The nippy little winger has endured three miserable years at Chelsea as he worked to find a way into the Chelsea team. He has been in good company with the likes of Shevchenko also battling for a place in the side.

It’s good to see that Chelsea are prepared to let these players leave and attempt to rebuild their respective careers. SWP was a fantastic player for Manchester City before his move south and he will be champing at the bit to prove Chelsea wrong and also to become an England regular.

The twenty six year old told City’s official website, “Obviously I’m delighted to come back to City and I just can’t wait to get started again.”

I really hope that SWP can make is mark at a very different Manchester City team to the one he left.

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Shevchenko’s return to Milan brings to an end a frustrating couple of years for the player who was once considered to be the best striker in the world.

His arrival at Chelsea followed a disappointing World Cup for Shevchenko who was making a comeback from injury at the time and he never regained the pace or fitness that made him such a feared striker in Serie A.

While Chelsea are happy to write off the massive fee they paid for Shevchenko they will at least save having to pay the huge salary that tempted the player to the Premier league. But also the move could be considered by the more cynical as a sweetener for the Brazilian playmaker Kaka, who has been a serious Chelsea target this summer, particularly since the arrival of Felipe Scolari.

Rumours of a transfer record breaking move for Kaka have been doing the rounds for the last couple of months and have been fuelled by the player admitting that he would relish a move to the Premier league.

It seems more likely that fellow Brazilian Robinho will join Chelsea from Real Madrid at this stage, but what an exciting prospect Kaka and Robinho would be for the premier league, that already boasts the likes of world class players Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres.

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England Manager Fabio Capello and Captain John Terry both faced the music with varying degrees of honesty after England’s abysmal display in a 2-2 draw with the Czech Republic last Wednesday evening at Wembley Stadium.

On paper, a 2-2 draw with one of the best teams in the world doesn’t look too bad.  But the truth is the England performance, in their fifth and final international friendly under the leadership of Fabio Capello, was very disappointing. Though the Czech Republic must be wondering how they drew the game.

Second half substitue, Joe Cole scored one of the scrapiest England goals I can ever remember seeing, to save Capello from another defeat.  But the team selection and tactics were a repeat of England’s most disappointing defeat against Croatia last year which resulted in Steve McLaren losing his job and England failing to qualify for this summer’s exciting Euro 2008 Championship.

According to the official FIFA rankings England are 14th in the world.  The rankings are awarded by a points’ structure of games won and competition results; and of the 13 teams above England I am only surprised to see Romania in 11th place.

The teams in order are: Spain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina, Czech Republic, Portugal, Russia, Romania, France and Turkey. Like me, you may question why the perennial underachievers (along with England), Netherlands, are in fourth place.

Just below England are the likes of Cameroon, Sotland, Bulgaria, Greece, Ghana, Israel and Egypt.

Considering the very limited success England has achieved in international football to date it is clear to see that a points based system that doesn’t take into consideration that England created the game of football, Wembley is “the home of football”, the so-called “golden generation”, the players superstar status, their wage demands, their gorgoeus-looking girlfriends and the overblown problematic egos of the top English players, then yes, it all makes sense.  The England football team are about as good as Cameroon but not quite as good as Turkey.

You can buy football tickets for the Premier League and all home international games from Viagogo.

UK Sports Tickets

As the Olympics draws to a close the focus for British sports fans will turn to rugby and cricket. RBS Six Nations tickets and ICC World Twenty20 tickets are available on the Viagogo website.

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Last night Fabio Capello and England played their fifth and final international friendly match before next month’s World Cup qualifying games against Andorra and Croatia. But the excitement and expectation that followed Fabio Capello’s appointment as England manager as all but evaporated after yet another poor England performance that lacked skill, innovation and anything like a suitable formation or shape.

The England team was very similar to Steve McLaren’s final eleven, so perfectly understandable that the performance was as poor as the Croatia game. England were simply unable to defend against the counter-attacking football of the Czech Republic.

