Well, that group England got was quite nice wasn't it? The thing is, England don't have a problem, generally, with getting through the group stage and I'm already quite annoyed with the way some of the press are covering this, but while I'll enjoy South Africa and the tournament, it's not Aston Villa and we have a match today, so it's much more important.
We play Hull today and they haven't won away from home all season. They've actually only picked up two points from a possible twenty-one, so we really should put this team to the wall today as they are not going to be confident.
I'm actually looking forward to today because we should win but also because O'Neill is going to start with Webcam, Milner and Downing and to do that, he has to change things around; I just hope he does it right. My fear is, he's going to try and accommodate players, rather than do what is best for the development of the players, the club and the football.
Don't get me wrong, we really should win this match, even if we were reduced to ten men after five minutes, I'd still be confident, so it will be really difficult for O'Neill to 'get it wrong', but rather than accommodate Heskey, I am a big fan of him playing a variation of 4-5-1 or to be very specific; 4-2-3-1. Get the best out of them.
But, like I said, he won't get it wrong today, but the point is, it shouldn't be chopped and changed all the time. O'Neill should pick a formation and have absolutely everyone throughout the entire club adopt it and everyone should learn how to play it. One day, O'Neill will start with Webcam, Milner and Downing sitting behind Gabby with Delph and maybe Petrov sitting in front of Colins and Dunne with Young and Warnock either side of them and he'll stick with it.
But, I'm waffling. The match today kicks off at 3pm. You can watch it here and we will be adding team news here and updating our Twitter page.
It will be quite exciting because mathematically we could go third, although it would mean us scoring quite a few goals, which we have already had this season so we know isn't going to happen again, but chances are good that we can go fourth.
Liverpool travel to Blackburn and Arsenal have stoke so we need two teams to do us a favour but everything is possible. For now, I'm off for breakfast, a shower and then a day listening to the radio before the football at 3. Updates as we get them.
Team News
Friedel, Young, Cuellar, Dunne, Warnock, Webcam, Milner, Petrov, Downing, Heskey, Agbonlahor.
Subs: Sidwell, Reo-Coker, Delph, Beye, Clark, Guzan, Carew.