Musings on the England team

Owen Hargreaves has made me eat my words the last couple of games. He's proved a really solid defensive midfielder and right back. Good speed, stamina, positioning, and tackling. I though Carrick did well in the holding role yesterday, good passing. He needs more movement going on in front of him to turn good passes into clinically cut breakaways. I'll be the first to admit Beckham is not the player he was between 5-10 years ago. He doesn't have the speed to go past people now. But yesterday he showed he's still one of the best free kick specialists in the game, and worked his socks off for the team in a lot of unglamorous chasing back and defending.

Rooney seems to be finding his touch again. He looked out of sorts for an hour against Ecuador but better the longer the game went on. I reckon he'll play a blinder in the quarter final.

John Terry has made only one mistake this world cup. Ecuador could have punished it badly. Ashley Cole rescued us with THE best defensive play of the tournament so far. Overall I'm mhappy with our defense, it's mostly solid and reliable, ignoring for one moment the debacle of Swedish set piece defending, which I only hope will never resurface.