England’s impressive display in Bulgaria last week has pushed the nation closer towards qualification for Euro 2012, a major tournament that could mark a time for change for our perennial under-performing team. The 3-0 win last week was not only impressive for its score line but also the ages of the players that are finally been given a chance to shine under Capello.
The golden generation’s failure to deliver during a number of frustrating tournaments combined with their ageing legs means that new blood is finally being given the reigns to lead England to face the best across Europe. The main talking points to come out of Bulgaria were not only the result and fresh faces but the fact it looked like the end for one of the main golden generation, Frank Lampard.
But with the Euros only a year away and many of the youngsters’ experience still limited, is there any room for the oldies like Lampard in Capello’s ideal starting line-up come next summer?
Click on Jack Wilshere below to see England’s likely line-up for Euro 2012
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Who do you think should be in the starting line-up for England at Euro 2012? If you want to read more of my bite size, 140 character views and thoughts follow me on Twitter @jennyk5
City broke the deadlock in the 29th minute thanks to a goal from Yaya Toure but had to wait until the 73rd before putting the game to bed when Toure's shot struck the post before hitting Green and nestlising into the back of the net.
Adam Johnson made it 3-0 before James Tomkins grabbed a late consolation goal for the Hammers with a powerfull header.
Meanwhile, Alan Pardew's reign as Newcastle manager got off to the perfect start as the Magpies beat Liverpool 3-1 in the late kick off at St James' Park.
Kevein Nolan put Newcastle in front after 15 minutes before Dirk Kuyt's deflected shot levelled matters just after the break. However goals in the last 10 minutes from Joey Barton and Andy Carroll wrapped up the win.
Elsewhere Blackpool continued their fine season with a 1-0 win away at Stoke with DJ Campbell getting the only goal in an entertaining game.
Aston Villa eased their relegation fears with a 2-1 win over Midlands rivals West Bromwich Albion at Villa Park.
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Stewart Downing and Emile Heskey put Villa 2-0 in front before Paul Scharner pulled one back for the visitors at the death to set up a tense finale.
Everton and Wigan both remain in relegation trouble after fighting out a 0-0 draw at Goodison Park and so do Fulham who also had to settle for a goalless encounter at home to Sunderland.Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
With the error in judgement Jose Reina made last night against Wigan costing Liverpool a fifth straight victory, this may seem a fairly inappropriate time to say this; but the Anfield outfit cannot afford to let the 28 year-old Spaniard leave. It has been suggested in recent weeks that although Reina is not for sale in the January transfer window, he may be allowed to leave the club in the summer if he is unhappy with life at Anfield, with both Manchester United and Arsenal seeming very interested in the goalkeeper. With Reina himself reportedly unwilling to commit himself to Liverpool beyond the end of the season;
‘I will stay at Liverpool at least until the end of the season… I know there are rumours about me leaving but I want to make it clear that I have no intention of going back to Spain… Rafael Benitez was an essential person for this club and the reason I came to Liverpool.’
And Roy Hodgson reluctant to refute rumours regarding the Spanish goalkeeper’s exit, it seems it may be quite possible that Reina could walk out of Anfield in the summer. Allowing this to happen would be a complete disaster for the club in several ways;
First, Reina is a world-class goalkeeper, and barring the notable mistake against Arsenal on the opening weekend of the season, the 28 year-old has been magnificent for the Anfield outfit during his 5 years at the club. Winning the coveted ‘Premier League Golden Glove’, for the most clean sheets in a season in 3 of his 5 seasons at the club, and, in fact, keeping as many clean sheets as Petr Cech last season, missing out on the award purely on a clean sheet to games played ratio.
Second, there is a genuine paucity of world-class keepers at the moment, and if Liverpool have one, they would do well to keep hold of him. After a dismal start to the season both on and off the pitch, the club are on the up, and through the retention of the services of Reina, the club can push on, on both the domestic front and in Europe, and with their new investors, they should be looking to hang on to their prize assets. Along with Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard, Reina is one of them. Letting the 28 year-old go would mean looking for a new, quality goalkeeper, and the ones that aren’t already tied down to big clubs are sparse in number to say the least.
Third, with Reina’s explicit wish not to return to Spain, it must surely signal either a move to Italy, or remaining where he is settled, in England. Behind every title winning side there is, generally, a great goalkeeper, and it can be argued that one of the only things missing at Arsenal is precisely that. Selling Reina to either Manchester United or Arsenal would give an enormous boost to potential rivals not only for the European places, but eventually also the title.
Reina is a top goalkeeper and has been an excellent servant of Liverpool FC. To allow him to walk out the door would lack foresight and could be detrimental to the club for years to come in more ways than one.
