Alex – thought of you and this blog when I read this piece. Hope things are well…sorry haven’t been on!

I’d never heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon before – but I’ll probably hear it everywhere now.

(unfortunately the technology to record games that I was hoping to get, didn’t materialise. But I’ll keep a look out for any goals that demonstrate the move, which I can easily link to)

-and hopefully I’ll get round to doing some more work on this blog.

-where do you do your coaching?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_phenomenon

Anyway, will be trying to get the lads to do this!

The 1-2 is a great play, and I believe C Ronaldo, Walcott, Nasri and the like can also do it if they practice a bit!!!

Champs league…here we go! Let’s see if the 1-2 appears!!

However, my in-laws have ordered an HD tv, due this week, and I assume that with that they’ll upgrade to a DVR subscription, which will mean I can record and watch games back – which I’ve been looking forward to for a while. (Setanta have a terrible policy on replays, you might get one replay like 3 minutes after the incident. I think their director is too worried about missing a bit of live action – but if they get the replay in quick while the ball is out of play, then it’ll be over by the time Tim Howard has got around to taking his goal kick. They should introduce a 6 second rule for goal kicks too.)

I’m planning an article on what I like to call the Lionel Messi 1-2. It’s an awesome move that slices open defences every weekend, and I’ve only seen successfully countered once. By Rio Ferdinand when Man Utd shut Barca down last season. I’m just waiting to find a highlight of Messi that illustrates it well. Be on the lookout though.

Great piece there on England btw!!

Although I don’t think the penalty claim has any weight. Heskey went down looking for a penalty when he saw that the cross was eluding him. I think because it was 0-0 at the time, England fans jumped at the chance of what could later be used as an excuse: ‘well we should have a penalty at 0-0′, we could say. It was never a penalty though.

I think it’s good to point out that Heskey does play an important role and

“his ability to hold the ball up and keep possession for England or win a free kick”

is something we needed in that game, and will need in others. My concern is that we might not be using the most suitable player for that role – I think Ashton is a smarter version of Heskey.

An interesting point I’d make about Capello using players for specific roles can be highlighted by the choice to play Lescott against Andorra. He has been out of form for Everton and yet he was picked for England – this seems to me to be clearly a nod to his goalscoring ability. I wonder if Capello will use him again against back-to-the-wall oppositions. It’s hard to see him replacing a fit Rio, Terry or Cole, though.

“it was in part because the Croats were so scared of his combination of pace, power and aerial ability that Rooney got so much room.”

What I tried to demonstrate was that in fact, this is a misconception. Rooney did not have so much room, he was doubled-up on many times, whereas Heskey never was. Rooney created what rare space he did get, by dropping off the back line. In fact this drew out the centre backs which created room for Heskey and Walcott in particular to exploit. (See the fourth goal for a perfect example of this). And Rooney was brilliant, playing without space at times. Far from creating space for other players, Heskey never made the runs, taking his marker with him, that would open up gaps for other players. (See my analysis of Rooney’s goal for an example of what he should done but didn’t).

I’m not totally denying Heskey’s contribution, he was instrumental in the second goal, which turned out to to be the winner. And he definitely is an outlet and holds up play well. I just think that in a more difficult game, he might come up short again, and we can’t rely on Walcott hattricks all campaign.