FIFA World Cup: Another Dismal Display From England, Arsenal To Sign Defender

It's Saturday morning/afternoon and Dublin is lovely and sunny yet again. My head aches just a little but apparently that's a side effect of drinking a lot of Heineken.

Today is going to be yet another very busy day for me where I hope to see my chosen team in the World Cup progress to the next phase by beating Japan. After I watch that Netherlands victory it's back to painting for me before I go to my mother in laws 65th birthday party tonight.

All this means I need to be brief in my summary of yesterday's events and preview of today's. First of all we had the shock of Germany losing 1-0 to Serbia and it makes that group very interesting now. They had a man sent off and missed a penalty but they still could and probably should have got something out of the game and they will probably have to beat Ghana in their last game to ensure qualification  to the last 16.

In the afternoon, at half time, it looked like Slovenia would be the first team to book their place in the last eight as they led the USA 2-0 but the Americans fought back very well in the second half. Soon after they equalised, they had a perfectly good goal disallowed by yet another poor referee and they weren't too happy about it. In my opinion three American players were fouled but the referee gave a free out instead of a penalty, as well as disallowing the goal.

In the evening game England had their chance to go to the top of their group and make their passage to the last 16 relatively easy. All they had to do was beat a fairly poor Algerian team by a couple of goals, but unfortunately they played very poorly and only drew 0-0.

I won't criticise them too much here as I'm sure they are being lambasted elsewhere. It was a dreadful game with virtually no clear goalscoring chances, and it leaves them needing to beat Slovenia in their last game to qualify. That's a task that should be relatively easy if they were playing well but clearly the reverse is the case.

I do have a few questions about the England team and performance though.

Why were the players passing the ball back to David James at chest height from 40 yards out; as it was a recipe for disaster. If they felt they were under that much pressure surely it would be better to just kick the ball away. How badly does Rooney or Heskey have to play before they lose their starting place in the team and what exactly does Lampard do for the entire 90 minutes. 

I thought the players look like the weight of expectation was too much for them and it meant they were afraid to play. Something has to change very soon or they won't beat Slovenia, and they will be coming home humiliated and hurt. It wasn't helped by some of their fans booing them off the pitch and when ITV chose to broadcast Rooney's reaction to the booing I'm sure he will get a hard time over that.

The best thing in all of this for me is that Theo Walcott is sitting on a beach somewhere and he won't have himself taken apart by the media, as the rest of the team surely will if they don't qualify.

On to today's games, and as I said before, it should start with a Netherlands victory over Japan in the early kick off.

In the afternoon Ghana take on Australia, and if the Aussies are in the turmoil that they appear to be in, I expect Ghana to win handsomely. It should set things up for a great finale to the group as Germany play Ghana and the Germans will need a win with Ghana only needing a draw. The evening kick off sees Cameroon take on Denmark, and both of them lost their first game and will need a victory today if they are to have a realistic chance of qualifying.

We should see two Arsenal players in action today with RVP playing for the Dutch and Bendtner for Denmark. If the Cameroon manager has any sense we will also see Song play for them but as he never got on in the first game I'm not so sure.

In Arsenal news, the boss spoke yesterday about the imminent arrival of a defender. He actually said that Arsenal are no closer to signing anyone at the moment but that there will be something happening on the defensive side before the end of the World Cup.

Everybody knows we need centre backs and the sooner the better we sign two good centre backs in my opinion.

There's a few players linked with us again today, but it's the usual names and the only one we might possibly sign is Koscielny from Lorient as he fits the bill as a centre back. 

Today is the day that my reads on Bleacher Report overtook my reads on Oleole and it only took four months and less than 90 articles for it to happen. I'm sure that a more liberal approach to page counts is used on Bleacher Report but when you get 6,000 reads of an article you have to imagine that you are reaching a much larger audience.

Thanks to everybody who reads me on both sites and I'll do my best to keep it as interesting as possible. That's it for today.

Here's a look at  a famous 5-1 win for Arsenal away to Inter Milan.

See You Tomorrow.