Capello's England shake off World Cup woes, but problems persist
England’s return to competitive action after an inarguably disappointing World Cup campaign produced a resounding-looking 4-0 win against a poor Bulgarian side. You might argue though that the result raised as many questions as it seemed to answer.
Wayne Rooney continues to look sluggish and slothful and uncharacteristically weak in the tackle. While Rooney dropped deep and postured in the middle of the park, it was left to Jermaine Defoe to do the hard yards, chasing lost causes and putting himself about.
Defoe is apparently playing with sprained testicles (or something similar) but he showed a real appetite to get into the right areas and was rewarded with a splendidly clinical hat-trick that would have delighted supreme European marksman David Villa.
All Defoe’s goals came from early left-footed strikes, supposedly the Spurs man’s weaker foot; consummate (consummate! I love football talk) finishing from one of the few England players that emerged from South Africa 2010 with any credit.
- Defoe picked up a knock completing his hat-trick
Rooney, it must be said, laid on all three of Defoe’s goals and had a hand in most things that were good about England going forward. He just still doesn’t look quite right.
Whether he is struggling to reconcile his game with efforts to control his temper and aggressive nature, or whether a niggling injury persists, Rooney is definitely not 100%. He is still capable of some sublime things however.
His clipped reverse pass to put Ashley Cole in for the first goal was sublimely delicate and precise and he persistently used the ball intelligently and unselfishly. In dropping deep he was able to act as repeat provider for lively strike partner Defoe; the nucleus of an England strike partnership seems to be at last forming.
Intelligence was a key part of England’s performance. Steven Gerrard, looking much more at home, pulled strings from midfield, and also recognised the need to assume some extra defensive responsibility and cover his defenders when the occasion arose. He is demonstrably a better player than Frank Lampard in that position, and if the two cannot - as seems to be the case - play in the middle together, then Gerrard should be first choice.
Gareth Barry played within his limitations in the holding role. Barry is steady and plays it simply, but I feel England need to blood a proper combative David Batty type defensive midfielder, capable of assuredly protecting his defence, to fully free up England's creative midfield options. He is certainly not the long term answer here.
James Milner looked the part on the left wing; unusually for an England wide player he isn’t blessed with searing pace. Against Bulgaria he belied this deficit of natural quickness by using his noodle.
On countless occasions he outwitted his full-back, out-thinking the Bulgarian Manolev with a deft first touch, a drop of the shoulder or clever, obstructive use of his bullish frame. Good signs for an England team so often short of nous.
England’s right wing wasn’t quite so bright. Glen Johnson and Theo Walcott have all the potential in the world, but they too often look clueless. Walcott looked significantly improved from his desperate performances in England’s World Cup warm-up games when he seemed to playing in borrowed boots. His control was surprisingly good, the ball more easily brought under his spell than I can remember seeing.
Time after time Walcott blitzed passed his full-back but his final ball was too often poor, thoughtless or confused. He is only 21 of course, but he remains a frustrating figure.
- Our MOTM Joe Hart
It may be that Walcott has a long term battle on his hands for that position with Manchester City’s in-form Adam Johnson. Johnson was lively and threatening when he came on, and chipped in with a cheap goal. I’m not convinced he is a right winger though, and I’d like to see him given a run - for club and country - on the left.
England were largely assured at the back. Phil Jagielka defended well but used the ball poorly and a couple of slips from ungainly but mostly excellent centre-back Michael Dawson nearly let Bulgaria in. When Dawson suffered what looks to be a bad injury, his replacement Gary Cahill also seemed at home in the shirt. Bulgaria though still posed a threat to England’s goal.
Defoe got the man of the match award but it was probably young England goalkeeper Joe Hart that impressed the most.
Hart is currently possessed of supernatural self-confidence and seemed to be so absolutely impenetrable that even when Bulgaria got through one-on-one you never feared they would get past the Manchester City stopper.
Hart -occasionally erratic distribution aside- was the real plus in an England home performance that flattered the hosts; he looks like he may, with his shot-stopping prowess and level-headed demeanor, be about to make one of England’s problem positions his own for the forseeable future.
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Category Sport |
To announce their forthcoming debut for hip Indiana record label Secretly Canadian (home to Damian Jurado
, Antony & the Johnsons
, BLK JKS
and Yeasayer
) Montreal four piece Suuns are offering their new 6 track EP as a free download.
Suuns’ Zeroes EP is maybe not what you’d expect of a band from Montreal; the EP, named in honour of the band name they had to forsake for legal reasons, has more in common with the lo-fi analogue sound of cult British band Clinic, famous for wearing surgical masks and not selling many records.
The fuzzy, dubby one note riff of EP opener The Disappearance of a Skyscraper sets the tone, before giving way to a play-school simple, insistent drum beat and the stiff-jawed mantric mewl of singer/guitarist Ben Shemie.
Hello, this sounds a bit different. It’s also a bit good.
