England's future is good in football

The so called Golden Generation is almost dismantled, with Gerrad, Lampard and Cole the only real survivors. What Roy Hodgson has done well is mix these three more experienced players and Wayne Rooney with a group of younger, hungry players. 

Players such as Barry and Parker have made way for Cleverly and Wilshere, Crouch and Bent are out and instead Welbeck and Sturridge are in. This is a good sign for England as they are all young players who have no fear of loosing, like the players of the last ten years have faced. Although I do not believe England will win the world cup next year, I feel as if the team will show more than the flops of the last few tournaments. 

England seem to have a had a problem in goal since David Seaman had retired, but with Joe Hart, Fraser Forster and Jack Butland they have three keepers who could be exceptional. As a fourth choice John Ruddy of Norwich is pretty good as well. 

The full back positions are very well stocked with Johnson, Walker, Richards, Jeninkson all competing at right back and Cole, Baines, Gibbs and Bertrand at left back. Roy Hodgson has a bit of a headache at centre back, he has many players that he has tried out, but is yet to find a partnership. In my opinion it should be between Smalling and Jones to see who partners Gary Cahill. 

The stars of the English team are defiantly the midfielders, the brightest star has to be that of Jack Wilshere. I hope people do not expect too much from the boy but he really is an exceptional player. I have heard many things such as him being the best player since Gazza, or that he will be the next captian. I hope the media do not go over board and just let him play. To back up Wilshere he also has Cleverly, Gerrad, Lampard and Milner all good players. 

Two of the forward positions are pretty much cemented, these being Wayne Rooney and Theo Walcott. The latter having two great seasons in a row now, finally showing his true quality. The only issue to decide is if Rooney plays down the middle or left. If he is pushed out to the left then Jermaine Defoe would benefit being the main striker. If he were to play down the middle then we have Sturridge, Welbeck or Oxlade Chamberlin on the left. 

As I have stated earlier England will not be expected to win the world cup, but this new group of players could trouble some of the top teams. For the first time in many years I am excited about international football. 

The transfer window, QPR, Newcastle and Odemwingie

It is now February and the transfer window is shut, for one man however it has been a nightmare of a month. This man is Peter Odemwingie of West Brom who is still a West Brom player despite spending most of the night camped outside QPR hoping for a move. 

We can only imagine the reception that he will get from his manager, fellow players and supporters now. It seems he will have to bare a few more months of this as he cant move on now. In a way it seems that it is a victory for club power, as Odemwingie used all the tricks in the book to force West Brom into submission. 

It was a quite transfer window in comparison to the past few windows. The Odemwingie story made the day and added a bit of humour. The biggest movers of the day had to be QPR who signed Samba, Jenas and took on Townsend on loan. This has to be a very big risk taken by QPR, the money they have spent this January could cost them heavily if they do not stay up. Harry Redknapp may say that the spending is down to the chairman/owner but he has form on this issue. He may be a good coach but he has a bad record of his clubs overspending and going into financial trouble. This has happened at West Ham, Portsmouth and Southampton. Chris Samba signed for around £12.5 million and for very high wages he could be either the man to save QPR in the Premiership or cost them financially in the future. A big gamble by QPR.

Staying with QPR it is a little dodgy how Samba and Redknapp share an agent, also how Jenas and Odemwingie just turned up outside the stadium and were not let in. Another club who have brought in alot of new faces is Newcastle, the French revolution continues in the north east. This is all the more odd because Alan Pardew a few years before had criticised Arsene Wenger for buying too many French players. Arsenal now have a young British core coming through while most of Pardew's players are from the French league. 

Other good signings in this window have to be Holtby to Spurs, Zaha to Manchester United, Sturridge to Liverpool, Butland to Stoke and Monreal into Arsenal. Talking of Man Utd they once again showed there class and buying power by identifying the player they wanted and getting him signed up early. 

The window also highlighted teams which did not buy the players they needed, for example Manchester City got rid of Balotlli but did not replace him, Spurs needed another striker, Arsenal needed a defender and a midfielder. Only time will tell if these teams made a mistake by not getting in the needed players.