Ruud Van Nistelrooy is back from his ban...
How many will he score for Holland vs. Finland tonight?

The best Finnish DF is Sami Hypia, but I remember a 4-0 Man Utd win over Liverpool in which Van The Man scored 2 and made Sami look like a Finnish lumberjack.

Holland will certainly win tonight. As will Italy.

Add any 2 from Portugal, England or Scotland to make a guaranteed 4 team yankee bet for tonight's games.

I have gone for Italy, Holland and Spain, to recover from poor weekend results (except Spain) in style...

Was lucky I never picked them at weekend, got a nice treble win on Norway, England and Czech rep at around 6/1.

Lithuania 0 - 0 Spain

Obviously I was joking about betting on Scotland. Meant other 4!

Berti Must GO.


FIFA World Cup European Qualifying Group Five

Moldova 1 - 1 Scotland

Berti Vogts is making Craig Brown look good!

With Craig Brown as Scotland boss at least we got to the World Cup or Euro Championships.

Shame that no-one put any money on Portugal, 7-1 they beat Russia apparently

Heard Russia were poor versus Italy last night.

Rep of Ireland can't seem to stop winning though.

As for England - what a terrible game with Netherlands.
433 does not work Sven!
433 may work for Chelsea but they've got Damien Duff playing one side and Arjen Robben on the other!

How have England got such great individual players, but not a great team?

(just as I type, Gerrard finally scores to lead 1-0 vs mighty Azerbaijan)

Even if England finish 2nd in their qualifying group they are sure to go through to World Cup as one of the best 2nd placed teams.
I think they are good enough to make quarter-finals at least.

At this stage, with such supposed WORLD CLASS players, they should be aiming for winning the world cup, they have the back-bone of a quality team but don't seem to have the desire to go and get it!!

TERRY, FERDINAND, (CAMPBELL if fit), LAMPARD, BECKHAM, GERRARD, OWEN, ROONEY would / should all walk into the top international teams.
That is the back-bone of any team, fill in the holes with likes of Robinson/James for GK, Neville/Johnson for right-back, Ashley Cole/Bridge for left-back, Joe Cole/ Downing for the other midfield place and Defoe as back-up for striker.

There can't be many national teams that have that basis for a team that are in a position to win major competitions, yet we struggle to beat Azerbijan ffs, we should be using these games as our warm-ups, not games against Holland etc!!

Ok, we're not in that shocking a state when you compare us to others but then others don't have our riches!!

2nd is no-longer good-enough from where I'm sat.

USA 1-2 England

Kieran Richardson struck a dream double on his debut to give England victory.

The USA troubled England's defence, with Landon Donovan hitting an upright in the first-half before Clint Dempsey headed home after 78 minutes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/i...als/4582373.stm

Cheers for the update, sure we are all happy to know how the English underachievers are doing....

Anyone else watching the Confederations Cup games on TV?

World champions Brazil coasted to 3-0 win over European champions Greece with a superb goal by Adriano the highlight of the Confederations Cup game.

The Inter Milan striker scored with an inswinging shot that embarrassed Greek keeper Antonios Nikopolidis.

Youngster Robinho made it 2-0 in the 46th minute after Gilberto surged through the Greek defence.

Juninho (not the Celtic dud Jununho) Pernambucano scored Brazil's third four minutes later with a superbly taken free-kick.

So England will alter their team tactics at last.

Sven is playing 4-5-1 because it has finally dawned on him that Gerrard and Lampard can't play together in central midfield in a 4-4-2.

By playing 4-5-1, Sven can allow them both to push on when needed while still having cover in the center (presuming Beckham can stay disciplined in that role).

Personally, I think the system is good as it allows 4-3-3 in attack and 4-5-1 when defending. However, I don't think he's got the right personnel - Beckham just doesn't justify his place anymore. He's not that effective on the right anymore and Lampard and Gerrard are both better options in the center.

Sven should drop Beckham (as if), play a proper defensive midfielder behind Lampard and Gerrard.