Provisional 30-Man Squad Announced Tomorrow

Firstly the premiership ended yesterday with Chelsea winning the league in style beating Wigan 8-0 (I am delighted). It was a season of twists, turns and surprises. There were more surprising results than usual and for the first time in many seasons a new team broke into the top four. Tottenham finished 4th with the other so-called top four team, Liverpool, finishing 7th.

Now away from the premiership. England's provisional 30-man squad for the World Cup will be announced tomorrow. Now the excitement really starts to build. The selected 30 will go to a training camp in Austria before the final 23-man squad will be announced on June 1st. Seeing as the 30 are announced tomorrow I thought I would pick the 30 man that I would select if I was the manager. So here it is:

Goalkeepers: 4
Robert Green
David James
Paul Robinson
Joe Hart

Defenders: 10
John Terry
Rio Ferdinand
Michael Dawson
Ledley King
Sol Campbell
Ashley Cole
Glen Johnson
Leighton Baines
Gary Neville
Phil Jakielka

Midfielders: 11
Frank Lampard
Steven Gerrard
Gareth Barry
James Milner
Aaron Lennon
Joe Cole
Adam Johnson
Tom Huddlestone
Shaun Wright-Phillips
Theo Walcott
Michael Carrick

Forwards: 5
Wayne Rooney
Peter Crouch
Jermain Defoe
Bobby Zamora
Emile Heskey

Gerrard Struggling

I've been very surprised this year that not many people have been too critical of Steven Gerrard. This has to be his worst season yet. In past seasons he has inspired Liverpool, often winning games by himself and constantly raising the bar. This year he has been very poor. I think he may have gone a bit stale at Liverpool and it could be time for him to move. He knows he is going to play every week and he is always picked for England. If I was Capello I would be seriously considering his position in the England team. Yes, He is a one of the best in the world when he is on top of his game but we have rarely seen that this season and its been extremely rare that we have seen that for England. His performances this year was summed up by the amazing back pass against Chelsea this weekend right into Drogba's path that put Chelsea on their way to a 2-0 victory.

Good news for everyone but Spain. Torres is a major doubt to be ready for the start of the World Cup. The downside is that he is expected to be fit for when the tournament really gets going after the group stages. As well as that Spain do have one of the easiest groups. There are also rumors that Xavi may not be fit. He has a tear in his calf but he is playing through it for Barcelona, hopefully he will tear it even more so he can't play. I say that as purely an England fan because as a football fan he is one of my favorite players to watch.

Here's quite a funny Pepsi commercial starring some of the big names that will be playing this summer.

Penutimate Weekend In The Premiership

Seeing as there is so much on the line this weekend in the Premiership, I thought I would do my predictions for this weekends games.
Here they are:

Saturday's Games:
Birmingham 3-0 Burnley
Man City 2-1 Aston Villa
Portsmouth 2-2 Wolves
Stoke 1-1 Everton
Tottenham 4-0 Bolton

Sunday's Games:
Fulham 1-2 West Ham
Liverpool 1-3 Chelsea
Sunderland 1-2 Man United

Monday's Games:
Blackburn 1-1 Arsenal
Wigan 2-1 Hull

Enjoy the weekend.

Days flying By

So my prediction for Liverpool against West Ham couldn't have been further from the truth. West Ham were absolutely shocking and made it easy for Liverpool. Gerrard looked decent, Green had no help from the defense in front of him and Upson was playing by himself in the back four.

James Milner's performances have certainly caught the eye this year. Rumors today speculate that Man City are going to be making a big bid for him in the summer. He has had a great year but I dont think moving will help him or his international credentials. He plays every week at Villa in his new natural centre midfield position. If he moves to one of the bigger clubs I could see him being shoved out wide and not starting every game.

Although there is no English interest in the Champions League anymore, the Inter Milan and Barcelona tie today was interestign viewing with many players from that game to go to the World Cup. Barcelona went ahead and you would have expected them to go on from there. Milan though, under Mourinho, came back to win 3-1 and well deserved. Barcelona have a lot to do in the second leg and will have no Puyol as he will be suspended. He has been poor lately and will be playing for Spain in the summer. We saw that Messi is human as he was never really involved in the game. Xavi though continues to find passes that seem impossible and it is a scary thought that Torres and David Villa will be running on to them passes for Spain.

If England do meet Spain, then they are going to have to be on top of their game. It's a scary thought how much quality they have and then to top it off they have cover in every position. It is going to take either a special performance to beat Spain or a lot of luck.

It would be nice if this man didn't recover in time for the World Cup, his meant to be back in less than a month now, but I'm sure there would be a lot of non-Spainards very happy if he didn't make it.