Peter Crouch is a playmaker as well as a goalscorer.
He is the only striker who has scored goals for England since the World Cup and he can also hold it up and play people in.
Crouch is a team player who knows how to play with Gerrard. If he doesn't start in Tallinn, England might draw.
Estonia don't score goals but don't concede more than one goal at home in most games.
FRIDAY night's predictable 1-1 draw with Brazil was hailed by headlines suggesting it was a real match.
It wasn't but it was interesting to see that McClaren copied Benitez.
He saw how Liverpool blocked out Kaka in Athens and he decided to do the same at Wembley And that showed how gullible McClaren is. He didn't realise Brazil would not be trying, that they would just go through the motions, although I didn't fully realise that either.
So the game didn't tell us anything new about Brazil.
We knew that Kaka's job for the season was to win the European Cup for Meeelan and he got them to the final and had a foot in both goals and that was his peak. Kaka was main man when they beat Celtic, Bayern, Man United and Liverpool, so his job was over. He had done what he was paid to do. Mission accomplished, time for a holiday. Asking Kaka to peak again at Wembley nine days later was unrealistic. For a friendly? No way.
Ronaldinho, Robinho and Danni Alves play in the Spanish League and their season is ongoing till June 17. Each club has two more games and Real Madrid are likely to be champions.
When the La Liga title is decided, the clubs that don't get Samuel Eto'o will want other strikers and all hell will break loose in the transfer market.
The friendly didn't tell us anything new about England either.
In the first half we had no player who made the players round him look good. No Bobby Charlton, no Beardlsey, no Gazza, no Rooney. Our team didn't have a compact shape, didn't have a recognisable rhythm, didn't have, individually, the crafts of the game to break Brazil down, or even retain possession. It was the same old garbage that we saw in 90% of Sven's games.
Like Sven, McClaren is a weak manager with the Lampard/Gerrard situation. Like Sven, he is a coward who will not drop one of them.
Composed and focused, Beckham showed more authority than any of the England players. He was, as always, a very determined technician. If Beckham had not played, England would not have scored.
In 68 minutes he placed the ball on John Terry's head and JT did the rest. But Gilberto chipped an inviting cross into a dangerous area and Diego's header bounced past Paul Robinson in on 92 minutes.
So it took us 68 minutes to score against a young Brazil team that was not trying, and then Brazil move up a gear and equalised 24 minutes later.
The best Brazilian on show last weekend was Eduardo da Silva, who plays for Croatia. His opportunist left-foot shot flew past Mart Poom to give Slaven Bilic's Croatia three points in Tallin.
I think Croatia will beat Russia on Wednesday and that will help England, who must now beat Russia, Croatia and Israel at Wembley in September-October-November, a tall order, even if they had a good coach.
In Paris, Franck Ribery zipped onto a straight ball from Makelele and took it round Ukraine keeper Shovkovsky in 57 minutes His second goal for France, his 17th cap - lightning fast, gutsy, two-footed, a proper footballer who excites crowds. Ribery will sign for Bayern Munich for £17 million and become the Uli Hoeness of the 21st century, a super-explosive, thrilling counter-attacker.
In 72, Anelka took a ball from teenager Nasri, flicked it over the last defender, blasted in a left-foot shot for 2-0.
Gallas and Thuram played centreback.
THE BURNS REPORT will change the England operation but it will take at least 18 months.
Three big things will happen.
1. The FA will bring in a chairman over Brian Barwick.
2. The new chairman will get rid of Barwick.
3. He will replace Barwick with a dynamic chief executive who will make the FA completely different.
Although Barwick is dead in the water, we have to hope that England achieve Scenario 1 and not Scenario 2.
Scenario 1 is qualifying for Euro 2008 in Austria-Switzerland and going out in the quarter-finals, as Sven always did.
Scenario 2 is not qualifying and McClaren being sacked and a new coach chosen by the same idiots who chose McClaren.
THE TRANSFER NEWS is depressing many Gooners but I'd say this : Last week Sir Alex spent £26 million on inexperience.
He signed Nani and Anderson for £13m each.That is a punt.That is a big roll of the dice.
NANI could turn out to be a Portuguese Marc Overmars but he's not gonna score 12 league goals in his first season for Man United.
ANDERSON is a creative inside left, a strong boy and a very exciting dribbler. In a year or two, Anderson will be able to open up any club defence, and he should be an automatic choice for Brazil. He is that gifted. His left foot is like an old-fashioned can-opener, he can just jab the ball and a hole appears.
But Anderson needs time to adapt. Right now, he's a guy who is gonna dribble in the middle third. If Rooney and Ronaldo are also doing that, they'll need three balls.
The new boys will be introduced gradually. They are faces for 2008 and 2009.
HARGREAVES, by contrast, is a player for 2007. He can do a serious job from day one. Nani and Anderson will start to show their true talents from August 2008.
THIS MORNING, watching BBC Breakfast, I was thinking about logos.
When Arsenal revealed their new logo a reader wrote to ANR and said : You're the only website that hasn't said what you think of the new logo.
Well, I would describe the Arsenal logo in three words : naff, ghastly and naff.
It was horrible then and it's horrible now. But don't worry about it. The Arsenal logo is not that important and that's why I didn't rant about it at the time.
Today the London Olympics unveiled their new logo, which is also ghastly.
Breakfast viewers were so appalled that they had designed their own logos and sent them in. About 10 were shown and ALL of them were better than the one that's been adopted.
I'm not exaggerating. All of the logos designed by BBC viewers were classier, more vivid, more imaginative than the official 2012 logo. One had been designed by a kid who had taken 20 minutes off from revising for his GCSE's.
As you know, most bureaucrats are fools. They can't write a brief for designers and they wouldn't know a good logo if it came up and punched them in the mouth.
Artwork? They don't have a clue. A crying, sobbing shame, especially as the UK is a country where people have a lot of flair.
I was reminded of the album cover for Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols. That took a year but looked as if it had been slapped together in 20 minutes. That what 2012 needed : something that took a year but looked as if it had been done in 12 minutes.
Good design is what you leave out.
yazeez
** MiYaFuSHi **
. (1 unread)
»CyberRowdy«
2:48AM [The B-Sides]
A.U.R.O.U.S
A3N: Alien 3aba6 Network!
Alien Memoirs
All q8 Shabab Concern
AmoOora
Annals of a Space Cowboy
Area 77
Bella Color
Charming-79
Desperately Wandering
do0da
Erzulie: Seeing Red
eshda3wa
EXzombiesm
Fairy Diary
Flamingoliya
God Help Us All...
Honey Alba
Hussa-G
iDip
iKuwait
Isolated Serenity
Jabriya Za7ma
Kuwaiti Femme
MacaholiQ8
MAZE-OF-THOUGHTS
Missy♥
My Life As MishMisha
No3ik
Nothin to Say
Papillona ®
Saudi Jeans
SpiKeD Q80 (1 unread)
TAT THE DON
The One
Z District (1 unread)
بـلا نــيــلــه
Kinan's Little Place Online
Kuwaiti Cosmopolitan
طاخ طيخ (1 unread)
Arsenal-Mania.com | The Arsenal Website For Arsenal Fans (5 unread)
23:31
