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Well well. Thats a shock. A crap England performance (and result – we lose 1-0) and McClaren still smiling away and saying there were some positives from the match. Really???! (Actually Ben Foster did well in goal and most of the defence was OK).

However SWP and Crouch were particular poor. SWP kept losing the ball and Crouch kept fouling players with his habit of climbing all over a player wrapping his long arms and legs around them. He was unlucky that the ref was really fussy but still! Gerrard was pretty good but he went off at half time. Barry was not picked cause cant play in left back position apparently but he ended up there in the end. Carrick played very poorly – passing was terrible and most of it as usual was back or to the side. Barton only given 12 minutes – whats the point of that! Lampard as usual did sod all. No left side since Lampard played more central. Therefore P Neville had the left side all to himself!

It was quite funny though when Barton replaced Lampard – after what Barton had said about Lampard (as well as other players like Gerrard). LOL

Like I said before the match I kindoff wanted England to lose to push McSven close to the door. However its a bit of a catch 22 situation. If we dont qualify for Euro 2008 then McSven goes, however if we qualify we are stuck with him.

If The FA were any good last night we make them realise what we all know and that is McClaren is hopeless, useless manager completely out of his depth. However The FA are rubbish and spineless and wont do that.

Of course missing key players but still (Owen, Rooney, Hargreaves, Lennon, A Cole, J Cole,..). However a side with so much talent only managed 2 shots and lacked so much creativity up front.

Ahhhhh!!!

Spain were missing several players but were very comfortable. David Villa looked good for them.

UPDATE: McSven’s former boss, Boro chairmen Steve Gibson has said its not McSven’s fault and the clubs need to do more to help. He pretty much said that the players are not good enough and we have not been producing good enough English players. He pointed out Liverpool and Arsenal and questioned what they had done for the England national team. Apparently its not worked since 1966. What??? Deluded. Most people think that this generation of footballers is one of the best – we have some truly world class players at the moment.

Scientists in Manchester Uni have come up with a formula to calculate how “beer goggles” affect a drinker’s vision. If you dont know the phenomenon is said to make ‘unattractive’ people appear more attractive than they really are – until the morning after.

The formula involves such factors as the number of units of alcohol consumed, smokiness of the room, luminance of ‘person of interest’ and the distance from ‘person of interest’

Heres the formula:

An = number of units of alcohol consumed
S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
L = luminance of ‘person of interest’ (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
d = distance from ‘person of interest’ (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)

Once again another strange squad/team picked by an England manager. McClaren (or McSven as I will now be calling him) has decided to play a team with players once again out of position.

With Cashley Cole and Wayne Bridge out injured it was a great opportunity to give Gareth Barry a game. Although he plays on the left wing now, he is in great form (and of course has played left back before). He instead is going to play Phil Neville. Hes a decent player but has played for England many times and we already know what he can do. Also he doesnt play left back for his club and in fact plays either right back or a central midfield. McSven has said he has not picked Barry because he doesnt play left back for his club. ??!?? Then why is Lampard playing on the left hand side?? Should have gone to specsavers!!

Also, I dont know why he hasnt picked David James. He has been in great form this season and is the best English keeper in the premiership this season. He has picked a couple other ‘sub’ keepers – Forster and Kirkland, but they wont be no.1 in the England team for a few years.

He has also picked Hargreaves and Terry in the squad. He has said he wont be playing them because they are not fit but they have just said they want to join the squad so they are picked. Surely at least one of these position could be for someone like Nolan.

Admittedly he has been abit unlucky with injuries with no Rooney, Lennon etc (and of course no Owen).

One thing I think he got right is picking Barton in the squad. He has been in good form for city and will certainly put in 100% effort. However, I feel sorry for Nolan. What on earth does he have to do to get into the England squad!!

In some ways I hope we lose tonight and that will force the FA to get rid of McSven (or at least push him further towards the door).

Ronaldo dived?

In the game at the weekend with United v Spurs we won 4-0. Most of the talk was about Ronaldo and his penalty. It was not 100% clear if he dived or not. However the letter of the law is if contact made or opposition played attempts to trip the player. The Spurs player did stick his leg out. Even if it wasnt a penalty, we should have had a penalty when Larsson was fouled. Also Berbatov dived earlier on in the game but no one seems to remember that. As usual Football365.com does its usual hate Ronaldo thing calling Ronaldo a cheat. It seems OK to the media when the likes of Gerrard and Owen dive but when its Ronaldo….

Anyway, when they booed Ronaldo he played better and we were great

I missed the first half but we were really good in the 2nd half. Scholes was once again amazing. There was a bit of excitment towards the end. About 5 minutes to go, Van Der Saar got injured (broke his nose after collision with Robbie Keane’s knee). We had already made 3 subs so John O’Shea has to be an emergency keeper. He made one clearance from a corner and also saved with his feet after a poor back pass by Rio.

Small team??

In other football news, after the Liverpool game in the post match interview, Rafa called Everton a small team. Something about when small teams play them they defend deep etc.

Wii-ing

Went to a friend house on Saturday for a Wii party. I had played on the Wii before but had only played a couple of the games. Played all the games and the gameplay is very good. It was good fun. My favs are properly the bowling, tennis and golf.

Former Middlesborough player has apparently had a go at England manager Steve McClaren .

He apparently said “The ever-smiling Steve ‘The Magnificent’ McClaren is the most two-faced and false person I’ve had the misfortune to meet in football.” He also said that only in England could someone of such limited ability become England manager.

His agent has said he doesnt think Massimo would have said these things and maybe its all been lost in translation.

All very amusing but would have been better if it came from a good player. He cost Middlesborough more than £8m and scored only about 24 goals in about 104 games or so.