fred milne

In a nutshell.

I was amazed that challenge by Toure didn't warrant a booking.

We are third 6 pts clear of Spurs and 8 pts clear of Arsenal. 2nd place is probably gone now but 3rd place is definitely achievable. Arsenal are even worse than us away from home and still have to go to Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford.

I'd probably go along with that to a degree.

I've not really seen anything of Kuyt. Is he still banging in the goals this year? Do people who've watched him think he would adapt to English football?

If we were talking Fowler 1996 vintage, rather than 2006 vintage.

Not sure how you reach that conclusion if you are talking about from the Shankly era onwards - e.g. St John, Toshack, Keegan, Johnson, Dalglish, Rush, Walsh, Beardsley, Aldridge.

Crouch isn't the biggest problem, but play-it-safe Morientes might be Niall Quinn Friday March 10, 2006 The Guardian Peter Crouch has had to cope with some pretty sustained abuse since Liverpool went out of the Champions League and I know how it feels. They used to call me "the beanpole who couldn't score" and sometimes I would lie awake at night wondering where the next goal would come from. My guess is that Crouch has had a few of those sleepless nights this week but at least he was looking to make something happen against Benfica, which is more than can be said for the player alongside him. Everyone will remember the chances Crouch missed, yet Fernando Morientes never even had a look-in. Why? Because he wasn't gambling. He was playing it safe, controlling the ball, laying it off, waiting to see what might happen. When he joined Liverpool it was with the reputation of an out-and-out goalscorer but in my opinion he's not a Premiership scorer. He doesn't gamble like a Robbie Fowler, a Michael Owen, an Andrew Cole or a Kevin Phillips. He wants everything precise and perfectly constructed for him to tap the ball into the net, and that doesn't work in England. And the worst thing? I'd guess that Morientes went home from Anfield on Wednesday and slept soundly. It's time now that Rafael Benítez gave Fowler an extended chance. I've seen enough of Crouch and Morientes together to know that it's not going to work, because of Morientes. But I'm sure a prolonged period together of Crouch and Fowler will eventually come off. Djibril Cissé might be aggrieved with that assessment but I'm not sure his desire or ability is up to the right level. For a player like Crouch to excel he needs someone alongside him who can penetrate. He won everything in the air on Wednesday but it didn't look dangerous because Morientes was playing it so safe. It would help Crouch to play beside someone who is prepared to gamble on where the ball might be. Morientes isn't that man, Fowler is. People doubt Crouch and it's so easy to knock him down. I still believe in him but, a bit like me, he isn't a prolific scorer. He's honest and he's good at what he does but, that said, the next time he gets a headed chance he needs to be busting the back of the net rather than just directing it towards the corner. When I look at him I see a lot of myself and what I sometimes went through. I went through a bad period in front of goal when I was a kid at Arsenal and I remember being so frustrated I did an interview with the Daily Mirror. You know the type of stuff: "It's not my fault, it's everyone else's fault etc etc." It was a human reaction but it was a childish reaction, and I wished I'd never done it when I saw the newspaper. I was really in the doldrums but, despite everything I'd said, I knew that if I was going to make my career work I would have to start scoring. You can either pretend it's not happening and that it's the fault of everyone else or you can meet the demons and see them off. I would go down to my local pub and get some "friendly fire" or I would be lifted by a phone call from my family. You need to remain strong and it's admirable of Benítez to have tried to deflect the pressure from his strikers after Wednesday's game. Deep down, though, Crouch and Morientes will know themselves. The statistics are always being rammed down their throats, for starters. That's one part of the modern game I'm glad I never had, because sleepless nights are bad enough as they are. Crouch probably didn't sleep a wink last night but when he gets out of bed and throws some water on his face it's another day. My advice? Forget the sniping and go for it. http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/...1727704,00.html

He may not have been quite the player he was pre-Juve but Rush was still a key part of Kenny's side that won the league in 89-90, finished second in 88-89 and 90-91 and won the Cup in 89. You beat me to it.

I don't understand that at all. Warnock was reasonably competent yesterday, whereas Traore showed (yet again) that he can neither defend properly nor use the ball adequately.

Crouch is the only one I'd keep for sure. Morientes and Cisse should go. Fowler has still got it all to prove. I don't want to see Garcia being used in midfield but he could be retained as an option to play off the main striker. Having said that, if we are strapped for cash I could live with him being sold.

