This move will save me dosh, and also mean that I get the nice cool bits and pieces – like running a blog, without having to think about what I could be doing with a website that I’ve got…it’ll be nice when everything’s up-and-running, which will hopefully be later today…though of course the blog itself is running now…

Therefore this website will lapse when my registration runs out sometime before September.  I’ll still be blogging online when I have the time mind, and when I’ve set that up I’ll post the link on here for anyone who likes to read me!

First the manager.  He’s been stuck between a rock and a hard place.  So the England players can’t take a boot camp for 5 weeks…pathetic, loads of people would’ve given anything to be on that plane to South Africa and they can’t concentrate on football for 5 weeks…HA!

But Capello did violate his “first principles” when he selected the World Cup squad by taking out-of-form players… Emile Heskey, Jamie Carragher and Matthew Upson have all had shocking seasons (well, to be fair Carraghers was by his own standards bad, he was ok).  What about poor Darren Bent (2nd top English goalscorer in the Premier League), Gary Cahill (excellent for Bolton all season when fit) and of course Rio Ferdinand would’ve gone had he been fit.  Carragher, Heskey and Upson should’ve been nowhere near the England squad.

Then his subs made no sense at all – Capello didn’t change the game once in any of England’s 4 games – he swapped like-for-like each and every time (I mean, Defoe for Heskey yesterday…gimme a break!), and that tactical stubborn-ness was a major issue in my view – England, and Capello, need to be more flexible in the future.

For the players it kind of goes without saying, but they lacked passion, they lacked self motivation, they lacked the ability to play as a team, and they, overall, were simply not good enough.  How can they possibly play so well for their clubs and not for England?  I think it’s time for a massive change (see next post!)

So I’m going to rate England’s manager and player out of 10 for their tournament performance…

Fabio Capello – 5 (tactical inflexibility, poor squad selection and substitutions, but limited by a squad who, frankly, seemed uninterested and were just not good enough).

Goalkeepers:

Rob Green – 5 (unfortunate mistake in the first game, not just his fault we didn’t beat the USA, but non-the-less made a big mistake)

David James – 6 (did his job well, unfortunately made some mistakes against Germany, but was the only one who really did his job).

Joe Hart – Should have been England’s number 1 this tournament, and definitely should be now.

Defenders:

Glen Johnson – 5 (good going forward usually, but not in this tournament, and was ruthlessly exposed against decent opposition)

John Terry – 4 (out of position, out of form, world class?  don’t think so, couldn’t marshal a reasonably experienced back 4)

Matthew Upson – 4 (was poor in both his games, sure he scored against Germany, but he and the back 4 were directly responsible for the 4 German goals).

Ashley Cole – 6 (best English player at the finals, still defensively sound despite the failings of the other 3)

Jamie Carragher – 5 (poor, slow, past his best).

Michael Dawson – Never got on the pitch, shame, had an excellent season for Spurs.  Must start the next game.

Ledley King – 7 (most talented English defender, played well in his only game against USA in the 1st half.  Why did it have to be him that was injured?!)

Stephen Warnock – Was never gonna get a look in against Cole!

Midfielders:

Steven Gerrard – 6 (did ok, but he was played out of position on the left wing…oh dear oh dear, what a waste of genuine World Class talent)

Frank Lampard – 5 (was poor apart from 10 minutes against Germany when he showed what he could do)

James Milner – 6 (mixed, poor but unfit against the USA, fantastic against Solvenia, average against Germany.  Did ok)

Gareth Barry – 4 (like all the other players, massively underperformed, especially against Germany)

Joe Cole – 4 (didn’t play much, wasn’t that great when he did)

Aaron Lennon – 4 (from what I saw, did next to nothing, final balls were awful)

Shaun Wright-Phillips – 4 (see Aaron Lennon)

Michael Carrick – did he get on the pitch?  Don’t think so.

Attackers:

Wayne Rooney – 4 (what happened to the Rooney of Manchester United?  Did nothing in 4 games)

Emile Heskey – 4 (why take a striker so woefully out of form, and who never looked like scoring, even when 1-on-1 against the US goalkeeper?)

Jermaine Defoe – 6 (did his job, got a goal, best of the strikers)

Peter Crouch – shoulda played, but didn’t.  Shame, because he offers something different to the others, and goals.

In short, it was a woeful world cup.  Yet you can bank on these players regularly scoring 7-10 for their clubs in the Premier League next season…apart from Heskey who can’t get in Villa’s team.