Nnnnnnn and Optimist leap about with a proggier, post-rock sensibility, frayed guitars clambering over staccato beats and stabs of wobbling keys, and Arena, with its walking bass-line and rippling synths is almost a funky sort of shoegaze. Shemie’s voice remains a constant however, his whispery whine filled with a dreamy dread and menace.
Mudslinger is good marker for the tone of Zeroes, full of dark thrust and distorted intent, it is a strange and compulsive noise, like someone buried a good tune alive and we're listening to it trying to claw its way out.
Standout track though is the closer PVC, an oblique perpetual chorus which put me oddly in mind of Scott 4
’s chugging, hip-hop-inspired Lefturno
and hints that Suuns, like all your favourite bands, are very deep down a pop act with some disturbing obssessions.
More to come certainly, but a very promising, distinctive introduction.
You can sign up for the free download at http://secretlycanadian.com/suuns/.
Our Rating: 
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Category Music |
Edgar Wright, Michael Cera, the keys to the special effects cupboard... Awesome.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World is Hot Fuzz
, Spaced
and Shaun Of The Dead
director Edgar Wright’s first feature made with big American money, and it is a spectacular, epic, blockbusting electric geek-out.
Working from his own screenplay, based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s cult Scott Pilgrim
graphic series, Wright has delivered a frantic, breathless film fusion of music videos, old-school gaming, comic books, cult animation and comedy that is dizzyingly, relentlessly entertaining.
To try and describe and synopsise this hyperkinetic, coin-op odyssey would be to diminish it. Wright’s film is epileptic with ideas; jokes, quirks, tricks, flash and gimmicks are thrown at you from the outset in a skull shattering headbutt of an assault on your senses.
In brief, the film concerns the eponymous Pilgrim- played with typically nervous, off-kilter cool by go-to-geek Michael Cera- a Torontonian slacker, mooching his way through the callous, depressive ladykiller funk that follows a bad break-up. Bassist in his band Sex Bob-omb (Wright apparently asked composer Beck
to make the band’s songs somewhere between awful and awesome), Pilgrim is semi-ironically dating 17 year old superfan Knives Chau until he dreams of roller-blading beauty Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Knives is cut (eventually), but in order to date Ramona, Scott must defeat her seven evil exes.
- Pilgrim's progress? 2nd and a half base
It is as ridiculous as it sounds, but it is played with a dead-pan self awareness, a knowing comic book absurdity which it embraces and amplifies. Director Wright must currently be sitting, very pleased with himself, on a throne of burnt out editing suites because this is a cool, hip comedy that is absolutely bathed in whizz bang post-production effects.
Wright has form for visual flair, but this is properly eye-gouging stuff; smash cuts, ostentatious wipes and post-production graphics, a billion throw-away pop-culture references- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
truly does not spare the horses.
There is almost too much going on; there is barely a second to think before Wright whips you on to the next bit of fizzing, popping eye candy. You shouldn’t assume that this film is all smoke and exploding mirrors though.
The film does explode into super-super-reality during the Street Fighter
style battles, but there is a lot of good work going on in the film’s (relatively) quieter sections. Cera is great, charmingly confused, driven and hopeless, and the supporting cast is pretty amazing. Jason Schwartzman, Brandon Routh and Chris Evans have fun as the super-powered, end-of-level-boss-style, evil exes while Kieran Culkin, Mark Webber, Anna Kendrick and Alison Pill all get big, affectionate laughs as Pilgrim’s circle of friends.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World has flaws of course, but it gives you so much to enjoy that it can be forgiven when the odd firework doesn’t go off, or an occasional face-melting guitar solo rumbles on a bit too long. It is a film made with and packed with love, joy and enthusiasm; it references and reveres while it steals and, in its own roughhouse way, satirises. It should establish Wright’s prodigious, hyperactive talent as a fixture in Hollywood, so go and see it immediately and make sure it does.
Our Rating:
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Category TV and Film |
ALDI is a most impressive shop. You go in for the prices- and city centre convenience- and you come away marvelling at the superior quality of much of their stock.
Today I bought a Triple sandwich from the store's Deliciously Gourmet range, and for the first time in a while I was left a little bit disappointed.
No complaints about the price. For £1.65 you get 3 triangular half-sandwiches; a BLT, a Chicken & Bacon sandwich, and a Ham, Cheese & Pickle, all on malted brown bread. That's pretty good value given that something similar from one of Aldi's sharper-toothed competitors is likely to set you back somewhere in the region of £2.50.
Sadly, the ingredients let the sandwich down. The smokey ham is of the reconstituted, reformed variety, made with added water. It is, to put it bluntly, the horrid 'wet' ham that your mum used to buy when packing lunchboxes for several dozen of you, the unnaturally square, pink and shimmery stuff that fits beautifully on a slice of bread but sits uncomfortably on your palette. It is not great.
The pickled relish - to which I am an admittedly recent convert - was too cloying and acetic for my taste, overwhelming the cheap cheese and ham.
As with all three varieties the malted brown bread was delicious; the best bit of the whole affair. It was cut savagely thin though, perhaps to squeeze the three sandwiches into the (plastic!) packaging. I would have liked more bread, obviously.
