Cronky

I don't suppose Torsten Frings would fancy ending his career with a nice fat pay cheque in the Premiership? He really would do a great job for us.

I'm still not sure why the Germans are picking the Incredible Hulk up front.

Scolari's top level experience is confined to Brazil and Portugal. He's nearly 60, and he's got to adjust to a different environment on and off the field. It might not come off.

He got the ball in basically the last chance of the game with his countries hopes of going any further in the competition riding on what he did with it. Yet he was calm enough and confident enough (at 21) to take it on and get into a shooting position, and strike the ball very well (looked to be heading to the side of the goal to me as well). Was it the best goal of all time?, no. Would it have gone in without the deflection?, quite possibly. Should it be downplayed either way? no. The way I see it he played well despite being hindered by the conditions and scored an extremely important goal for his country, simple as that. He definitely impressed me. Well said. I'd agree really, in a lot of ways he was better than I expected - I didn't think he'd be as good tracking back. While watching the game it did cross my mind that we might tie up the deal quickly like Lazio did before other clubs started sniffing for Rozenhal. I wouldn't be too happy if the Euros alerts other clubs or ends up inflating Arda's price. He was certainly fearless in the way he took the goal, and throughout showed a lot of confidence and determination. I was talking on a purely techincal level, and specifically for the goal he didn't do anything that would be beyond the average Premiership wide player.

I don't think one can read too much into the goal. He was given the ball in plenty of space, he was allowed to turn on to his stronger foot too easily and the shot looked to be heading for the keeper until it took a deflection. Based on last night, he looks to me a bit of a gamble. It depends on our budget, and whether we can afford to take it.

Some players don't adjust to the Premiership, and Rozzy was one of them. Basically, he wasn't good enough in the air.

He seemed to roam around a bit in the first half, which suited him. I had the impression in the second half, he'd been told to stay wide left more, and he wasn't that involved. He didn't look like a wide man in a 4-4-2, and needed to be more central. But like Mark Bright, I felt it almost seemed that his team mates didn't want to pass to him. He didn't lack confidence and he clearly has some ability, but I'm not totally convinced on that performance that he's a major talent. Presumably we've done our homework on him though.

That's what I thought. There was a defender on the line, but the keeper was elsewhere. Normally you can go by the position of the last defender, but not here.

And so can everyone else. Stop sounding happy.

.....is the correct answer. Both teams take their colours not from their national flags, but from the colours of their respective royal families. (In Italy's case, no longer ruling, of course)

I agree. There's only a limited number of young players that you can pitch in at any one time. Bringing on young players is important, if only because we can't outspend the opposition any more. But we need a balanced approach. The key is the defence. The main examples of teams being built through a youth stategy are Arsenal and Man U, but those teams always had the foundation of a solid defence that made those kinds of risks possible.

The shirt colour is not part of their flag... Half right. Your answer isn't quite complete. Both colours arent on their flag but used to be. Nope, but you are right in looking to history. The Dutch flag used to have orange in it, I think. I don't think so, in the case of either country.

Even Van Nistelrooy looked sheepish at first. I think the point is they should have the means to look it up quickly enough. I'd say if they're paid large amounts of money to do a professional job they should take the time to know the rules inside out. A couple of years ago, Mark Lawrenson was saying that an attacker had been played onside because a defender had touched the ball on its way through. That law changed about 20 years ago.

The shirt colour is not part of their flag... Half right. Your answer isn't quite complete. Both colours arent on their flag but used to be. Nope, but you are right in looking to history.

Nice one. Good to see ITV up to scratch with their laws of the game. Nothing new there. It never seizes to amaze me the way so many professional commentators and pundits on TV are shaky on the rules.

The shirt colour is not part of their flag... Half right. Your answer isn't quite complete.

Quiz question - what do the shirts of the Italian and Dutch national sides have in common? Clue is in the colours.

You'd be the best scout ever. Maybe just a bad game, he's looked real sharp in the league, like. Some players don't make the transition between league and international football, and he looked to me like one of them. Maybe it was nerves or inexperience, but he seemed out of his depth.

I thought Germany played within themselves for most of the game. They look very strong. Gomez looked surprisingly crap. His first touch was terrible. I can't believe that a nation of 80 million people hasn't produce a better No 9 than him.

Mr Shinawatra doesn't seem to realise that you can easily spend £200 million over three years and still finish fifth.

I agree about Kazim-Richards playing down the middle. Turkey lacked any physical presence in the opposition penalty area, and that was a real problem for them in creating or getting on the end of chances. K-R looked physically a lot stronger than Nihat. On the whole, I was disappointed in Turkey. They looked like a group of talented players who hadn't been knitted together into a team.

Usual problem with Emre. He fancies himself as a playmaker, dropping deep and feeding passes forward. Trouble is, he ends up playing alongside the defensive midfielder instead of getting forward. He looks good, but the team would benefit more from someone getting into the box from that position.

Just watched the interview and I thoroughly enjoyed it. He steps beyond all the usual cliches that football managers come out with, and was actually quite honest and interesting in his responses. A couple of times, he said how hard it was to handle success. I can remember him saying in another interview that most of the time in life, we're dealing with failure, but success is an unusual and different challenge. What is striking about Ferguson is his ability to refresh both his team and himself for each new season, no matter how much they've achieved before. It's like the past counts for nothing, and the only thing that matters is the challenge immediately ahead. Any player that loses hunger (eg Beckham) is out. That's what's really set him apart from other managers, although of course there's a very shrewd and perceptive brain operating underneath that florid expression.

Shearer and Bellamy were a great combination for sure. The tragedy was that Shearer's legs went, but it was Bellamy who ended up moving on. Bellamy had lots of qualities, but the one we really needed at the time was pace. With the exception of Martins, we've become quite a slow side now.

Clearly, the other Turkish players are jealous of his talent, and have persuaded the manager not to pick him.