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Juventus midfielder Claudio Marchisio said he is still hopeful his side can qualify for next season’s Europa League.Juve are unbeaten in five matches and are seventh in Serie A.
With Udinese and Roma occupying the two Europa League spots ahead of them in fifth and sixth respectively, Juventus’ hopes appear to be out of their hands as they prepare for Saturday’s league game against Catania, according to Marchisio.
“(Our) last month was positive. We had three wins and a draw, some good performances and we gained some points,” the midfielder said.
“Now we need to focus on the last five games, but we can’t just focus on our own games, we need to look at the games that other teams will play. We still hope that something will happen.”
“The important thing is to continue like that, both from a mental and a physical point of view, because we have done very well. We didn’t make the same mistakes as we did in the game against Roma, so we need to continue that way.”
Marchisio blamed his side’s early form in the campaign for their struggle to reach Europe’s second tier competition, and leave them all but out of contention for next term’s Champions League.
“We missed some chances earlier in the season, not recently. It’s wasn’t the draw against Fiorentina that ended our hopes, but now we know there will be two important games, the one on Saturday against Catania in particular. If we win that game we can prepare well for the game against Roma, while Lazio will play against Inter Milan, so we will see,” he said.
“It’s important to continue like this and to try to gain three points, then we’ll go to Rome and hope for something.”
“Apart from the draws, we don’t need to consider all the missed opportunities. The last two are enough – the games against Lecce and Bologna. If we had won those two games we would have had six points more and we would have had the same points as Lazio now.”
“We cannot think like that now, the only thing we can do is try to win on Saturday and then go to Rome and see how it goes there.”
Flamengo forward Ronaldinho’s return to Brazilian football was a victorious one, but manager Vanderlei Luxemburgo is not getting too excited.
The Brazil international showed his usual flair and eye for goal in his first game for the club on Wednesday, with the 30-year-old donning the captain’s armband in his debut in their Campeonato Carioca victory over Nova Iguacu.
A crowd of about 40,000 came to see the former AC Milan and Barcelona star at the Enganhao Stadium, many of who were decked out in Ronaldinho masks.
But Luxemburgo was quick to lighten the load on Ronaldinho, trying to lessen the hype surrounding the star’s return to Brazilian football.
“I don’t want to create expectations because establishing measures and expectations (is not good). He was named the world’s player of the year twice; I think that answers your question. So, let the guy play,” Luxemburgo said.
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Flamengo will travel to Boavista for their next Campeonato Carioca fixture on Saturday.
Everton’s Leighton Baines is believed to have the option to move to Manchester United or Bayern Munich in the summer, after admitting an interest in leaving Goodison Park, according to Metro.
The left-back has been a solid performer for the Toffees over the last number of seasons, and as such has broken into the England international fold, with inclusion in the Three Lions’ Euro 2012 squad likely.
However, it is believed that the defender is ready for a new challenge, and is drawing a raft of suitors with his combative defending and excellent delivery going forward.
United are in the market for a long-term successor to Patrice Evra, whilst left-back has been a position of difficulty for Bayern this season, who have had to play versatile midfielder David Alaba there to fill a gap.
It is thought that the cash-strapped Merseysiders would accept an offer in the region of £15 million for the defender, but are in no rush to sell as he has three years left on his contract at the club.
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Queens Park Rangers boss Neil Warnock is desperate to strengthen his squad in January and will make an audacious bid to bring Manchester City’s Nigel De Jong to Loftus Road according to the Daily Mirror.
Warnock will attempt to bring the Dutch midfielder in on loan for the remainder of the season as he has become out of favour under Roberto Mancini, with James Milner, Yaya Toure and Gareth Barry all ahead of him in the pecking order.
De Jong is looking for a new contract at City but the lack of game time is confining his chance to impress the Italian manager of the league leaders. De Jong has been a key player at the Etihad Stadium for the past two years but as new signings are regularly arriving in Manchester a loan deal could be perfect for the 26-year-old to put himself in the shop window come the summer.
The new owner in West London Tony Fernandes, has promised Warnock extra funds in January as the newly promoted side look to improve on their steady start to the Premier League season. A striker and a centre half are also on the wish list for the Rangers boss next month but they may struggle to attract big name signings.
Warnock said: “The board know we need some more players and they have been very supportive. We are on the lookout for four or five.”
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Inter Milan boss Leonardo said his side are still alive in the Serie A title race after their dramatic 2-1 win at Cesena.Inter trailed 1-0 after 90 minutes but an injury-time brace to Giampaolo Pazzini helped them secure a remarkable win and trim AC Milan’s lead to five points, although the league leaders have a game in hand.
Leonardo said he would be focusing on Inter’s own game as the season draws to a close, and would concentrate on securing maximum points from their three remaining fixtures.
“We are only focusing on ourselves,” Leonardo said.