I came away thinking the opposite. They are both terrific players but we look a better side with Gerrard RM and either Sissoko or Hamann partnering Alonso (easily our best player last night). Gerrard started brightly yesterday but after we went behind I thought he (along with most of the side except Alonso) lacked composure. I would have liked Hamann in from the start - especially considering Traore was playing CB. For me, it was yet another instance of Hamann's absence having a telling effect on a European fixture for us.

Yes - I agree with that.

I remembered Valencia well enough but I didn't pay too much attention to who their manager was.

I agree. I remember arguing with Knox at the start of last season about whether Carra would ever cut it as a top-class CB. After a few months, I realised he had a pretty good case....

Very odd tactics. Why not go all out for an early goal? If you score, it puts the sh*ts up Barca. If you concede, you still need to score two anyway - you then play it cautious as another goal conceded is curtains. Did Mourinho want to keep it tight defensively to avoid a drubbing and to save face, as Knox suggests? If so, then his ego is starting to get ahead of the best interests of the team.

I can't remember much of the build-up to that chance. Did it stem from a hopeful punt up-field?

Thought that for a while, myself. I'd throw in the fact that having a non-overlapping LB in Gallas next to him also helps, just as Hyypia benefited from having Carra play at LB under Ged.

He's cynical no doubt but he still a strong defender and is an effective part of their "defensive diamond" to use Ged's old phrase.

Not so big a fan anymore then?

The last 18 months suggest that he isn't as shrewd as once I thought.

I think that's where Rafa has done well with Sissoko - even when his form dipped around the turn of the year Rafa persisted with him. I think we'll benefit from that in the long run.

Maybe he is getting confused with George Best, who apparently did leave the Nou Camp in 1999 before the start of injury time....

