Haha! Apparently England are missing a few key players ahead of their match at home to Kazakhstan. Why is this even an issue for the English press to report?! This match should be won with English Championship footballers, let alone Premiership footballers. No disrespect to Kazakhstan – they’re certainly not the walkovers they once were – but they surely don’t have a chance against England?

 

Also, I’m going to rant about Michael Owen. If you’re not English, you may not be aware of how worshipped he is amongst England fans. Why? Well, he scored a cracking goal against Argentina about…10 years ago. What makes fans love him since then? They have two exceptionally common arguments:

 

1. Who would you want on the bench if there’s 15 minutes left and you need a goal?

2. Just look at his goals-to-game ratio – it’s better than any other England player!

 

My responses:

 

1. If my “best player” was on the bench with 15 minutes to go, I’d want to know why! Aside from that, if England need a goal, which presumably means the other side are winning, then the opponents are going to have a lot of men behind the ball. This means we’re sending a midget onto the field who cannot hold up the ball, win the ball in the air, beat a man or anything for that matter. His only ability these days is to put the ball in the net, something each striker in the world can do.

2. Records are in the past, like Liverpool’s title aspirations in the English Premiership – past doesn’t mean the present is all fine and dandy!

 

Anyway, onto the picks.

 

 

 

Japan vs UAE (Should) (7)

 

 

Netherlands U19 vs Lithuania U19 (Should) (7)

Germany U19 vs Luxembourg U19 (Deffo) (9)

 

Enjoy