ponsaelius

I was thinking he played for West Ham, but then I realised I was confusing him with Diego Tristan because they both played for Depor on CM99/00. Tamudo never played for Depor, you're probably thinking of Pandiani?

Looked like a superhero costume.

I was under the impression he was about sign for Swindon until Wise asked him to sign for us?

Wonder if Benjani would be available on loan? Actually if he was I could see him going to Pompey.

www.soccerway.com is usually pretty good. Although they don't always have the lineups.

Worrying.

You'd have thought so, considering there is 2 natural CBs there and I'm not even sure Ansaldi can play in the centre. This is Maradona though.

I think we can see from today that our strength in depth is terrible, but as far as a starting XI goes that's a very good team.

That Brazil line-up is scarily good.

Meh, just realized that it's actually Di María which suggests that Marca lineup is bonkers. Yeah that's why I was getting very confused.

Who is the De Maria?

Yeah because we have an abbundance of cash available to gamble on a player who's played his entire career in Non-league and League 1. I'd rather we spent that money on decent wingers/ creative midfielders so we fill major gaps in our squad and try to get the best out of the strikers we have than take a major gamble on Beckford. No way Leeds would sell him for any less than that atm, there's no reason to let him go on the cheap when it could scupper their promotion chances.

Like I said, from what I've seen of him his reading of the game is poor and pace appeared to be his major attribute. I don't think he looks like he has the intelligence or technique to make a fist of it at a higher level, and certainly not worthy of a £1-2 Million transfer fee. Maybe he does have the knack of 'being in the right place at the right time', however I don't think that skill translates at all levels as easy as you say it does. He's 25 and I doubt he's gonna improve very much from where he is now, likewise I don't think we have the setup here to iron out the problems in his game. It would be a hugely risky signing all round.

Based on what? Based on the 5/6 games I've seen him play in. Okay, relatively limited viewing and he does have a good goal record. However, every time I've seen him his touch has been terrible and his overall technique nothing special. He relies on his pace too much when his actual positioning and reading of the game is not that good. Couple into that a bad attitude and you've got a pretty risky transfer. I'll backtrack on what I said slightly, he'd probably be decent in the Championship. However not really worth the transfer fee that would be needed to sign him, especially when we're aiming to be a Premiership team again next year.

Yeah he's a class above anybody on the pitch. Can't believe he's only 18.

Actually, expanding on this we could actually have the most we've ever had at a World Cup if we manage to get 4 there. Kinda Ironic considering we're at the lowest point as a club in a long time.

I don't rate Beckford at all above League 1 level.

Just been thinking how many players we'll have at next years World Cup. We had 2 players in '06, Michael Owen and Craig Moore. (Only one of them managed to score though ) At the moment we have Jonas as a definite for Argentina, Coloccini as a possibility. Geremi for Cameroon if they finish the job and qualify today. Possibly Shola if Nigeria come in for him? Lovenkrands at a long shot if he plays well, and Vuckic at a very long shot if Slovenia get past Russia. Then again by then Gutierrez will probably be offski and Geremi will be released.

I agree. England are the only country in the world where people don't seem to care about their national team. I think it's a bit sad.

Honduras and North Korea have both qualified deservingly through difficult campaigns though, it's the way New Zealand only had to play 2 competitive matches to get there which is silly.

Zavon Hines looks firmly part of the England U-21 set up now. He was on the bench for a Jamaica game not long ago, bet they wish they'd capped him at the time because he burst onto the scene for West Ham against Liverpool straight afterwards and now they've lost him.

It's on The FA wesbite now for anybody wanting to watch it, superb streaming quality aswell.

Would be nice if LA won, would mean Beckham's 'MLS experiment' wouldn't have been a total waste of time. He would come out with a trophy to show for it. Ohh, and the millions and millions of dollars.

I'd say it's FIFA's fault, they should have just merged the two regions after Australia asked to move.

Still think it's a bit unfair. New Zealand play one group of games against a load of islands, while Bahrain had to come through a qualifying round, a first group stage, a second group stage and then a play-off, all against harder opposition, ammasing to a total of 18 games. More than likely if New Zealand had been in Asian qualifying they wouldn't have even got this far.