Each time the World Cup comes around, I think that it will finally be the year that I will be able to truly adopt my patriotism.  After all nothing brings out that nationalistic pride you’ve been keeping in the dusty cupboard along with all those boardgames that you used to play Ages 5-6 (as stated on the box) better than a hearty helping of goals en route to the topping of an easy group.  Oh right, we’re talking about England.

Call me emotionally lazy but watching England fail is far less taxing than it is watching them succeed.  That being because England can never succeed in the conventional, stress free sense.  Save that one time when they beat Denmark 3-0 in 2002, my enduring memories of that game being watching Thomas Helveg crash into the goal post trying to stop a goal bound header and Rio Ferdinand’s entry for “Football’s Most Embarrassing Goal Celebrations”.

Watching England play at the World Cup is akin to Chinese Water Torture.  You watch as Emile Heskey proves to you that there is still more that he can get wrong in the game of football.  Drip.  Wayne Rooney waves his arms in frustration on at least four occasions.  Drop.  The commentator mentions how England have “yet to find their stride” or “click into gear”.  Drip.  Injury to a talismanic player.  Drop.

Whereas with teams like Brazil, Spain, Holland, it’s more like experiencing an upscale Thai massage.  You’re treated to players stroking the ball about the pitch with nonchalant ease, lightning quick counter-attacks being launched and the coveted “end-to-end stuff”.  Ultimately, the ending of said game will most likely be a happy one and there will be a genuine sense of satisfaction at the full time whistle. Ahem.

The English World Cup campaign that provided this overwhelming sense of inertia most acutely was that of 2006.  Collectively, over the 5 games that the England’s footballing lions braved through I estimate that I mentally aged approximately 13.276 years due to noxious combination of stress, frustration and confusion.  I  remember watching England’s opening excursion into consummate boredom against Paraguay at school and before kick-off the sense excitement was palatable.  Yet after a 1-0 victory (if use of such a word is appropriate) via an own goal, the collective sense of lethargy in the room was almost too much to bear.

More was to come with triumphs over Trinidad and Tobago and Ecuador and consequently the belief of our fans contravened the rules of logic as England got closer to their preordained defeat to penalties.  Luckily in 2010, there is evidence of the God’s already smiling down upon England: Sweden are not in the World Cup sparing us the obligatory draw we have to sit through.

Come the World Cup, British football journalists lucky enough to cover England’s games must be getting ready to sit back and relax.  This being because they can simply rely on using the old “Synonyms for Disappointing” textbook.  Word’s like: unconvincing, witless, unimpressive, discouraging and many more appear all too regularly in the myriad column inches dedicated to England’s pursuit of glory.  Unfulfilled potential is mainstay of conversations in pubs up and down the land and talking heads on TV studio sofas try to pin down what exactly “it” is that England are missing.  And so it is that this collective madness turns to hilarity.  Fans who had been declaring, “This is our year,” no less than a minute before the final penalty miss, trudge away preaching realism.

In fairness, the build up to England’s World Cup campaign this year has been more modest than in previous years (despite the best efforts of Carlsberg and The Sun), yet my desire to see England fail remains as strong as ever.  Because above it all, above the pseudo-patriotic adverts that bombard our screens, above the thousands of flags strewn from homes across the country and above the fiercest of national pride you have to sit back and think – what type of team do we want to win the World Cup?

In a purely footballing sense it would be an absolute tragedy for the game if England were to win the World Cup.  Possession football doesn’t appear to be an option, however that could conceivably be cancelled out by dogged determination, defensive strength and outstanding team spirit a la Mourinho’s Inter Milan.  Yet this England squad has shown that they do not possess any of these qualities in the abundance required to overcome their glaring deficiencies.

The quiet sense of optimism that has followed Capello’s reign as England manager should surely be shattered each time a fleeting glance is made to towards the squads of genuine contenders as the huge disparity in quality made clear.  The squads of Spain, Brazil, Holland, Argentina tower over England with such superiority you have to wonder whether Capello and co. are getting cold standing the shadow of the true World Cup contenders.