I cannot understand those people who would deny themselves the pleasure and comfort of good bread- unless you're blighted by one of modern life's bizarre food allergies, bread is patently and obviously fine for humans to eat.
The BLT was just ok. The bacon was crispy and cured, but actually blackened in places. The lettuce and tomato were typically fresh- Aldi rarely miss with such details.
The chicken and bacon was the thickest of the three sandwiches. It was probably also the best. A thin streak of unimposing (and unbilled) mayonnaise sweetened and moistened, while the generous helping of chicken and bacon did what those two familiar bedfollows do best.
It wasn't a bad old box of sandwiches, it just didn't quite live up to it's gourmet billing. Quantity over quality then, ideal for when you've missed breakfast and, stomach screaming and hands shaking, cut straight to a hearty, traditional lunch.
Our Rating:
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Category Food and Drink, Shopping |
Oh Lordy. Oh dear me no. Every cricket fan in the world must this morning be sharing in a collective sickness, numbness and disbelief as The News of The World revealed details of a sting which has implicated members of the young Pakistan team in a cash-for-no-balls betting scam.
The sleazy red top alleges that top Pakistani players took a bung amounting to £150,000 in return for bowling three no-balls at predetermined times during the match.
Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, it is claimed, deliberately over-stepped the popping crease in their delivery stride as part of a conspiracy to defraud bookmakers. One man has been arrested, and key members of the Pakistan team have already been subject to police interview.
- Mohammad Amir in happier times
This is the last thing cricket needed. Test attendances are plummeting, seeing the most prestigious and dramatic form of the game played in front of half empty stadiums. Inevitably this has led to an investigation into fixture congestion, amid claims of cricket overkill that has seen a dip in interest in one day forms of the game. Even cricket’s current golden goose stuffed cash cow, the crash bang, firework display of Twenty20 cricket, is seeing a slump. For the first time domestic Twenty20 matches are playing to less than full houses.
Cricket then, is at a crucial point in its modern history, in a potentially unprecentented period of flux and re-evaluation. The game could well have done without this slur on it’s much cherished and envied character and integrity.
This is the last thing Pakistani cricket and the PCB needed. A team in exile, Pakistan are in the unfavourable position of having to play every match as the guest of another country. As a result of political instability and civil unrest, the Pakistan team are currently living on goodwill and favours. How many test playing countries will wish to play host to this tarnished team now? How many Pakistan fans will continue to turn out to support a team that has let them down again?
Pakistan Cricket is only just emerging from a turbulent time which saw indefinite bans for Mohammad Yousuf and Younus Khan, and lengthy bans and fines for several other big name squad members. The Pakistani players were reprimanded after a terrible tour of Australia where infighting and internal politics were thought to be dragging the team performance down.
Add this to Pakistani icon Shahid Afridi’s frequent above-the-law nonsense and Pakistan cricket was clearly in a state.
However, the PCB had acted swiftly and decisively, and Pakistan were in the process of blooding a young and impressive squad, with the 18 year old pace bowler Mohammad Amir among the finest of the prospects. This latest shameful debacle, in which Amir finds himself a central player, has undone all the PCB’s good work and the reputation of the national cricket team can be considered in worse shape than ever.
Moreover, the Lords Test no ball scandal is something that the troubled nation of Pakistan could easily have done without. I had read on various forums earlier in the week, as Amir’s swing bowling devastated England’s batting, that the performance of the Pakistan team was going some way to cheering a nation brought to its knees by floods and the ensuing chaos. Pakistan’s proud and battling performances were helping to lift spirits. You can only guess at how cheated and baffled those people feel now.
Dependent on kindness and aid to survive, it must appear to the stricken people of Pakistan that their cricketers have sold them out to line their own pockets.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the sort of match fixing which led to the disgrace of the late South African captain Hansie Cronje, but the rather smaller fry of spot fixing, where arrangements are made so that a large bet on a tiny aspect of a match is guaranteed to pay off.
- Broad and Trott's marathon partnership will be sadly overshadowed
The allegations state that Amir and Asif bowled a couple of no balls to order. Not so bad you might think.
Consider though that Amir was bowling like a man with an enchanted arm on the Thursday and Friday in question. Any one of his deliveries could have been a crucial wicket that might have changed the whole match, disrupting a fledgling England partnership or even interrupting Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad’s historic and record breaking, match-winning stand.
The problem is that the integrity of the sport is brought into question. If a no ball or a wide can be bought, then how can spectators trust any part of what they are seeing on the field? If supporters lose faith in the sport and stop showing up then this ancient and beautiful game is as good as toast.
If even a whiff of corruption can poison a sport like cricket, built on values of fair play and gentlemanliness, then explicit cheating and avarice of the sort we are talking about will take a very long time to shake off.
Of course, these are just allegations at this stage, but the fact of decisive police action and the sombre, heavy-headed mood during today’s play seems to suggest that this is a stain that cricket will be struggling to scrub off for many years to come.
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Category Sport |
