Less exciting than watching Joe Cole dribble

Unfortunately I was subjected to enduring a rather workmanlike England performance against the Ukraine yesterday, fortunately ITV decided to make it a bit more entertaining by including Joe Cole on their pundit panel, I have to say it was the first time Teddy Sheringham has ever appeared intelligent, it's a bit like watching a race between a tortoise and a traffic cone if you know what I mean. On several occasions the rather vacuous Cole tried to express himself but completely the wrong words came out to make yet another incomprehensible sentence, it really gave me an insight into the kind of intellect that makes up the England squad and also what kind of banter echoes around the Chelsea dressing room, I wonder Ashley Cole feels at home there. I bet you a copy of the Sun is a week's reading and the drinks machine has more neural connections than the average English Chelsea player.

Anyway International football is just plain rubbish, as Arseblogger says, it really is a bit of a sick cousin these days. The twitching headless chicken Aaron Lennon has somehow managed to win the PFA player of the month award, a very strange choice given the man has the footballing brain of a rotting zombie, I also found all the nominations rather strange, RVP was nominated after a rather average month. Yet again we've picked up some more annoying injuries, RVP, Diaby and Eduardo are all out, thanks a lot international football. The good news is that Walcott, Cesc and Adebayor are back. Meanwhile Silvestre has been speaking of the team's improvement in recent months, obviously we've missed his pace and thrust at the heart of our defense so terribly. Man City look to be missing Bellamy who has been in fine goalscoring form since his move north. The team may be looking like this (post scriptum I am assuming that Nasri will remain out due to a virus):

Almunia
Sagna Gallas Toure Clichy
Walcott Song Cesc Arshavin
Bendtner Adebayor

I'd prefer to see Djourou in there, however I suspect this will not be the case. Song has been solid of late and I feel that the Denilson-Cesc combo is not a particularly symbiotic one. Hopefully the injuries to Diaby, RVP and Eduardo are not serious and they will all be in contention for the biggy against Villareal. Three points are much needed against City, it would be nice to see a bit of daylight between us and Villa, and City's away record is very poor indeed, they will certainly not be full of confidence. I hope we come out with guns blazing, bag an early goal and knock the Mancs out for the count early on. Come on you Gunners.