Damian_de

Needs a big slip up from one of the other foreign managers to take his place in the firing line. Mancini, maybe?

So England knocked out in the quarters of the u20 World Cup without scoring a single goal in the whole tournament?

Not really. I think it is the conservative estimate. There is more competition for the top 4 places than there has ever been, it will be bloody hard work to get in there.

Lot of new players to integrate into the side so I'm not expecting a flying start. Defence as it stands not good enough to win it. A good tilt at the cups should be possible, especially with no Europe and a fairly large squad. Think there is is a lot of competition for the CL places, but we have missed out recently to maybe it's someone else's (Arsenal...) turn this year. Anything below 5th a failure, I think.

I can see the sense in that. Poulsen can put a tackle in and shield the defence, Cole has he potential to be world class, Gerrard is Gerrard and Meireles does a lot of leg work.

Cheers for the link I'm also really looking forward to seeing his team in action this year.

But did they play good football, that's my point, and the answer is they did. Their reputation is not more important than what they produced on the pitch. It was just what you want from a pre-season match.

Just what you want pre-season IMO. And I don't care (or believe) if this is their reserves, they have played some very good stuff in patches and that's how they should be judged.

Playing in Henderson's position

It was, lovely.

Lot of new players to integrate here. Midfield looks weak.

Bayer Leverkusen knocked out of the DFB Pokal by Dresden after being 3-0 up... and Paderborn racked up 10 against Ahlen.

I wish I knew as much about top level sports physical preparation as you lot.

As an organisation FIFA Is rotten to the core, but I can't help but feel that for the clubs they wouldn't be interested in pointing the finger at FIFA unless there was the idea of massively profiting themselves and concentrating (even more) power into a small group of teams can't be healthy for the game either. If 14-20 sides were to break away from UEFA and/or FIFA and create a European Super League (and the possibility of B-teams meeting the National commitments) then all you would really see would be more money in the pockets of players and agents, more advertising before during and after matches, and more dumbed down lowest common denominator saturation match coverage. Woo-hoo Tim Vickery has spoken about how for all its faults, FIFA has genuinely developed the game at a global level and seriously invested in regions of the world which Europe had never shown any interest in supporting. He has a point there. So, fair play to KHR for calling out the dirt in FIFA, don't really trust his motives, though.

Like to see him do that at Stoke etc etc

links to the Mail should be banned on principle even before this.

There are loads of leagues around Europe that have longer breaks in the winter than the summer, so this only seems stupid if you are coming at it from a certain perspective. The competitions are designed to fit the calendars of the big leagues, by the way. It's the little guys who should be full of righteous indignation here.

Fabulous game of football, this.

Crowd might get tasty now not scored 3 since December last year

what. a. miss.

Really good stuff this - committed!

He did OK I agree, but this is Inter we're talking about. You'd presume if they had serious intent they would go for a 'marquee manager'. I guess this is likely.

formerly of Genoa. Where are they going with this? Mourinho - Rafa -- Leonardo - Gasperini Not sure I get the thinking there.

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