Ollie Irish - Premier League Tales

'Scuse me while I kiss the sky…

I was lucky enough to be at Wembley Stadium last night to witness England give their most complete performance since the headline-friendly – but ultimately meaningless – 5-1 demolition of Germany in Munich in September 2001.

There's a pleasing symmetry there, and not just in the scorelines – as in the win against Croatia, the rout of the Germans was managed by a foreign coach; for Capello now, read the much-maligned Sven-Goran...

England 2-1 Ukraine, World Cup qualifier

I predicted yesterday that England would beat Ukraine 2-0, thanks to goals from Peter Crouch and Wayne Rooney. I got close, but no cigar.

The result is all that mattered, not the scoreline – when the final whistle peeped, even stone-faced Fabio Capello couldn't hide how delighted he was with a win that was fully deserved but looked unlikely with ten minutes to go.

It was a pretty poor match to watch, but then I did watch it in a pub, so I was frequently distracted by the more important tasks of going to the bar for...

A couple of weeks ago, Zinedine Zidane suggested that Steven Gerrard might just be the best footballer on the planet. Coming from Zidane, who was the world's best player for several years, it's a compliment you have to take seriously, even if the Frenchman was being diplomatic.

Now Kaka has lavished praise on Stevie G. Asked to name his three top players, the Brazilian listed Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gerrard, who he called "the...

England's worst nightmare

If you're English, have two good hamstrings and you can kick a ball, get in touch with Fabio Capello now. Your country needs you.

England's striker crisis is beyond a joke. Darren Bent, who had only just been called up to the squad for Wednesday's World Cup qualifier against Ukraine (as a replacement for the crocked Carlton Cole), lasted all of five minutes of this morning's training session, before limping out with an injured knee. It's the last thing...

England 4-0 Slovakia, international friendly

David James 7
No Calamities here. James was reassuringly solid in the first half, making one fine diving stop from Miroslav Karhan's goalbound shot, before being replaced by Ben Foster at half-time. But it's all very well James looking confident in a friendly - he will never convince me that his days of careless errors are totally behind him. For now though, Fabio Capello has no better options, although Foster is the man for the future, clearly.

Glen Johnson 8
England's best defender on the night, he got forward...

So a routine win for England at Wembley, 4-0 against a Slovakia side that appeared to have no intention to make a game of it. I'll write a more detailed review of the game for Monday morning, but I thought it worthwhile to mention England's new kit, which I gave a sneak, leaked preview of last week (pic now taken down, at Umbro's request).

The most interesting thing about this eminently forgettable match was the debut of the all-white kit. If the web is anything to go by, opinion is very much divided on it - some peeps love its utter simplicity, while others think it looks cheap....

Today's tabloids are ablaze with the rather amusing news that John Terry's mum, Sue, has been cautioned by police after allegedly going on a shoplifting spree. The Sun reports that Mrs Terry was caught "loading £800-worth of stolen store goods into a car."



For added comedy value, JT's mum-in-law, another Sue, was also involved in the incident. Wait! There's more comic gold: the two stores that the two Sues are alleged to have pinched stuff from are Tesco and Marks and Spencer,...

"I need your England kit, your boots and the head of Aaron Lennon…"

David Beckham will never retire from international football, ever. EVER! You can't make him, so don't even try. He'll go on and on and on until one England manager has the balls to drop him (the one who comes after Fabio Capello, hopefully).

When a journalist suggested he couldn't play until the age of 50, Becks said:

"You never know… I'm passionate about playing for my country. If I'm honest, I assumed I wouldn't...

England has had to suffer Umbro for way too long. I put our under-performance on the world stage down to the fact that our kit is almost always crappier than that of our opponents. It does make a difference, however small - why do you think Brazil and Italy have done so well in World Cups?

I can't remember the last time Umbro made a decent kit for England. All of their England shirts look readymade for fat chavs, rather than professional footballers.

Witness:

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Spain passed England off the park last night in Seville. It was a chastening performance and result, although probably not for Fabio Capello, who is infinitely more realistic about the quality of England's footballers than its fans and tabloid media.

In England's defence, they were missing their three best players: Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard (not to mention Owen Hargreaves, a forgotten man in the England set-up). With the exception of the injured Carles Puyol,...