Just read on the OS that we've got 20 players away on international duty, which sounds a little excessive, but it does include everything from U17s up. Gareth Bale (Wales), Steven Caulker, Jermain Defoe, Scott Parker, Kyle Walker (all England), Mousa Dembele, Jan Vertonghen (Belgium), Hugo Lloris (France) and Gylfi Sigurdsson (Iceland) in Europe. Benoit Assou-Ekotto (Cameroon) and Emmanuel Adebayor (Togo) play against each other in a World Cup Qualifier. Clint Dempsey flies around the world again, as the USA face Costa Rica and Mexico. Tom Carroll, Danny Rose, Adam Smith and Andros Townsend all feature for England U21s and Holtby has been called up to Germany's U21 team. Jordan Archer (Scotland U21), Kenny McEvoy (Eire U19), Milos Veljkovic (Serbia U19) and Connor Ogilvie (England U17) complete the list. Might not be good news for our next league game.
Harsh i know, but he offers us very little and we need much more than he's shown us since August. I don't want him to be anywhere near the starting line up as he's a waste of a player and it feels like we have 10 men. Swansea are a footballing side, so we will need our best footballing players for this one.
To think there could have been 6 Spurs players in the England squad had Dawson and Lennon not dropped out. Not like we've got a massive run in Roy!
The irony of Dempsey's recent absence through injury is that Bale's freed up the position that the American thrived in last season for Fulham and our system would probably suit him now. Assou-Ekotto's return to fitness would allow him to drift inside a lot and attack the space that's created when all of the opposition defenders follow the Welshman around. It'd seem to be the ideal situation for him to return to the side, but Sigurdsson looks more effective there in a Spurs shirt, Lennon's out, our manager picked a left-back there instead and now he's off around the world.
How long will it take for Ade to get back from Cameroon?,Benny better get hold of him after the game and drag him back!
I didn't know we had a Serb on our books. I went to Kosovo to friends wedding and found the results of Serbian war lords. Lots of cemeteries,recent, full of Kosovan civilians butchered by those animals and found much unemployment caused by those loonies taking home to Serbia machinery etc from the factories they'd plundered.Talk about the bloody Nazis!!!!! I took an instant dislike to anything Serb!!!!!!
Oh for **** sake! Just when I said the international break came at a perfect time, it takes 90% of our players around the world to fatigue them even more than what they are now! DAMN YOU INTERNATIONALS! DAMN YOU!
To be fair, Dempsey has more goals in all comptitions than Ade! Which is very worrying (4 in 25 compared to 8 in 33). We truly are blessed with such consistent goal scorers!
International breaks post-November are IMO criminal. If they want to play these international games just have the season as it should without the breaks then it ends beginning of May, players can have a week off, play their international games and be done by end of May and go off on holiday. That would be too simple and require common sense though...
Those magic words DL - 'common sense'. Never likely to win out when the FA/UEFA/FIFA are involved in any way.... And probably the word 'schedules' comes in there somewhere - keeping the PayMasters happy.....
I get the feeling that Milos wasn't personally involved in it (although he does have the makings of a tidy defender, by all accounts)
Decent hit by Carroll in training for England U21s: [video=youtube;AkaCnmcuDnw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkaCnmcuDnw[/video] Don't think he's been used enough this season.
I wish they could do that in matches and not kickarounds! I remember Terry Medwin casually taking a prematch shot that nearly broke the crossbar.......and Dave Mackay take a crossover back kick that hit the back of the net like a bullet,also in the prematch kickabout.He seemed to turn to the crowd behind the goal as if to say...."what else can I show you".....!
OH GREAT!!! Apparently that homicidal thug Charlie Adam is going to be in the Scotland team v Wales. I am hoping that Bales knock from last weekend flares up suddenly and prevents him playing cos I think we all know the likely outcome if he does.....
