Good morning all, after a few weeks absence we’re back and ready to tackle the new season. The off season has brought it’s fair share of drama, boredom and fantasy. Everyone expected to see some new faces in the squad and instead we are 2 possibly 3 players out and 1 in. It does look like we’re short a few players, but we’ll get into that later.

For now let’s take a look at yesterday’s international round of games and how our players came through.

For England who, barring mistakes from Rio “the leagues best centre half™” Ferdinand and Glen “The leagues most expensive right back™” Johnson generally outplayed the Dutch, Theo Walcott did not feature. Walcott had started a training session in the stadium on Tuesday evening, only to pull out. After a chat with the medical team and a tentative jog, he was back in the dressing room. We was on the bench but not used, Let’s hope it’s just a precautionary move.

Van Persie, was decent on the right for Holland, a few bits of skill on display but flying winger he isn’t, came through in one piece so that’s good news.

Of or 2 young Swiss centre halves were to face Italy, however Djourou was sent home yesterday due to inflammation in his left kneecap leaving Senderos who had a full 90 minutes under his belt, much more than he’s had all pre-season. I’d hate to see Senderos leave at this point, Already we’ve had Vermaelen out and now Djourou we are looking woefully short in that position. The thought of Silvestre starting the season at centre back does not sit well with most of us.

Gallas did not feature for France who won 1-0 against the Faroe Islands — 1-0 does not seem to be a scoreline befitting of France against such minnows— Sagna however did play the full 90 and according to this website he could have done a little more offensively and was not always at his best at the back, losing a couple of battles with Lokin. On the other hand, he was always an outlet and his delivery was at times dangerous.

Ramsey showed bits of class negated by the inconsistency of youth against Montenegro, he could not prevent Wales from succumbing to another defeat. 2-1 loss to their host who was always favourites to win this tie, 11 minutes of highlights bits from the game can be viewed here.

Eduardo continues his rehabilitation from injury with another goal in Croatia’s 3-1 win over Bellorussia.

Two observations about Eduardo, the first is that this guy is a real finisher. How many players gives you that feeling of an inevitable goal whenever in a scoring position? Ok yeah he missed a penalty against Roma, but unlike that other guy you get the feeling that once we create the opportunities Eduardo will not waste them. The second point is that getting you legs smashed to bits does not make you “injury prone”, Rosicky is injury prone, Eduardo is not.

Vela played the last 35 minutes in Mexico’s 2-1 win over the USA, he really didn’t do much. I don’t think Vela is fit, he played 55 minutes in the Gold Cup due to injury and only had about a week of pre-season before jetting back to Mexico, at least he isn’t injured.

Arshavin got through the full 90 against Argentina in what was probably the best game of the night, I did not see any of it but you can see the goals here.

I got nothing on Eboue in Tunisia except that the score was 0-0

Bendtner got 60 minutes in a loss against Chile, whilst Vermaelen to was on the losing side featuring for the 1st 45 against Chile.

Fabregas played only the second half in a hard fought game, down 2-0 at halftime Cesc replaced Alonso and was instrumental in imposing Spain’s superiority.

So all in all a good round of internationals for our boys, hopefully Walcott and Djourou will have fully recovered for the opening game against Everton.