OzzieMandias

This was always the daleks' biggest problem.

Should obviously be your home nation. Anyway, you guys are not allowed to win the World Cup, I don't think I could stand the cuntness of you and the rest of the yanks if you did. If it's home nation, I'd rather USA won the world cup than Newcastle win the league cup. No question about it. We'd be massive assholes about the entire thing, Towel. Which is exactly why it must happen, but never will. Wheels for legs too. Upgrade to some huge monster truck tires and kick ass all over the world. Sure I might blow a tire now and then, but I could still piss without some complex machine aiding me like the knife people. Plus if you have knives for arms, how do you clean the knives? In a big pile of sand?

But in the absence of any other credible candidate...

Are they? Really, are they? I dont think they are. James is 39; Carragher, Heskey and Lampard are 32; Gerrard is 30; Terry, King, Ashley Cole and Crouch are 29, Joe Cole and Sean Wright-Philips are 28. None of that lot are going to be in the frame for 2014; most of them won't be for 2012. As we've just seen, most are actually past it already, in terms of having any spark left for a summer campaign after a long league season. The "Golden Generation" have had their shot and won nowt. There's no way they should be making the call as to whether Capello stays or goes.

Why? The players at the core of this England side are history.

Wheels for legs.

I wish someone would change the poll at the top. It depresses me.

Yeah, it's a little surprising that Nike didn't also do a Torres ad.

Very good read. Thanks for that.

No, it's not confirmed. But papers are saying that it's expected shortly.

They should have called the campaign "Just Tempt Fate!"

Blame that on the Nike ad too.

Write the Future: Ronaldo, Drogba, Cannavaro, Ribéry, Rooney: All of their teams are now back home or on their way, in varying states of disappointment and disgrace. Ronaldo and Drogba scored one goal each (Ronaldo's against North Korea, after a slapstick build-up involving the ball coming off the back of his head). Rooney might as well have stayed in England. Ribéry was part of the ludicrous French mutiny. Cannavaro captained his side to ignominy, leading by piss-poor example. Oh, and let's not forget Ronaldinho, who didn't even get to South Africa. Great campaign, Nike!

Yeah, five years from now, Hodgson will be in deep trouble.

Forgot about that. 18 clubs is actually the best way to go. Definitely.

It's all about money, basically. Blame our dumb post-Thatcherite culture where profit is everything. Far from reducing the number of games, for example, the FA were recently trying to add yet another one -- the 39th game, to be played, ludicrously, abroad, the better to boost the Prem's international marketing appeal.

That's basically it. No confidence on the ball or the ability to create (all done by foreign players at the clubs). Its bought in because this country has stopped producing or never really has produced players wil really good close control and the ability to make a pass under pressure, beat a man, whip a ball in. What the f*** are we teaching the kids at football. We should still kill howard wilkinson The kids are coached at their clubs and I doubt many clubs work to Charlie Hughes coaching manual. In fact I doubt the FA have much influence over the coaching of potential pro footballers at all. The problem and the solution lies with the clubs. Until they start playing creative and inventive football the youngsters coming through the ranks will never be much more than athletes in football boots. Unfortunately the price of failure in the PL is now so high that playing anything other than negative percentage football is a huge risk. You could argue, the fault lies earlier, if we produced our own "Mikel Arteta" we wouldn't need to go buy one would we? For starters we shouldn't be playing through winter. 2 week break from x mas to new year would IMO make a massive differance to tiredness and injuries that accumulate. Surely it would just result in having to cram even more games in the last three months of the season. If we want fresher players the only effective option is reducing the number of games. Carling Cup should just be for teams outside the PL. But the cash-strapped League will object as it will mean reduced revenue.

If there's going to be a winter break then they should years ago have reduced the Premier League to 18 clubs -- like they were supposed to, until the clubs objected. Which they still will, if the idea is revived.

The Wing Commander at his ranting best: http://www.wsc.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,73/func,view/catid,34/id,403029/

I am sure, i heard something on ssn a year or 2 ago that30 % of players in England are English 40 % of players in Germany are German 60% ofplayers in spain are Spanish and 70 % of players in Italy are Italian. And what's the percentage of foreigners at Real and Barça, given that most of the Spanish team comes from those two clubs? 52,4% foreigners in Barca's first team. 58,3% in Real's. EDIT: But on the other hand, the numbers for Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool are 70,4%, 67,7%, 86,7% and 77,8% respectively. Thanks.

I guess I'm rooting for Argentina now. Partly because of Jonas, partly because I want to see them turf Germany out. It stops well short of cheering, though.

Prem's where the money is. Brazilians have to travel for the bucks; Brits don't. Meanwhile, I guess that few English footballers like the idea of dealing with a foreign-language environment.

One thing that the past few days has made abundantly clear to me is just how much all the anti-German nonsense in English tabloids (which all gets reproduced in the German media) fires the Germans up -- the team presumably as much as the fans. I'm fed up with being blamed for the shite in the Mail and the Sun.

Did an abusive 1am voicemail to your boss get you the sack by any chance?