James

There does seem to be a high ratio of footballers and traffic violations in this Country compared to the norm. I bet half our squad have been caught speeding, well at one time i'm sure of it! Would be interested in seeing a study commissioned on not just footballers, but people earning above a certain bracket. To be honest, I'd be happy to see a motorcycling system adopted for car licenses. Reality is though that what McCormick has allegedly done is just as bad as someone who did exactly the same, but managed to get home without incident. Complete lottery. If it turns out that footballers are flouting the driving laws more than average, the FA should take a stance and suspend players for driving offences. Harsh? Yes. Over the top? Yes. Reactionary? Yes. Effective? Yes.

You made it during the warm up friendly matches period. Those teams all got removed before the tournament started outright. Bad luck.

Modric will be a star player for Spurs, and a big name in England no doubt about that, but I suspect it'll be in the Kinkladze/Di canio/Zola mould in that the overall performance of the team will be down to the quality of the other ten players.

i'm not trying to argue, i just genuinely dont understand the bold bit, he's supposed to be offensive when his team hasnt got the ball? Whoops, I meant defensive, getting mixed up as always.

Haven't read the other posts yet, but I thought that Modric looked excellent when Croatia had the ball, his movement both on and off the ball, his technique, decision making and his work ethic was spot on. However, when Croatia weren't on the ball he appeared to have no offensive attributes whatsoever, and if he carries on like this in this midfield position, better clubs, especially in the PL are going to havea field day. Spurs are going to either have to play him on the wing where he'll be less than half as good, or instead of one of their strikers, or with twodefensive midfielders next to him. He'd be great at Arsenal, but unless there are massive changes at Spurs I can't see him fitting in.

Thing is, at £20m and £200m over three years in wages, you can buy a few top players who although not as good as Ronaldinho, can together bring more to the team.

Wouldn't be unhappy with Larsson as a squad player. Can cover a number of positions, and I'm told he can take a good set piece.

This is a very foolish statement. I have businesses in Thailand and my feedback/feel is that he was a very good prime minister, steering the economy to one of its best runs in recent history. The foreigners including myself have a lot of confidence in him when the country is under his stewardship. After he was forced out by the military coup, i pulled out my investments as many of the foreigners did. I remembered i was in a taxi on the way to the airport, the thai taxi driver was lamenting that he was forced out, interestingly, he said he knows that there is some kind of corruption in terms of benefiting his family but he does not care if the country is growing strongly. He gathers a lot of support from the poor while the middle-high income are not happy with him cos he favours the poor, distributing wealth from the rich to the poor in his many policies. In any case, he is a very smart man and am sure if he wants the Ron and pay him loads, he has his sums. His record of business is almost 100%, a record of successes. This bloke yeah? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaksin_Shinawatra not even bothered to read the wiki. no offence, some of the stuff written are just plain rubbish so have stopped reading stuff from Wiki. In any case, do not believe everything u read especially asian politics whereby the media is very much controlled by the government. Works both ways.

He got a charity dinner instead.

Although Ashley is the richer owner, I suspect that both Thai Frank Sinatra and Alex Gaydamak have more cash available to freespend, whereas Ashley's wealth is within his businesses. If these suspicions are true, it means that both Portsmouth and Man City can afford bigger investments on riskier assets than we can.

General moaning about how shit things were here and how playing in midfield was going to hinder his international prospects (even though KK hadn't played him yet). Anyhow, that wasn't why I had come to post here... Anyone else think Rozehnal looked excellent yesterday? He was very comfortable on the ball, and defended in a very composed manner, making no noticeable errors. You can see why he was highly-rated pre Newcastle. Obviously Premier League football is a different kettle and fish and made him look like a complete mess, but was that thanks to the Allardyce style? Perhaps a team that focuse more on attack than defence would suit his obvious ability. Its a tough call, but I hope that Keegan is watching. didn't he and another czec player both go for a free header from a swiss long ball, miss it, and then the swiss had a good chance? that was always imo his biggest weakness when he played here, he's too indisisive and shite in the air, and in the PL you can't play like that. he was always good on the ball, he was good on the ball when he played for us, and his positioning is good, and he's not a bad tackler, but that weakness is a major one, you may get away with it in foreign leagues, but not i the premiership. He hasn't changed imo, but if we can't get decent money for him then we may as well give him another chance, as we can't really lose much. Was Ujfalusi and Grygera iirc. Ujfalusi was the Fantasy Football MOTM yesterday by the way. Load of shite as he went in a Steven Tayloresque headless chicken mode at times.

Made a lot of timely interventions as well especially in the second half. They say that the best defenders are the ones you don't notice.

You are weird. I know.

General moaning about how shit things were here and how playing in midfield was going to hinder his international prospects (even though KK hadn't played him yet). Anyhow, that wasn't why I had come to post here... Anyone else think Rozehnal looked excellent yesterday? He was very comfortable on the ball, and defended in a very composed manner, making no noticeable errors. You can see why he was highly-rated pre Newcastle. Obviously Premier League football is a different kettle and fish and made him look like a complete mess, but was that thanks to the Allardyce style? Perhaps a team that focused more on attack than defence would suit his obvious ability. Its a tough call, but I hope that Keegan is watching.

I am fairly confident that the winner of this tournament is not in Group A. For me, the ten best players yeterday were: Ronaldo, Pepe, Deco, Moutinho, Carvalho, Aurelio, Kazim Kazim, Galasek, Rozehnal and Plasil.

Blatantly me, but Dave doesn't want everyone else to know that I am one in a million.

Which experts would those be? Anyway, it's rubbish. We have never had a squad with this many young, technical football players. In fact, I'd say the weak link in our attacking play is Van Nistelrooij, and we would be better off playing with Huntelaar, as he is more technical as well. Sneijder, Van der Vaart, Robben, Van Persie and Huntelaar and one controlling midfield player and we would be unplayable for most defenses in this competition. Our attackers in the 70's weren't that great; it was the midfielders who stood out, especially Cruyff and Van Hanegem. The 80's were poor by all accounts, except for '88 and Van Basten, but you may be surprised Van Basten wasn't considered to be a first team player at the start of the competition. The 90's were good, mainly because of Bergkamp, Van Basten (first half of the decade) and Kluivert (second half of the decade), but I do think we have some exceptional players at this point in time. Shame some are so injury prone, especially Robben and Van Persie.. Numerous elder statesmen in the Dutch game. Was in FourFourTwo.

Even the attack. Late 00s < Late 90s < Late 80s < Late 70s Or at least that is what the Dutch experts are saying. Many blaming van Basten for destroying long established youth development systems. Undoubtedly there are some good players, van der Vaart and an experienced van Nistelrooy would have made the 98 team a complete team for example, but the likes of Robben and van Persie are extremely overrated when compared to past Dutch greats.

The current Dutch team is the worst there has been for years and will go out in the first round.

Kazim-Kazim > Colin Kazim-Richards FACT

There is pretty much a straight swap available fortunately.

Two clean sheets for me, good start, although I wish I had gone for Pepe.

Based on the only 45 minutes I've seen on him, Chelsea have wasted more money on a shocking full back. Like the look of Pepe

Shite opener. MOTM either Galasek or Rozehnal

djmattis and mcdonald36, you have managed to make a complete mockery of a thread about two kids dying. Not good.