Cronky

Time for Pardew to make a getting-it-over-the-line statement.

Have you told Graeme Carr this yet? If not get a move on. To be fair, its only Carrs specific paid profession to travel the world watching players all year round. Yes hes been doing it for a very long time & has an incredibly proven track record. Lets find out what the random forum member helsug from sweden thinks first, i mean in his equally creditable opinion he might not be worth that much. Well yeah, but it's fair comment that the videos aren't that impressive. I couldn't see any one aspect of his game that stood out.

Yep, time to stop the messing about. De Jong can't be the only fish in the sea.

It sounds like Twente have accepted that he's going, and are just trying to start a bidding war between us and Moenchengladbach.

Looks like we're nearing the endgame with this one. Can't help but feel that he's a replacement for Ba.

It's only fair on the other players that the squad and the team are picked on merit. If Beckham isn't good enough, he shouldn't be there. He's had his opportunities and his moments of glory. Some younger, up and coming players will now get theirs.

It's the Arsenal - Swansea continuum. When a team are keeping possession in order to penetrate a defence, it's exciting. When a team are keeping possession just to starve the opposition of opportunities or wear them out, it's boring. When Barca or Spain get a lead, they can become boring. Last season, I became particularly conscious of that with Barca.

If I had to pick between Iniesta and Ronaldo, I'd pick Iniesta every time. I thought his performance was phenomenal last night. A lot of things didn't come off for him, but his energy levels and his ability to hold and use the ball under pressure were brilliant. He seemed to be playing in the 119th minute in the same way that he was playing in the 1st. (only slight exaggeration) I'd say he's the second best player in the world.

Let's just see how Gerrard goes over the next two years before writing him off. His fitness isn't what it was, but he was still our best player. He could yet have a role as the anchor man in midfield. Wilshere - Gerrard - Ox could be quite a tasty threesome in two years' time.

I'd agree with HTT in that there seems to be something about our fundamental attitude to the game, that isn't conducive to producing technically adept players in the long term. After all, the skill gap between British and Continental players has been there for decades. It predates the Premiership and modern quota systems for developing young players. The most astute thing I've heard on this subject came from Arsene Wenger. He once said that for the English player, football is war, whereas for the continental player, football is an art form. It comes out partly in the obsession, highlighted by HTT, for getting young children to play competitve 11 a side football on large pitches far too soon. They don't develop their skills that way. I think it also comes out in our association of skill with individualism rather than teamwork. It was very noticeable last night that the England team were playing as isolated individuals, or at best only in twos and threes, whereas the Italians were knocking the ball around as a team with far more confidence. Their ability to interchange passes and have faith in one another to receive the ball at pace was so superior to our players. I think a by-product of the 'warrior' mentality that Wenger mentions is our obsession with individuals producing moments on their own to unlock a defence - particularly wide players. Having said that, I think matters are improving. We were a bit unlucky with injuries, because Wilshere, Lampard and Barry would have been good additions to a squad which relied solely on Gerrard for invention in the midfield. I'm a bit worried about Hodgson's apparent commitment to 4-4-2 though. We end up getting outnumbered in midfield and relying too much on the wide players.

Lawrenson's advice is to stop giving the ball away. Get that message to the dugout quick.

Italy look much fresher. We need a bit of luck. The problem is we've no alternatives to Parker and Gerrard in the middle, and they'll struggle in the next 30 minutes.

Rooney started off poorly, but has started to find his touch. Our best performance by far. It's like the pressure's off now that we've got through the group stages, and they're all playing with more confidence. Balotelli looks like a red card in the making.

There's too much fuss being made over the phantom goal. It was only just over the line and with the speed at which it was all happening, even someone on the goal-line would have found it difficult to be certain that the whole of the ball had crossed. All that's been demonstrated is that technology is the only way of eliminating the fallability of the human eye. Not news.

Dunno. Don't think that's ever happened.

We may as well pick Carroll if that's the way we're going to play. Our philsophy seems to be that we don't have the players so we're better off playing defensive.

Gerrard and Welbeck are the ones playing with any confidence. Rooney looks out of sorts. Milner hasn't got into it. Generally, we're too passive in our approach. If I wasn't English, I'd be desperate to see this team get knocked out.

Colo makes up for his lack of pace by good positioning and timing his interventions well, but he will get caught out now and then. I think it was tmonkey who produced a good analysis a few months ago, the gist of which was that Colo was good when the ball was in front of him, but weak when the ball went behind. If he gets beaten, he can't recover.

I wasn't that impressed with France. At times they gave us a lot of space and I think a technically better side than us will do them.

Welbeck did very well, despite few opportunities to make an impression. Young struggled, and didn't always use his brain, which is an old tendency. Welbeck and Rooney together will be a very good combination for us. A rather spineless performance from the ref, I thought.

With Gerrard the only Liverpudlian to start today... Downing looks likely. Rumor is ox n Millner Ox would be a good decision. He's very raw, but it's not as though our alternatives on the right are anything great, and in the absence of Rooney, we need someone who can turn on the unexpected.

Absolutely. Two goal leads can be dangerous. You can relax too much, and then if the opposition score they get a tremendous lift and it's very difficult to raise your game again.

The irritating thing is the conceit that Liverpool fans are supposedly less inclined to moan about their manager than fans of other clubs do.

It was very irritating to see the cautious way Croatia played after going 3-1 ahead, no longer commiting people forward but concentrating on keeping possession. Often they played the ball backwards out of quite promising situations. You see so many teams do this, and they call it 'shutting up shop'. More often that not, it's handing the initiative to the opposition. They were quite lucky not to concede with the number of chances that Ireland had with all the possession they were allowed. It's supposed to be the percentage way of seeing a game out, but I have my doubts.

He owes us at least another season. He's right to bear in mind that we gave him a permanent contract when he had a badly broken leg and his career was at a low point. That was a quite exceptional vote of confidence and he should respect that. Plus I think we are the right club for him at this point. He's a valued member of a team that's on the up, and he's improved as a player himself. There should be more to come, and he's got more chance of developing his ability now in our environment than if he was a bit player at a mega-club.