Tottenham top group of death

The group stage of Tottenham's first champions league campaign ended last night and, despite what I was assured by a Chelsea fan after the draw, Tottenham did not get shown just how out of their depth they are but ended up winning the group and in the process beating the German, Dutch and European champions - not a bad little run.

Whilst it is true that it was not an easy run - 4-0 down against Inter, losing 2 goal lead against Breman - in the end most pundits agree we were the best in the group.

The game last night really summed up our away campaign with letting the lead slip 3 times, the game started in comical fashion with the Twente keeper having a nightmare to watch a simple back pass bounce past his foot for Spurs' opener.

Twente were soon back in it however after the Referee gave a penalty, now I would obviously disagree with the decision whatever it was but this was a very soft decision with the spurs defender punished simply for the human instinct for protection, however as the next goal was the result of an even worse decision by the Referee there is not too much point in dwelling on it.

Tottenham re-took the lead through a quite sublime piece of link up play between Defoe and Lennon which showed a little of what we have missed in his absence before the ref struck again to level the game, this time a free kick outside the box to penalize Lennon for laying a hand on the shoulder of a man around 2 foot taller than himself.
Bad refereeing aside however the free kick was top class so no complaints there.

The Twente keeper who, apart from the first goal, had a pretty good game was unfortunate again for the third spurs goal as he produced a wonderful save from Palacios which fell into the path of the ever alert Defoe to do what he does best. However Twente struck back again with their first goal not directly from a bad refereeing decision (there was a touch in between the free kick and the goal) this was again a greatly taken goal and really showed how good a team Twente are,

Obviously I do feel slightly annoyed at the part the Referee played in the goals but he was not finished yet, after a Twente player went down in the box (which to be fair he should have been booked for as he went down for a tackle that never came.) The Referee, correctly told Tottenham to play on, only to bring play to a stop as Lennon was running in full stride towards the Twente goal. But the fact that the Ref seems to think that his role is to shape the game, should not be held against Twente who did well to capitalize on his vanity. so it ended 3-3 but with Inter losing to Bremen Spurs still top their group, so mixed feelings on the result but the achievements are still massive for a Champions League debut, as an aside spurs became the first team to score two goals in every game in the group stage, now if we can stop letting them in then the future looks very bright indeed.

They're coming home, they're coming England coming home

Well 9 minutes left to play and we are on our way out, tomorrow the headline writers will come out with the usual lazy accusation stories, blaming how much the players earn, or how many foreign players are in the premiership. However for my,money I will be,placing the blame firmly at the door of Fabio Capello. Whilst I often defend the managers who often take an unfair portion of the blame, throughout this tournament Capello has been unimaginative and cowardly with his selections and tactics.

When faced match after match with a sub-standard Rooney, and a frankly dismal Gerrard, instead of making the brave call and benching these "superstars" he instead withdraws Defoe to being in Hapless Heskey and sticking to 4-4-2 like it was the only possibility.

Had I been in charge (obviously I am saying this with the certainty that I will never be put to the test) I would have played a 4-5-1 Upsom would be out so I would play with James in goal, Johnson, Dawson, Terry and Cole in defence. Lennon, Lampard, Gerrard, Millner and Wright-Philips with Defoe up front on his own.

I think what the most interesting fact to remember is that Capello signed an extended contract before the tournament, so if we want to fire him it will cost millions.

Well Disappointment it is

Well having watched our first game, a rather disappointing Draw vs the USA (Although I have always said that the USA had a good team, so do not find it as embarrassing as some.) I can say a few things,

1) it shows how we struggled up front that our best striker was Emile Heskey.
2) Aaron Lennon I believe can make or break our campaign, if he does not lose the fear of failure that he was playing with last night our attack will be blunt throughout.
3) We really should have taken Paul Robinson to the world cup, Robbo is this countries best keeper who suffered a loss of form and seemed to just get forgotten about, now that Green has had a worse error and Calamity James' errors are all widely known, it shows what an implosive move it was to ostracise Robinson.

The final thing I learnt is that even for a football match night clubs like to have the sound up so loud you can not talk to the person sat next to you, which was probably good as then the people I was with could not hear some of the expletives that snuck out of my mouth.

England's 23

As I mentioned in my post after the Mexico game England must drop 7 of the current 30 man squad after sunday's game against Japan.

My opinion is that the players who should go are:
Emile Heskey (Not going to happen as for some bizarre reason Capello loves him.)
Shaun Wright-Phillips (a good player but third in line for right midfield behind Lennon and Walcott)
Adam Johnson (no experience, will be ready for a world cup, just not this one.)
Michael Carrick (unless Barry is unfit, Carrick just looks to lazy these days.)
Matthew Upson (just not as good as other options.)
Ledley King (as much as I rate the spurs captain, you can't take injury risks in your world cup squad.)

So my squad for South Africa would be
GK: Hart, James and Green (in fact Paul Robinson would be my first choice.)
DF: Carragher, Cole, Dawson, Ferdinand, Johnson, Baines, Terry, Warnock
MF: Barry (if fit, otherwise Carrick), Cole, Gerrard, Huddlestone, Lampard, Milner, Parker, Walcott
FW: Crouch, Defoe, Bent, Rooney.

With my preferred starting line up:

GK: Green
LB: Cole
CB: Terry
CB: Dawson
RB: Johnson
LM: Cole
CM: Gerrard
DCM: Huddlestone
ACM: Lampard
RM: Aaron Lennon
ST: Rooney

Now obviously it is a risk playing the five man midfield and leaving out the club captain, However Rooney is good enough to play up front alone, Cole and Lennon give plenty of attacking support and options and Ferdinand has simply not been good enough. And I don't think he has done anything to deserve the armband anyway, I would give it Terry (or rather I wouldn't have taken it away from him.) After all what has someones private (or not so private) life got to do with their ability to captain a team, give him back the armband and let him prove he deserves it on the pitch, not in the newspapers.