By Myles Palmer
England could have Butt, Lampard and Sinclair in midfield tonight against Italy at Elland Road.
Since those three are not good enough to play for England,I can’t get excited about the game.
Pre-World Cup friendlies are a phoney war anyway. But I will watch this one just to see if Christian Vieiri is playing with Totti.
However, if I was Hector Cuper I woulld insist that Vieiri sits this one out.
Inter are a club that lost £90 million last year, while Roma only lost £35 million.
Lazio lost £62 million.
INTER NEED THAT SERIE A TITLE!They need the money.
And Vieri can win it for them, with a little help from his friends Davids and Recoba.
SVEN has said he won’t be picking moaners,players who will disrupt his World Cup squad during the seven weeks they are together.
Harmony is everything from now on.
This is a significant revelation from the inscrutable smoothie the Rome press dubbed “the rubber wall” because so many questions just bounce off him.
It’s an interesting approach. I like his thinking because it is sort of…holistic.
INJURIES always terrify club managers at Easter time.They are running out of games, running out of time. And every injury now is potentially damaging.
Robert Pires is a hard one to swallow. But Pires has already given Arsenal a season.
With 13 goals, 15 assists and an 82% pass completion ratio, he has already given his manager a whole season’s worth of work.
He has put Arsenal within two games of the FA Cup and within eight games of the title.
That, for me, is a season’s work, even though Pires will miss the last ten games.
ASHLEY COLE will miss tonight’s game against Italy and Sol Campbell will play only the first half, we are told, after a dead leg.
Arsene will be hoping Cole can face Sunderland and Charlton over Easter.
It seems unlikely that Tony Adams can play in both games, so Gooners are currently speculating that Stepanovs will play against Sunderland and Adams will come in against Charlton, a trickier game.
Lauren is injured and misses Argentina v Cameroon, which is live on Sky at 5.45.
27th March 2002.