The same old problems were very visible. Players playing out of position (Steven Gerrard on the left and Wes Brown right back) and for the first time it appeared Capello had reverted to the Ericksson & McLaren problem of using a formation to accomodate the “star players” rather than picking the best players for the correct positions.

When asked why he played Gerrard on the left, Capello looked defensive and said he hadn’t. The formation was apparently a 4-3-2-1 with Gerrard and Wayne Rooney tucking in behind loan striker Jermain Defoe!

I’m pleased Defoe has had a run of games for England. I have always considered him to be a good striker who needs a run of games, but he most definitely needs a partner to feed off. I’m expecting the Peter Crouch / Jermain Defoe partnership at Portsmouth to be a success this season. If so, then that would be the obviousfirst choice for the England attack.

And what was David Beckham doing chasing the game whenever he gave the ball away, which was far too frequent. In the build up to the first Czech goal, Beckham was on the left wing!

It was like watching school kids play over the park with jumpers for goalposts.

Furthermore, why was Wes Brown picked ahead of in form right-backs such as Glen Johnson and Luke Young. Neither are that amazing but they are the best players for that position, for that formation.

I won’t even start on ‘can Lampard and Gerrard play together!’

Capello’s honeymoon is well and truly over, and England only learnt one thing from yesterday’s friendly international, they are still not that good and on this performance don’t deserve to qualify for the World Cup in South Africa.

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• February 3, 2008 -- Ghana 2 Nigeria 1
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The 36 year old had battled to full fitness for the start of the season before suffering the set back in the opening game.

The brave defender had twice fought testicular cancer during his time in the Scottish Premier League with Celtic, who he joined from Bolton in 1996 for £3.5million.

Stubbs joined Everton on a free transfer in 2001, where he played 142 games for the Toffees before moving to Sunderland in 2005. The player stayed at the Stadium of Light for one season before returning to Everton.

Everton released Stubbs in January 2008 when he completed his move to Derby County.

I will remember Stubbs as one half of a fantastic defensive partnership formed with David Weir at Everton and the massive part that the pair played during the season 2004/5 when despite losing Wayne Rooney to Manchester United and spending little of the transfer kitty, David Moyes guided the team to an unexpected  fourth place in the Premier league.

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• December 1, 2007 -- 87 year old ref
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Wenger is quoted as saying “I didn’t know the British were good at swimming, I have been in this country for twelve years and haven’t seen a swimming pool.”

It will come as no surprise to football fans, as Wenger has failed to see an Arsenal player commit a foul in those twelve years!

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Fabio Capello makes John Terry England Captain

Fabio Capello has just unveiled John Terry as the new permanent England captain.  He gets the nod over Rio Ferdinand, who becomes the vice-captain.

For me, John Terry is the most suited for the job.  He is as passionate about playing for England as David Beckham is, and has always shown pride in wearing the three lions, exactly what every England football fan and manager alike are looking for in a time where football players are too often cited as being apathetic, john overpaid prima donna millionaires.

John Terry spoke very eloquently at the press conference, reminding me of the oh so obvious David Beckham before and after ‘public address lessons’.

Terry told reporters he was ecstatic about Fabio Capello appointing him as the new England captain and that there had been some rumours floating around that Rio Ferdinand was going to get the call up.

I believe John Terry, more than Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard and David Beckham will not only lead by example but has that bulldog spirit and grit.

John Terry will once again lead England out tomorrow night at Wembley Stadium as they take on the Czech Republic in their last friendly international before the World Cup qualifiers begin in September.  Every Engalnd fan will be hoping that Terry’s Chelsea team mate Petr Cech will have a complete nightmare, like the one he suffered at Euro 2008.

Random Posts

• January 28, 2008 -- Portsmouth sign Milan Baros
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The season kicked off at the Emirates Stadium where Arsenal began with an unconvincing 1-0 win over one of the newly promoted team, West Brom. New boy Nasrim scored the opening goal after just four minutes but Arsenal were unable to hit the target again.

