Harper played like he didn't want to be at Rovers, I would have thought that was obvious. Mowbray must have thought the same thing because he sent him back in mid season. Maybe the lad thought he'd dropped a clanger coming and he was really unhappy, that can happen, but he showed nothing in his short stay that led me to think he was good enough for this level of football never mind the big time.

Well at the end of the day judgement will have be reserved until he plays but I'm uneasy about this one. If his days as a winger are behind him and he's going to play in midfield who's place will he be taking ? Travis -and lose his energetic running or Evans- and have two midfield players who both like to go forward ? Or will we revert to the old 5 in midfield plan that had Whittingham's name written on it ?

Tell me I'm lying .

I like Nyambe and I think there's definitely a player in there. Just to prove that I'm not negative about everything at Rovers. However I don't think the coaching at Rovers is all it should be, if it was he'd be putting right the weaknesses in his game by now.

I'm pretty sure we had Cardiff fans saying similar things about Whittingham and Fulham fans regarding Danny Murphy. Mowbray's plan was to have Whittingham playing in a similar role to the one you have pencilled Downing in for. That plan lasted a handful of games until he realised that Whittingham could no longer get into anything more than a leisurely jog and as a result we looked awful as a team. After that " experiment " we reverted to a more conventional formation and looked 100% better for it. The smart managers know when a player is approaching the wall and know when to move them on.

In our current situation it's a player who gets the ball, doesn't know what to do with the ball, so gives it to somebody else 10 or 15 yards away who also probably doesn't know what to do with it. Lowe was a good example of a " Possession Recycler "

Yeah and all of those worse than Mowbray with the exception of Ince are in the Venkies era.

I agree and if you rolled them both together you wouldn't have a Danny Graham.

I also thought the ref had a game to forget all in all. Missed the elbow in the boat race early on, allowed herself to be barged over by a player ( you'd get about 12 games for that in Rugby League ) , bottled the pen near the end as well as the red card for the quitener out by the touchline in time added on. She should be on the plane home tonight.

I remember Aarie Haan scoring a similar free kick for Holland against Italy in the World Cup Finals.. He was just inside the Italy half out on the wing but he hit a lovely flat free kick right into the far top corner.

It kicked off before that with the back pass decision and then the " offside " England goal. Both decisions were correct, the England player was just on side and the Cameroons goalie should have walloped the back pass instead of picking the ball up. After the goal it was mayhem for about 5 minutes at least, I thought for a while that the Cameroons were going to walk off completely.

England were poor today. I know the circumstances weren't ideal but our decision making was terrible. How many times did we persist in playing little complicated triangles when a simple pass out wide was on. Why do we insist on trying to walk the ball into the goal instead of having a shot ? If Cameroon's goal would have stood I could see us really struggling, we allowed Cameroons to out muscle us at times. We'll need to be 100 % better to beat Norway. I watched the USA women the other night against Sweden and they're 4 goals better than England on current form.

I saw him play and he was deeply average even taking his youth in account. That report says a lot about modern football in my opinion. Having said that weren't Real Madrid supposed to be watching Henley when he first got into our first team.

I always look at it this way. If I'd have made the grade as a winger who would I rather play against ? Nyambe or Bennett ? I'd be thinking Nyambe is quick and decent in the tackle so I'm not going to do him for pace especially on the outside. His positional play isn't great, he plays a bit too near the centre halves so I could take advantage of that if I stay out wide. Bennett is only average pace wise so I'd be fancying my chances there especially if I'm running on to the ball played inside him. Neither are great headers of the ball so there's opportunities there with the long ball over the top. All in all I reckon Nyambe would be the toughest opponent one on one.

Yeah and you can have a Tugay to "recycle possession " and you can have an Evans to "recycle possession " but the difference in end product is massive.

I suppose you need to have played and hit the wall yourself to know what it feels like. Instead of smoothly moving onto the ball you find yourself sort of reaching for the ball all the time. Your touch isn't quite as sharp, your passing isn't as accurate as you would like etc. It comes on pretty rapidly too. You can be fine in August and struggling in December. That's why I'm always concerned when we sign players well into their thirties.

The mental side of his game is still that of an 19 yr old lad. Maybe he's just not that smart.

I don't think I ever saw him actually run. Possibly one of the most ineffectual " Marquee " signings we've ever made.

"Whilst he's not in his mid twenties and the middle of an England career ". Whittingham wasn't and Downing isn't. What's the difference ?

I like the lad, if you can score a bag full at Rochdale you can score anyway. Age is against him now though. Having said that he's probably younger than Downing.

You could have said all those things about Whittingham before we signed him and look how that ended up.

I prefer the signings that play on grass not paper. Whittingham was a big gamble, as is Downing. What happened to that Edwards lad that ran us ragged out wide last season at Ipswich ?

I wonder how that will effect our interest in their player/s

I wish it was still 2006, Downing would have been a good signing then.

Carlton Palmer got 19 caps for England and he was about as good as Smallwood.