I accept that the World Cup is all about getting behind your team, your nation, but it is just too hard for me to ignore the glaring injustice that would be England winning the World Cup in South Africa.  For football’s sake, I can’t wait until England get knocked out.

England kick off their 2010 World Cup campaign against the USA on 12 June. Here’s hoping…

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

It was the Friday before the start of the Premier League season and I was on a plane home.  The two gentlemen next to me starting talking and the conversation soon moved to football.  One of them was lamenting Southampton’s relegation into League One, he then said to his friend, “So it’s four years without a trophy now then?”  The other gentleman was an Arsenal fan.

As an unabashed Arsenal fan myself, I thought it would be best to just sit back and see what he said about his team.  “I really think we’re going to finish 5^th behind Man City this season, I really do.”  Upon hearing such blasphemy I jumped to my teams defence. 

After listening to his opinion on Bendtner (“tosser”), I suggested that the Arsenal squad had the most attacking talent in the Premier League, a proposition he politely disagreed with.  The next day Arsenal won 6-1 away at Everton.

Since that opening day master class, Arsenal have scored 54 goals in all competitions, a total that urges the jaw to drop.  In individual matches they have scored 6 goals on two occasions, 4 goals on four occasions and 3 goals on four occasions.  But the most surprising aspect of Arsenal’s goal-scoring prowess is how surprised football fans have been at Arsenal’s form.

It’s not like Arsenal’s goals have come out the blue, a basic analysis of the squad would tell you that the team is full of goals.  As pundits and fans alike have realised it is Arsenal’s new formation that has finally devised a way to fully harness the attacking talent at Arsene Wenger’s disposal. 

The 4-3-3 (or 4-1-2-3 if you really like your formation analysis) creates a fluidity that liberates players like Fabregas while allowing Alex Song to carry on his meteoric rise to a midfield rock and protect the back four.  Because Van Persie, Arshavin, Eduardo and Bendtner can all play on the wings or as centre forwards the positions along the front line are constantly interchangeable, often leaving defenders perplexed as to just who they are supposed to be marking.

Last season, the inexperience of Song and Denilson meant that Fabregas was naturally tentative in going forward, knowing that his defensive cover was inadequate.  The development of Song into a reliable, calm and collected defensive midfielder is priceless; look no further than his impact on the game against Wolves.  Diaby went off with an injury and on came Song, gone was the under the kosh Arsenal soaking up waves of Wolves’ attacks and in it’s place a much more reassured and focused side. 

The rapid progress of Song makes the African Cup of Nations on the horizon all the more alarming; one can only hope that Denilson, upon his return from injury can fills Song’s boots.

Arsenal’s goal glut also makes their defensive frailties (relative to the likes of Chelsea) much less of an issue.  Look at Barcelona last season, they conceded 35 goals in La Liga, 11 more goals than Manchester United let in the Premier League.  The clear difference being that Barcelona outscored Man United in their respective league by 37 goals.*

Arsenal are a team that are without a doubt more likely to concede than their title rivals, but they are also more likely to score more and as the Arsenal legend Herbert Chapman simply put it “The team that scores the most goals wins.”  If people aren’t already taking Arsenal seriously this season, then now’s the time to sit up and pay attention.

*I am aware of the perils of comparing between leagues, but no one can argue that Barcelona weren’t a much more attacking force than Man United last season.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Nothing bothers me more in football than when myopic TV pundits and journalists alike ignore the facts. I’m talking about facts. With the Annual Arsenal Write-Off duly shown two-fingers by the Gunners and Liverpool putting in an uninspired (to say the least) performance at White Hart Lane, you have to ask whether pundits and journalists should have seen this coming. Perhaps, it is Liverpool, not Arsenal, who should be looking over their shoulder at the likes of Man City.

