Comments on England-Holland

Well, as far as 0-0's go, this wasn't bad, but a "not bad" 0-0 is still bloody boring. Though I've got to question Eriksson's team selection policy here.

1) Why start Rooney on the left? Just because Ferguson's playing Shrek out of position, doesn't mean you have to as well. It'd be better to have started Downing there and then have two natural wingers feeding balls into, er, the one striker you're playing up front. If you want to play Rooney so badly, drop Beckham and play a midfield four of Downing, Gerrard, Lampard and SWP.

2) Jamie Carragher and Wes Brown at centre back? OK, he was desperate, but having to go all the way to Wes Brown? He can't even get into United's team. Hell, he can't even get into my fantasy team. Experiment. Slot Gary Neville into centre back and play Glen Johnson at right back. Or play a three of Neville, Carragher and someone else (even jack of all trades Hargreaves would do here) with Cole at left wingback and SWP at right wingback. This would also allow you to play Beckham as part of a midfield three where he plays best. He's not a winger.

3) I'm all for trying people out in meaningless matches, but Andy Johnson's got to feel a bit hard done by. Why leave Owen as the sole striker (where Johnson's mostly been playing and scoring all year) and play AJ wide right? He's not a winger, and was pretty ineffective. I don't understand the need to bring on Jenas and Dyer with ten to go either. What's the point? If you want to bring on a midfielder, try someone new or someone who we don't know what they can do (Jenas especially, jury's still out on Dyer). I don't know who else was on the bench, but this would have been ideal for someone like Joe Cole. Or Danny Murphy :-)

4) We were missing Paul Scholes last night. We always seem to be lacking someone who can link between the midfield and the strikers when he doesn't play. Lampard would have been the obvious pick to fill that gap, but he was anonymous last night. Beckham kept trying to play wide and if one of Beckham and Gerrard went forward, the other had to stop (I really don't know exactly when Gerrard reinvented himself from a defensive midfielder to an attacking midfielder either).

Anyway, I'd have played it Green - Johnson, Neville, Carragher, Cole - Wright-Phillips, Lampard, Gerrard, Downing - Owen, Rooney. Sub Rooney for Johnson at half time and make other changes as needs be.

The overwhelming sense I had last night was that nobody staked a claim for anything. Apart from Shaun Wright, who'll naturally be dropped when Eriksson reverts to playing a four in midfield and he tries someone else on the left.