“We want to maintain second place and enter the Champions League directly, without forgetting we also have the Coppa Italia semi-final (against Roma). As for the title, anything can happen and we’re still up there.”
Leonardo said he was still haunted by a three-day period in early April, when his side were humiliated by AC Milan 3-0 in the league before being routed 5-2 at home by Schalke in the Champions League, a defeat that led to them being eliminated from the tournament.
“It was tough today (against Cesena), above all psychologically, but the lads were great. I just have regrets over that cursed week, as going out of the Champions League really hurt us after a strange game with Schalke,” Leonardo said.
“This squad won the treble last season, but despite it all, we were still close to winning it all again. Unfortunately, that week ruined everything.”
The Brazilian was full of praise for Cesena, and joked that the late goals to Pazzini had been part of his plan.
“Oh that was all carefully planned out,” he said of the comeback.
“The truth is Cesena defended well and we were too slow, especially in attack. Nobody can deny we are a little fatigued after playing so many games. We conceded during a good spell of Cesena pressure, then everything changed when Pazzini came on.”
Tottenham’s midfielder Niko Kranjcar must be feeling pretty confused at the moment. His manager Harry Redknapp obviously rates him; he bought him from his old cub Portsmouth. Yet, despite public cries that the Croat is very much part of his long-term plans, Redknapp insists on bringing in others and forcing Kranjcar further down the pecking order. So is it time for Kranjcar to turn his back on Spurs?
We all know it’s a squad game. Tottenham have to plan for a potential fixture pile-up due to a combination of Champions League football, an ambitious pursuit of Premier League glory and rearranged games due to the ‘big freeze’. But Kranjcar’s case is different to any other of the squad players at White Hart Lane, or anywhere else for that matter. How can his manager justify only including him in six fixtures all season, but still insisting the player has a ‘big part to play this season’? No one can doubt his ability at 26, he has plenty to offer. But if getting in ahead of the likes of Gareth Bale, Rafael van der Vaart or Luka Modric wasn’t hard enough, Kranjcar now has to compete with the latest White Hart Lane recruit – Steven Pienaar.
So what is it about him that the rest of us can’t see? He generally does well when called upon, and we never hear about him brawling with team-mates on the training ground or getting into trouble on nights out. I’d be tempted to side with the midfielder and assume he hasn’t exactly been treated brilliantly by his manager. If you plan to sign someone like Pienaar, why deny Kranjcar the chance to go the other way? Everton bid £3 million, if reports are to believed.
And what about the proposed move to Werder Bremen? Redknapp didn’t exactly stand in his way, but talking to the press, he did his utmost to make us all believe he didn’t want to lose such a talented player. My response would be to play him a little more!
True, Kranjcar has been unlucky with injuries. When he first joined Tottenham, he was heavily involved in first-team action. But if this tells us anything, it’s that he is considered good enough by the Spurs management. With this in mind, signing Pienaar is a bit of a mystery to me.
Kranjcar has every right to feel hard done by. Maybe his problem is that he isn’t the modern day prima-donna who will start throwing his incredibly flash and expensive toys and of his brand new pram because he isn’t getting his own way. Is he becoming a victim of professionalism? We can only speculate. But if another player like van der Vaart for example wasn’t getting much playing time, it would be interesting to see how he’d react if his club turned down a bid from another club.
What’s worrying for the Croatian himself, is that his national team manager Slaven Bilic has now come out and said he needs to be playing football. He could quite easily be playing the same standard of football elsewhere but as it stands, Tottenham seem to be stifling his progress.
Niko Kranjcar is too good to be a squad player at a club like Spurs. At 26, time is on his side, yet you get the feeling his next move is a big one. Kranjcar owes nothing to Spurs and if he were to come out and demand a transfer like so many other of the Premier League’s ‘stars’ then I personally wouldn’t blame him in the slightest. Time to go, Niko.
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Nice surrendered the lead twice but eventually saw off Stade de Reims 3-2 after extra time to reach the semi-finals of the Coupe de France.Serbian forward Danijel Ljuboja put Ligue 1 visitors Nice ahead at the Stade Auguste Delaune, but midfielder Romain Amalfitano levelled for the second division side just 60 seconds later.Gabon international Eric Mouloungui restored Nice’s lead two minutes into the second half.This time the lead lasted 11 minutes before Odair Fortes equalised for the hosts. Neither side were able to find a way through in the final 30 minutes.With the match going to extra-time, Reims remained in with a chance of an unlikely semi-final berth.But Mouloungui was on target with his second of the match in the 112th minute, scoring the winner that sent Nice into the last four.In Wednesday’s quarter-final matches, Chambery host Angers, Le Mans travel to Paris Saint-Germain and Lille are at home to Lorient.