Finally, Michael Owen is even more useless than Peter Crouch, and I can’t stand watching Crouchy play. Just in league play alone, Peter Crouch has averaged a goal every 185 minutes the last two seasons. If I would bother to calculate it for every appearance it would be much more often considering he’s scored 11 goals in 20 matches of other competitions opposed to the 9 he has scored in 39 league appearances. Owen on the other hand has averaged a goal every 423 minutes in league play over the last two seasons and though it would increase if you added his one other appearance in a non-league match where he happened to also score, it would still pale in comparison to Crouch, who also has six assists over that period compared to Owen who had zero. No manager in their right mind would start Owen over Crouch at this point. Starting them together would be the most ideal situation, but if Rooney is healthy, Crouch is his proper partner as his output has proved. Owen’s best years appear to be behind him, fit or not.

I really don’t care anyhow, international competition hasn’t been legit since the early nineties. The corruption and greed in the sport has thoroughly destroyed it. The only way it would ever return to legitimacy is if you started cutting off the arms of those who have their grubby little hands in the money pot and that just isn’t going to happen. It ceased to be about the sport and national pride a long time ago.

Have to disagree with you on Wayne Bridge: Ashley Cole played well in several games during this qualification campaign, while Wayne Bridge, in my estimation, looked out of his depth. Still, I see where you’re coming from, and opinions of individual defenders can be pretty subjective. I’ll withold judgment on Bridge until he’s played for England a bit more.

I also disagree with you on Peter Crouch. He’s only started in 68% of Liverpool’s league games since he joined the club (BBC Stats and Soccerbase) and this season (FootballAnorak, 4thegame, SoccerBase) he’s played just 7 league games, starting in 2, coming on as a subsitute in 5, and scoring a grand total of zero (although does have one assist this season against Fulham). Maybe “perpetual late-game subsitute” was a bit harsh, but certainly not “perpetual subsitute” – the man has only played a full ninety minutes once in the league this season, against Fulham. In any case, he’s hardly a top-rate striker playing regularly in world-class fixtures. Even if you add his appearances in the Champions League to his Premier League total, the total this season is just 14 appearances and three goals, two of which were during the freakish 8-0 win over Besiktas, the other at Toulouse. Last season is, if anything, more telling, especially when you consider that Liverpool were without Crouch’s biggest competition, Fernando Torres: Crouch made just 19 league appearances, 13 as a substitute. Compare this to the rest of the squad:

Carragher: 35 league starts, 1 as a substitute
Gerrard: 36 league starts, 1 as a substitute
Alonso: 32 league starts, 3 as a substitute
Riise: 33 league starts, 4 as a substitute
Kuyt: 34 league starts, 7 as a substitute

Crouch actually comes behind Jermain Pennant in appearances, with the latter making a total of 34 appearances, only 14 as a substitute.

Rafa Benitez operates a rotation system, but that didn’t stop him from playing a host of other players far more often than Peter Crouch, and playing Crouch (both this season and last season) primarily as a substitute rather than a starter. Even then, boatloads of other, arguably inferior, players were chosen more regularly than Crouch and given more starts than Crouch – 11 other Liverpool players made more starting appearances (not even counting substitute appearances) than Crouch last season. That’s not a rotation system: it’s Rafa Benitez not wanting to play Peter Crouch.

Michael Owen may have the natural fitness of a pensioner but he plays for Newcastle whenever he’s fit and he scores regularly whenever he’s fit. The same can’t be said for Peter Crouch.

All that said, I can’t disagree with you on McClaren, although I’m not enough of a Gerrard fan to think he would have made a better Captain than John Terry – I honestly have seen very little evidence of Gerrard’s talent when he’s wearing an England jersey over the past year. Here’s hoping we get Mourinho.

McClaren screwed up time and time again. He did so by dropping Beckham. He did so by making Terry captain when the players and fans wanted Gerrard. He did so by misusing and mistreating Jamie Carragher which lead to the centre back quitting. He did so by letting Sir Alex tell him which of his players were available and which were not. And last but not least, he did so because he used outdated tactics basking in a swamp of reservation. He took no risks and therefore reaped no rewards. He’s a talentless muppet who hasn’t the vision nor balls to be a great manager, which lead him to be outclassed at every turn of the corner.

Sure, England has it’s issues, but getting a competent manager would at least mask some of them.

I’m not entirely sure why English players are more likely to stay in the English league. But you have to look at what happened to David Beckham, Michael Owen, Steve McManaman when they left to go to Spain (Real Madrid). I think only Beckham was the only one who got a decent spell in the starting line-up and still he was openly criticised for a lot of these performances.

Whether this is putting players off, I’m not sure. Maybe the English scouting system is better than other nations’, so we can pluck young talent from all over the world. Or maybe the players know they are playing in the best league in the world and it would be a stupid decision to leave it.