Stoke City found themselves on the end of a 3-1 thrashing from Bolton Wanders, which I think is a tell-tale sign of how the rest of their season is going to go.

By contrast, Hull City were involved in one of the biggest shocks of the day, as they were worthy winners against a revitalised Fulham.

As far as I am concerned, the biggest shock of the opening fixtures was Middlesborough beating the new look the Juandes Ramos Tottenham. I am one of those who believe Tottenham will be fighting it out with Arsenal for fourth position, come May. But after yesterday’s poor performance it looks like it could yet be another season of promise and expectancy that fizzles out before the Autumn for Spurs.

Starting the new season as they finished the last, Liverpool were reliant once again on Fernando Torres again to sneak a 1-0 win against a new look Sunderland at the Stadium Of Light.

Three games were played today, Chlesea v Portsmouth, Manchester United v Newcastle, and Aston Villa v Manchester City.

Manchester United were without Carlos Tevez as well as the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, as they began the defence of the Premiership title against Newcastle, who themselves were without strikers Michael Owen and Mark Viduka.

Newcastle stunned the Old Trafford sell-out crowd by taking the lead in the first-half with a stunning header from Obafemi Martens.  Unfortunately for Kevin Keegan, the lead only lasted for 45 seconds before Darren Fletcher slotted home the equaliser.

Manchester United looked a little more threatening on the break as the game became stretched in the second half, but they were definitely missing firepower upfront.  But don’t forget Manchester United started last season with a disappointing draw with Reading before they went on to retain the Premier League & be crowned Champions Of Europe.  With Ronaldo out ofr the next few weeks at least, today’s result will probably speed up the transfer of Dmitar Berbatov.

The last two Chelsea managers have allegedly lost their jobs because owner Roman Abramovich wants Chelsea to play exciting football AND win trophies. Felippe Scholari has manged Brazil and Portugal and said he wants Chelsea to play like Brazil; and in their opening game against Portsmouth, they did just that. The confidence, movement and fluidity, especially of the midfield quartet of Deco, Ballack, Lampard and Joe Cole was beautiful to watch and completely mesmorising for the first 45 minutes as far as Portsmouth were concerned.

Brazilian born, Portugal international Deco was rightly voted Man Of The Match. He was the main driving force in blue and capped his Premier League performance off with a fantastic strike from about 30 yards out to give Chelsea a convincing 4-0 win. A win that was greeted with a smile from Roman Abramovich and puts Chelsea on top of the Premier League.

Joe Cole inherited the number 10 shirt but it looks like Deco may be the obvious replacement for Gianfranco Zola.

In the other game today, Aston Villa beat Manchester City 4-2 with a seven-minute hat-trick from Gabriel Agbonlahor and a good performance from Gareth Barry.

All in all, a great start to what I m hoping will be an exciting new Premier League season.

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For me, the three teams that came up from the Coca-Cola Championship, Hull City, Stoke City and West Brom, are favourites to go straight back down and be relegated come next May, with Bolton being ‘in the mix’ for the whole season.

I feel confident that Chelsea will win the Premier League due to the pain of being runners up in three competitions last season. Manchester United swill be second, with Liverpool being third.

I think Arsenal and Tottenham will battle it out for fourth place; and that will depend on whether Berbatov stays at White Hart Lane or, if he goes to Manchester United as everyone now believes will definitely happen, who they buy to replace him.

If David Villa doesn’t want to come to the White Hart Lane then maybe they can coax Steve Archibald out of retirement!

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• January 14, 2008 -- Liverpool did offer Klinsmann job
• January 4, 2008 -- Joey Barton released on bail
• January 11, 2008 -- Chelsea agree deal for Anelka

Last year I was pretty close with Chelsea, Wolves, Nottm Forest, MK Dons and Exeter City. And this year I am feeling very confident of winning £71,995 for my £5 bet.

So what do you think of Chelsea, Birmingham City, Leeds United, Gillingham and Ebbsfleet United?

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