But now the more important bit…just who is my pick to win?  Frankly for me I think England will probably get to the Semi Finals (and so they will now not make it through the group stages…such is my luck with picks!).  Once you get to the semis then anything can happen…but my pick is Spain.  They are the best team in the World at the moment, full of World Class talent from back to front and I think they’ll win the World Cup.

Who will be the top scorer?  I must first add a caveat, and that is that I drew Diego Milito in the lottery involving my friends…so I kind of hope it will be him!  But I can’t really look past one of Fernando Torres, David Villa or Lionel Messi…so it’ll probably be Emile Heskey!!!

Enjoy the World Cup!

That is the 30-man provisional World Cup squad that Fabio Capello has picked for England, and several of those players played in England’s 3-1 victory over Mexico, which was in my view a reasonable start to the World Cup build-up.  True it was not a “world beating” performance, but it didn’t have to be.  People are suggesting that it was a poor performance and that England’s chance of winning the World Cup is over…no it’s not fools, it’s not even started yet!  Why in England do we, or the press, constantly swing from mass hysteria over how good we are to folly about how poor we are?  News flash – we ARE one of the best teams in the world.  But we are not the best by a long way.  That’s not a bad place to be.  We should make the Quarter-Finals of the World Cup.  Anything else is a bonus and would demonstrate an excellent performance in my view.

So who should go to the World Cup as part of England’s final 23-man squad?  I would go with this squad:

Goalkeepers:
Joe Hart, David James, Robert Green
Defenders:
Leighton Baines, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Michael Dawson, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry
Midfielders:
Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Adam Johnson, Frank Lampard, James Milner, Theo Walcott
Forwards:
Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Wayne Rooney

Perhaps I should give justifications for the players I’m leaving behind…

Matthew Upson – has been part of a very poor West Ham side this season, Michael Dawson has had an excellent season for Spurs and deserves to go over Upson in my view.

Stephen Warnock – simply you can only really take 2 left-backs, and I think that Baines is better than Warnock at this point.

Tom Huddlestone – got a big future ahead of him, but a victim of having lots of quality players in his position.

Aaron Lennon – unfortunate that he suffered a few injuries otherwise would probably be ahead of Adam Johnson in my view, but Lennon hasn’t rediscovered his best form, and therefore Johnson goes ahead of him.

Scott Parker – had an ok season but not great for West Ham in my opinion, Barry and Carrick are both better on the ball and that is critical in a World Cup, and in general in his position.

Shaun Wright-Phillips – was not in the Manchester City team and in my view was not on his best form.  Has been usurped by Milner and Adam Johnson, who can both play wide-right.

Emile Heskey – Simply players are in better form than him – Heskey is not anywhere near his best, Bent is scoring loads of goals and therefore deserves to go.  You could take Heskey in place of say Michael Carrick and that would be ok as Ledley King can play as a holding midfielder.

That squad I think is the best for England and, under the right circumstances, could go all the way, but as ever winning a World Cup is as much about getting a bit of luck as skill…England have a shot, and that is all we can ask.

It seems I was wrong on almost all, if not all, counts.  The Prime Minister scents Conservative blood, scents he can win a majority and is going for it.

However, I have no doubt that the budget in two weeks will not be the “austerity” budget this country requires.  The truth – that we need massive cuts in public spending, and tax cuts to help inject money back into the economy from the general public and encourage business back to these shores to help long-term economic stability/prosperity – will not be told.  Instead we’ll get higher stealth taxes (watch out all of us who like a nip of whisky or a pint!), minor pay freezes and rises in borrowing to cover the shortfall, whilst minor public spending savings are made to look like major ones.

In short, rather than getting the truth, I think we’ll get a “General Election” budget, like we usually get from governments just short of a General Election.

But again, I could be wrong, though I’m not counting on it!

Now however I’ve got a little bit of time I have a couple of thoughts.  Earlier in the day I tweeted that I think that Gordon Brown will call a General Election in the next week and set the date for that election to something like the 25th March (last Thursday of the month).  Obviously I have no information to back that up, but the noises that have appeared on various blogs and the news and in the polls (with the Tory lead dropping to less than 10 points on average now) suggest that Brown will do what he should have done in 2007, and that is call an “early” election.

Obviously given the Prime Minister’s tendency towards dilly-dallying rather than decisive action this might not happen.  However I expect that given the way the political landscape is moving at the moment (the Tories seem surprisingly inept and Labour are even more surprisingly sort of taking advantage whilst slipping up a fair bit themselves) it would seem that perhaps, just maybe Gordon Brown and Labour could hang on to a slim majority or more likely win the most seats in a hung parliament (when no doubt the Lib Dems and Labour will once again shack up).

