I should be the next England manager

Sven must be clearly a big fan of this blog. Well, at least he must be on the basis of his tactics in the last twenty minutes of the T&T game.

Hmmm, lets see. Push Peter Crouch forward alone and have Stevie G pushing on from midfield. Where have we heard that before???

You wonder how on Earth England would have played if we'd played that way for the entire game. Frankly though, when I saw the line-up before the game and saw Stevie G playing the holding role, I knew we were going to struggle. It's still incredible to think that Sven STILL hasn't learnt that Stevie is not that kind of player. At least not anymore. Certainly when he took over, he was very much a conventional holding midfield player but his game has developed so much in the five years of Sven's tenure that Stevie is no use in the holding role.

I could go on about this forever but the best way of summing it up is building a Lamborghini and then putting a truck engine in it; you are in no way maximising the potential of what you're given to start with. I only hope that Mr McLaren uses Stevie a bit better and realises that Stevie is as good, if not better, than Beckham or Piesy Lamard.

Still, at least we didn't have to endure Crouchy's robot dance again. As much as I like the guy, that dance did make him look a prize twat and I'm quite glad he's decided to retire it. But hey, 6 goals in 9 games for England is the sort of return that Michael Owen could only wish for and it was quite satisfying to see Mickey Owen being substituted to make way for Rooney. With so much of the talk before the World Cup being about Crouch being the one to make way for Rooney once his toe recalcifies, it was both interesting and pleasing to see Sven actually making an intelligent substitution. It would be interesting to see what Rooney and Crouch could do as a partnership. Both have excellent touch, ball control and vision and I think the pair could be a pretty deadly combination, if given the time together.

That said, not everything that Crouchy did should be applauded. One thing I have noticed about his game is his tendency to do scissor kicks from a foot or so off the ground. Rafa has brought his game on a great deal over the last twelve months, if there is one thing that he needs to work on it's Crouchy's tendency to do the over elaborate. Eradicate that and Crouchy can get even better. Good for both us and England, I think you'll agree.

It wasn't the most confident England performance ever but at least the issue of Qualification has been sorted out and maybe we can go out and beat a Swedish team that is clearly nowhere near as strong as it has been in recent years. We need to use that game to build confidence ahead of the knockout rounds, which is where the likes of Brazil, Argentina and Holland come into sight.

Oh, and don't forget the Spanish either. As a kopite, I obviously see the Spanish national team play more often than other teams but on the basis of the Ukraine game, they are a very dangerous side. It's a shame we don't have the funds to make a bid for David Villa. On the basis of the way he played in that game, he could be the answers to our problems. Though Fernando Torres looks equally dangerous.

Yes, this last week of the World Cup has flown by and while not every game has been as good as the opening fixture, there has been some quality football (the Argentina v Ivory Coast game is probably the game of the tournament so far) and certainly a lot of good talent on display.

There's been Ronaldo too.

I know this guy has had alot of personal problems lately but boy does he look a shadow of his former self. Hopefully his performance has pretty much killed any speculation there was about him joining us. Still, I was one of the few who thought that signing Peter Crouch was a bad idea.

See Sven, I do get it wrong sometimes. Happens to the best of us as well as you.