpy-ride

An interesting review of Paul Addison's new book by Vernon Bogdanor
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/06/british-britain-revolutions


John Cale with Paris 1919