While pre-season remains a dodgy indicator of how a team will perform when the Premier League starts (e.g. Man City this season, Tottenham last season), it does give us a glimpse of how a team will perform. You would like to think that pundits making predictions would maybe, just maybe, cast their eye on Liverpool’s pre-season results when tipping them to do well again this season.

Espanyol brushed a full strength Liverpool aside, Espanyol being the team that fought to stay in La Liga, let alone challenge at the top. Then Atletico Madrid got the better of Liverpool at Anfield with Liverpool fielding an equally strong team. Now, of course, this doesn’t serve as sufficient evidence to suggest that Liverpool should not be mentioned in the same sentence as “title challenge” but it does show that Liverpool were not well geared to hit the ground running.

A criticism that is still regularly (somewhat legitimately) levelled at Arsenal is a lack of squad depth. The fact that Arsenal face such criticism yet Liverpool’s surprisingly small squad does not, represents some of the blindness of current pundits and journalists. When you actually take a look at the squad list, it’s bemusing to see how this group of players are being tipped to win the league while Arsenal are being prophesised to drop out of the top four.

A simple question that few have answered is where the goals will come from. Of course, Gerrard and Torres are always liable to score around 20 goals a season each, but who else? Kuyt and Benayoun will surely chip in but then it gets to the also rans. David Ngog. Ryan Babel. Andriy Voronin. Benitez cannot be allowed to claim that injury to either Torres or Gerrard means they won’t win the title, if he does little to replenish a team that looks like it will struggle for goals.

Steven Gerrard and Javier Mascherano will remain the midfield powerhouses that they are, but the absence of Alonso was clear for all to see in the 2-1 defeat to Tottenham. Lucas Leiva, a possible heir to Alonso’s position, is a player who has failed to convince on various occasions and is simply not good enough to play central midfield for a supposedly title challenging team.

The £20m acquisition of Roma’s Alberto Aquilani also comes shrouded in questions. By the players own admission he is a different type of player to Alonso, one who likes to go forward much more often. His injury record is worrying for a 25 year old, not to mention the fact that he won’t appear in a Liverpool shirt for up to 8 weeks. Dirk Kuyt, Albert Riera and Yossi Benayoun can again be expected to put in decent shifts, but once you scratch the surface of the Liverpool midfield, the shallow squad depth is there for all to see. Players like Ryan Babel, Nabil El Zhar and a host of unproven and mostly unknown younger players (far from the calibre of Arsenal’s starlets) provide the clearly inadequate cover.

Something that has been mentioned all too often by the media mob is the relationship between Gerrard and Torres. “If they keep Gerrard and Torres fit…”, “If Gerrard and Torres stay fit…”, “With Gerrard and Torres fit for the whole season…” Let’s debunk this here and now. It’s all too easy to forget that both Gerrard and Torres were fit and firing on all cylinders in the 2007/2008 season. Gerrard played 52 games, scoring 21 goals, with Torres playing 46 games and scoring 33 goals. Yet Liverpool finished a distant fourth.

Also conspicuous in its absence is any mention of Arsenal’s injuries last season. We’ve heard about Gerrard and Torres, but what about Fabregas, Walcott, Eduardo and Rosicky who all faced months, if not the majority of the season on the sidelines.

It should also be noted that Arsenal’s demolition of Everton happened without Walcott, without Rosicky, without Diaby, without Djourou, without Nasri, without Vela and without Wilshere.

There’s romanticism about backing Liverpool, a team with a rich footballing history, passionate fans and some true football legends. However, this is no reason to ignore the harsh reality of a Liverpool side that has been overhyped and overrated that ultimately punched above their weight last season. Arsenal have their own issues, yes, but the criticism they have faced has been incredibly far-fetched in its hostility and propensity to ignore the true facts. It’s all too easy to pick on Arsenal, but all the pundit’s backing in the world won’t help Liverpool win the title.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News