Myles Palmer's take on the game........ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Five conclusions after England beat Uruguay By Myles Palmer England 2 Uruguay 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pouso 24, Crouch 74, Cole 93 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My conclusions after last night's game : 1.We can score late goals in friendlies. 2. Rooney is our best defender. 3. As a team-mechanic, Sven is clueless. 4. As always with England, the result was better than the performance. Even when we lose, the result is better than the performance. We are fierce competitors who are better at winning than playing. When we are 1-0 down we are the best team in the world. 5.We will not improve much in the next 99 days before the World Cup. We are what we are. We are a team of journeymen who produce obvious passes with metronomic regularity. John Terry is a journeyman who is an enterprising leader. Beckham is a journeyman with marketing charisma. Crouch is a journeyman whose spirit I learned to love at QPR. Darren Bent is a journeyman who was ignored by his teammates for 90% of this game. Gary Neville is a journeyman who was very good in Portugal 2004. Owen is a journeyman who scores goals. Lampard is a super-journeyman who does everything competently and scores goals Stevie Gerrard is a journeyman who would be a match-winning gladiator in the right format . Gerrard should NOT have hogged the ball in midfield on a night when Sven brought Carrick in to play that role. His passing was atrocious. Uruguay let him have the ball and he gave it away. He had one of those nights where he was the big guy with the big shot, the big pass, the big tackle, but no game, no ability to mix craftsmanship with power. He was rushing everything because he knew he was coming off at half time. Stevie G is a dynamic player, not a strategic one. His special talent is for making things happen in the last third with dribbles, runs, crosses, shots and headers. He is not Jan Molby, not Graeme Souness. Rafa knows how to use Stevie G but Sven doesn't. Gerrard should be competing with Beckham and Joe Cole for a flank position. Stevie is a lovely lad with a terrific sporting attitude. No tattoos, no earrings, no silly hairstyles, talks modestly, a smashing young guy. But the Swede doesn't know how to use him. It's tragic, really. Sven is just not good at the nuts and bolts of team-building. He can't take the wheels off and put them back on again, let alone tune up the engine. Apart from Wayne Rooney, a third-generation Irish immigrant, we lack flair and suss. We could not work out how to play against a team who defended the box with eight men. Then Crouch and SWP came on, replacing Beckham and Rooney, and they won the game for lucky old Sven. ROONEY had covered huge distances at very high speed. He raced back down the left side to make tackles on Forlan and Regueiro and it was Rooney who conceded the corner from which led to the Pouso goal. He is the only striker in world football who races back as fast to make a tackle as he sprints forward to score a goal. His appetite is huge, his rage to win enormous. We haven't seen anyone with such a rage to win since another Irishman screamed "You cannot be serious !" at a Wimbledon umpire. Flair and rage are in the genes. Just as Ian Rush was Liverpool's best defender, Wayne Rooney is England's best defender. EXCUSES ? We had not played for three months, so we lacked fluency. The situation suited defensive visitors like Uruguay. Terry got good distance on when headed out that corner in the 24th minute and the ball unluckily fell to Pouso, whose volley looped into the top corner. A great goal, not a fluke, but it was unlucky that that the ball dropped straight on the guy's right foot. That's football. After that Uruguay sat back and broke occasionally with quick invention. Individually, they have the craft that we lack. CONSOLATIONS? Peter Crouch changes games and Joe Cole can now give a 90-minute performance. Cole can make bright runs off the ball into dangerous areas, whip in accurate crosses, score from outside the penalty area, and sniff out chances in the six yard box. His game has become efficient and pragmatic. Where once he dribbled and flicked and fiddled and fired five shots just wide, he now opens up defences and wins games. On 21, he flew onto Carrick's pass and fired just past the post. On 23, he played in Beckham, who would have scored and taken the knock in a World Cup game. But here, as Carini got to him quickly, he rushed it and jabbed his left foot shot just wide of the angle. On 30, keeper Paul Robinson clattered clumsily into the back of Wayne Bridge just after Pousa's goal, damaging his ankle ligament. His panicky goalkeeping puts Bridge out of Fulham's game with Arsenal on Saturday. On 74, Joe Cole hooked a cross over for Crouch to head the equaliser and in 93 he nipped onto Shaun Wright Phillips's low cross to the near post and scored the winner from three yards. In the last two seasons Joe Cole has improved far beyond what I expected. He had surprised me and very few footballers do that. Well done, son. Keep it going. We need you. Sadly, Sven's England will never be a Saab or a Mercedes. On a good night it will be Ford Escort Mk 7 and on a bad night it will be a rusty old Vauxhall Cavalier. How will I approach Germany 2006 in 99 day's time ? Same way as always. Watch the first two weeks and find a couple of good teams to follow. If England are one of those, fine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FOR THE RECORD : ENGLAND: Robinson (Tottenham); Gary Neville (Man United), Terry (Chelsea), Ferdinand (Man United), Bridge (Chelsea); Beckham (Real Madrid), Gerrard (Liverpool), Carrick (Tottenham), Cole (Chelsea); Rooney (Man United), Bent (Charlton). Subs: Carragher (Liverpool) for Bridge, 31; King (Tottenham) for Terry, 45; Jenas (Tottenham) for Gerrard,45 ; Wright-Phillips (Chelsea) for Beckham, 64; Crouch (Liverpool) for Rooney, 64; Defoe (Tottenham) for Bent, 82. URUGUAY: Carini (Cagliari); Diogo (Real Madrid), Lugano (Sao Paulo), Godin (Cerro), Lima (Danubio); Perez (Monaco), Pouso (Penarol), Vargas (Gimnasia), Varela (Schalke); Regueiro (Valencia), Forlan (Villarreal). Subs: Viera (keeper, Villarreal) for Carini, 45; Pereira (Sporting) for Vargas, 77; Martinez (Montivideo) for Regueiro, 84; Medina (Cadiz) for Forlan, 87; Gonzalez (Danubio) for Perez, 88. Referee: Stefano Farina (Italy). http://www.arsenalnewsreview.co.uk/index.p...nt01returnid=42

Ballack admits Chelsea interest "Nothing has been signed, but there will be ongoing contact with Chelsea" Staff and agencies Thursday March 2, 2006 Michael Ballack is in contact with Chelsea about a multi-million pound four-year contract, his agent confirmed today. Reports had suggested that Ballack preferred a move to Internazionale or Real Madrid rather than London, but his agent Michael Becker said: "He would only move to a club where he has a better chance of winning the Champions League than at Bayern. Inter are currently third in Serie A, whereas Bayern are top in the German league. "There has also been a change in the whole set-up at Real and we don't know where we stand - it's very confusing." Ballack, 29, is out of contract at Bayern Munich at the end of the season, and his agent clearly expects him to end up at Stamford Bridge. "Nothing has been signed, but there will be ongoing contact with Chelsea," added Becker. "There is strong interest from both sides. The trend is in this direction." http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,1722118,00.html Makalele is getting on, so Mourinho might have Essien in mind as his successor with Lampard and Ballack as the attacking midfielders. Not sure where that would leave Maniche, though.