Captain Haribo

None of the top ones would, but then England just have to accept that they don't have the same bank of talent in that position as those sides. A second tier team with a truly world class talent (Rooney) has to do whatever they can to get the best from that player. How anybody can doubt Capello is beyond me; Andy Townsend had some bollocks statement earlier about how "everybody can see it but Fabio". Does that cretin really think he knows better than one of the best managers in the world?

It's fine saying it's against rubbish, but in truth England haven't had that many opportunities against the top teams. Before the Japan game Rooney had gone 4 games (and 60 odd minutes) without scoring - his longest barren spell under Capello I believe. Heskey hadn't played a minute in that time. What's it matter if Heskey doesn't score when England generally win with him in the eleven? Plus he won't be missing one on ones very often, as he's not really looking to get in those poisitions. He generally makes space for other players. I think you're exaggerating how bad his finishing is, anyway, as he's not so rubbish he'd miss the easy chances.

Good read, made all the better by praise of one of our most underrated players.

Yeah, he's not there to score goals, he's there because he compliments Rooney - England's best player by quite a margin - better than any other striker available. It's a little likeAnelka this season, he sacrificed his own goals for the sake of his partnership with Drogba. Though it's not exactly like that, as Anelka is an outstanding talent on his own. The simple fact is England aren't as good as teams like Brazil and Spain, and need somebody like Heskey for the long ball option when they get pressuredin defence. He's the sort of player you can kick it up to and know it will stick, and he then feeds in Rooney etc. Majorly off topic now, but clearly Fabio Capello knows what he's doing.

He won't be close to 12-15mil. He's just won PFA young player of the year and City are interested. He'd be £20-25 million minimum.

People criticising Heskey's role in the England team clearly don't watch England closely enough.

He's had always been a player with a lot of potential, this season has just gone to show how much he's matured. It's not like he's an 18 year old who's just performing for the first time. The difference with Kaka is that people feel we don't really need him. Milner could play anywhere in midfield, he's young enough to take over the mantle of somebody like Lampard, and even with the "British tax" included he'd be significantly cheaper than Kaka. Plus he'd count towards our homegrown players in the Champions League, which could do with a boost now that Cole is gone.

The average career span of a proffesional player is surely closer to 15 years. Most start at 16, though maybe don't make first team appearances until 18-20, and most - injury-free - retire at about 32-35. Your 5-6 years from earlier is perhaps an accurate number for the average years spent at the pinnacle of the game.

Guy Assulin is hardly unheard of, speedy gonzalez. For all the players Barca blood into their first team, there are plenty of talented players who don't get the same first team opportunities for whatever reason. That said, he's 19 now and he's been the "next big thing" for about three years now, so he probably should have played a bit more for them.

I've also seen rumours of us getting 9 million euros based on Turkish reports, seems very unrealistic.

I disagree, really. I don't think there's much point playing people out of their best suited position. We lose a lot of Essien's impact playing him as the main defensive midfielder and I'm not really sure why we'd want to do that - he's our best player in my eyes. EDIT: On reflection, I actually don't get what you're saying by "it's not down to instruction, it's down to the player" at all.

I'm a supporter of young players - especially defenders - getting regular competitive football. He's still too young to be a regular feature in our side, so this can surely only do him good.

I guess I'm making an unnecessary distinciton between general defensively-minded midfielders and genuine holding players a la Mikel. Toure has always had the freedom at Barca to make the lung-busting runs we see from Essien, which is where he differs from the holding player in our side.

For Vidic to still be considered world class after the season he's had is quite amusing.

He doesn't play the same role as Mikel, he's much more like Essien. When Barcelona use a dedicated holding midfielder it's Sergio Busquets.

That is of course true, it's just the team seems quite comfortable with the curernt formation and without a defined holding player, you run the risk of players making the same runs and not covering each other. If it worked it would be fantastic but I don't really think it'sa risk we need to take. To WestwayWonder on the previous page.

We've been linked with much worse players, and Milner really did have an excellent season for Villa. We'd get ripped off because he's already in the Premier League, but his versatility would be very useful now that we've lost Joe Cole. If City are in for him I doubt we've got much chance though; this must be how other teams felt circa 2005!

He's not a proper holding player; he's very much like Essien. I like them both but I don't think they could play in the same team, certainly not with Lampard as well.

Ridiculous numbers, and your Soccernet caveat isn't going to make me suddenly doubt that.

The couple Newcastle fans I know see this as a "laughing all the way to the bank" type transfer. He's a decent player but a horrible person and not even close to Chelsea's standard, or worth £7 million.

Linked with yet more sh*te. Huntelaar has been truly awful for Milan, they'd have beaten United if they had a striker who could finish in his place. Took him 16 games to get his first goal!

The Sun as well, seems to be fairly widespread. Joe Cole's a certainty, anyway.

The logic being that he needs to be making loadsacash to offset the disappointment of not playing. He turned down £90k with us, apparently. The rumours linking him to Arsenal had him on £80k.

According to The Sun both Cole AND Ballack were released today/tonight. I know they're not the most reliable source but it seems believable enough.

Basing all what? Nobody's under the illusion it's a done deal, or even a certainty that we're interested.