Superleague highlights!

If you've read anything of my previous posts, you'll know that I'm a big Rugby League fan, although this does take a back seat to my love of football most of the time, this weekend has been one of the exceptions.

Friday night saw St Helens take on my team Leeds at Knowsley Road.  It was a straight shoot-out with the winners going through to the Grand Final at Old Trafford a week on Saturday.  It seemed like a fairly close match-up as well, with St Helens only pipping Leeds to the top of the league by a single point.

On the day however, the team in Red and White were awesome, they powered out of the blocks and kept their foot firmly on the accelerator til close to the end to rack up 38 points. Leeds missed opportunities early on and were punished, which is something they can't afford to do if they want to get any further this season.  A comprehensive performance against the reigning champions will have done no harm to Saints' confidence, and has also left Leeds with a potentially demoralising result to digest ahead of the qualifying semi final on Friday.  

In that game Leeds face a Wigan side with their tails up.  After a great win away against Les Catalans in Perpignan, Brian Noble's side must be filled with confidence.  They've had some great results at Headingley in recent years, but their best games against the Rhinos have all been at the JJB, so they'll have to battle against one more obstacle if they're to make an unlikely Grand Final appearance.

I'd fancy Leeds to be too strong at home and set up a repeat of last year's Grand Final. My money would be a narrow Rhinos win, something in the 10 point area, purely on the basis that Wigan had saved their best for the trip to France, and it must surely have taken it out of them. Whatever the result, and whoever gets to the final on October 4th, I'd recommend it as the best sporting day out in the country.

Walcott - the power and the pace.

By leaving out any mention of Theo Walcott's amazing hat-trick against Croatia in my last post, I felt I'd give a little more emphasis to events since then for this post.

What we're seen since that night of emergence is potentially a microcosm of Walcott's immediate future.  Time and space in a premiership game by virtue of Arsenal's superiority, as opposed to the clatterings he received in the Champions League against Kiev.  Defenders across Europe will have awoken to the headlines of England's new great hope, and decided to take action. 

There are two things that might happen here; one would be that Walcott gets kicked out of the game, or the other thing would be that he uses this to his advantage.  He needs to watch an experienced wide attacker at work - it's just a shame Thierry Henry isn't at the Emirates any more.  I offer one master class in wide play that I saw recently, namely City's Martin Petrov ripping West Ham to shreds.  His movement off the full back, who tried gamely to kick him up in the air was impressive, and a lesson to any young player.  

Walcott should develop into a much more fearsome attacker, and more central, than Petrov, purely on the basis of his finishing.  Hopefully my prediction of pre-season, that Walcott's emergence into the Arsenal first team will be cemented this season, comes true.  Since seeing Walcott for Southampton in the Championship a couple of years ago, I've really thought that if he stays fit he could be the next great talent to emerge.

It would be nice to see him playing and scoring in Wenger's side - if Nicholas Bendtner can play then Walcott should have no problems.  Let's do something we don't do too often in this country, back this talent and not expect too much too soon.

England's brave new world beaters

The dust has well and truly settled on the schizophrenic performances by England against Andorra and Croatia, and I'm still at a bit of a loss as to what, if anything we've learned.

Capello certainly puts out a team to keep hold of the ball.  That much is certain, and against Croatia, England did that far better than they have done for a number of years.  We also know that he has come to terms with the fact that good as Wayne Rooney is, he mustn't play up front on his own, and is much better in the slightly withdrawn "Number 10" as the continentals term it.  David James is not the answer to England's goalkeeping question, his decision making is still too unpredictable - plus by the time the next world cup comes around he'll be approx 40 - and we all remember Peter Shilton in 1990....

Finally we've learned, as I think I may have mentioned a few times now, that John Terry has been living on his reputation for far too long.  After being turned by the scoring machine that is Milan Baros against the Czechs, Terry was again made to look a lumbering oaf against Croatia. His appalling dying swan act after Modric beat him to the ball for the Croat goal (and Terry pulled out of the challenge) looked like the last act of a man who sees the game is passing him by.  He should consider how to get back to the form which made him one of Europe's most admired centre halves, rather than the man who now puts a glint in the eye of the striker who finds themselves playing against him.  I'm sure Scolari will have some ideas, but Terry should start watching those videos of the Mourinho side of 3 years ago for an idea of who he was.

Which leads us to the conundrum who should lead England.  Frank Lampard gave one of his better performances for England recently, but surely isn't enough to keep Gerrard out.  Barry seems to be a fixture, as well as Stevie G's new best friend, so it seems he's in.  Rio Ferdinand is a certainty, so I'd say it should be between the Liverpool and United players.  Gerrard's inspirational displays for Liverpool should tip the scales in his favour - I've never seen a centre half run the game like Gerrard can.

Until the next England display kills all optimism, I for one might fancy watching England again - having turned away from the second half of the Andorra debacle, I was impressed by an away performance against a side with a fairly fearsome reputation.  

Either we're now back into the group of favourites for the world cup, or it's another false dawn. You never know with England.  Despite us including 8 players from the "best 2 teams in Europe" last season, we cannot seem to find that consistency.

Come on Fabio, keep the English end up for more than just 1 game.