Iain Dale has the annoucement that Gordon Brown’s appearance at the Chilcott (Iraq War) inquiry will take place on the 4th-5th March and in his estimation that rules out a March GE.  Whilst he obviously has more political nouse and knowledge than I, I have to respectfully disagree.  And I have two reasons (maybe 3) to back up my thoughts:

The first is that regardless of Brown’s pronouncements that he is happy to go to Chilcott, I do not think he is.  The Chilcott inquiry cannot possibly go well in the long run for Brown as it links him again with the very unpopular decision to go to war in Iraq, and reminds people that, as the Chancellor at the time, if he wanted too, he could have in all likelyhood stopped it from happening.  Make no mistake, in my view, Gordon Brown is every bit as responsible as Tony Blair for the Iraq War, and I doubt I’m alone in that viewpoint.  One way to get out of the inquiry before an election is for Brown to call that election.  Because then Chilcott would have to break (as I understand it) until after the election, and thus postpone the day of destiny for the current PM.

The second is the dreaded “b” word…”Budget”.  I doubt that Gordon Brown would want a budget before an election for two reasons.  The first is because he will have to announce big tax hikes for either the next year or next parliament – which will immediately put off voters in his estimation – though I think it has to be done (and the Tories themselves have said this too),  and that it can be done in a way which would hit the lower and middle income persons in this country the least whilst hitting harder those on higher incomes.  You might say that this is the “Labour philosophy” but over the last 13 years it has not been – does anyone recall 10p tax, or higher national insurance (hitting employment), or rises in fuel duty etc etc.  This list goes on.

The second reason that Brown would not want a budget before an election is the dreaded “c” word – “Cuts”.  Brown would have to, in all likelyhood, announce big cuts in public spending.  Which would leave people wondering – “well, the Tories have been saying for more than 6 months that this is the case.  Why did he (Brown) suggest that the Tories were being savage and would ruin public services when he will just do the same himself?  Who do we prefer, someone who is honest even at the expense of some electability, or a liar?”

The third reason why Brown would not want a budget before an election is this.  If you take it as read that he (Brown) would not be able to be honest in a pre-election budget and announce tax rises and cuts in public spending to reduce a deficit that is absolutely massive, then he would have to do neither of those things.  This would in all likelyhood mean a continuation or increase in borrowing, along with no rises in obvious taxes (income, national insurance etc) but in stealth taxes (alcohol, cigarettes, fuel duty etc etc).  Some people predict that should this happen that borrowing would become a massive issue for the government because with a debt already this large, inflation rising worryingly fast (3.5% in 2 months) and sure to continue (therefore causing interest rates to rise inthe long term to attempt to control inflation) why would people who buy Government debt want to continue buying a nearly broke countries debt for another god knows how long – maybe as much as 5 years!

So that was my second reason.  The third reason is another economic reason – there is no guarantee that we will not return to recession (or negative growth at least) over the next 3 calendar months.  Only today we heard of Corus closing a steel plant in the north east, potentially causing a fallout of 8000 job losses when taking into account losses in ancilliary businesses, and that in January sales of goods dropped off by over 1%…all is not looking sweet for the economy despite what the Government say.

All in all therefore I believe electorally going sooner rather than later is certainly better for Brown and Labour.  Though were that to be the outcome, and Brown and Labour were to win through, what would be the consequences for this country of another 5 years of high and increasing tax, and massive borrowing that we cannot afford?  I fear it would be disaster.

Having said that why did the organisers schedule games for a part of the country where there is a “war of independence” ongoing (according to BBC News – I know nothing about Angola!)?  That seems like utter madness to me.

I hope that no players or staff have been seriously injured or worse.

Tory Bear has started a “Get Kerry Out” campaign, the website for which has just gone live in the last few minutes and can be found here.  It seems that plenty of people are supporting the campaign, including the man that politicians love to hate…Guido Fawkes.

Personally I know enough from what I’ve read, from both sides of the coin, to know that there is likely good reason for this campaign, though I want to find out more before I display a “Get Kerry Out” logo on my site!!  But if the campaign achieves it’s aims, then there will be one less “Labour Twitter Tzar” and £400-per-month food expense claimer in Parliament come June…

Well, I have 3!

1.  To get my PhD back on track and  be ready to write the Thesis by Christmas 2010

2.  To take charge!

3.  To have (even more) fun.