Pity the FIFA President as he has clearly lost his marbles: "FIFA president Sepp Blatter has proposed scrapping draws in soccer, saying every game should have a winner."

Idiot. Even by his standards this is a pretty whacky idea. It really is about time that someone thoroughly greased those marbles steps at the FIFA headquarters.

So far an interesting week in English football:

- Gary Neville is slowly turning into a goal machine in the absence of Ruud Van Nistelrooij/Nistelrooy.

- Although Ron Atkinson has long had a reputation for talking absolute guff, I didn't suspect that the man who notably gave a number of black footballers their first chance in top-flight English football, would be the same man who racially slurred Marcel Desailly.

- Which brings us nicely to Chelsea's game against Monaco. It's probably been said before, but this time the Tinkerman really lived up to his name. Whereas after the second leg against Arsenal he was hailed as a tactical genius, his bizarre substitutions in the second half of Tuesday's game. Let's have a look at them individually starting with:
--Seba Veron: Although Gronkjaer had had a fairly indifferent game in the first half he wasn't playing too badly. Sure, a couple times his dribbles were stopped and he played a few poor balls, but he at least looked active. Unlike Veron, who, it has to be said, looked unfit. In any case, the Argentinian has never played well on the left-hand side, but why pick a CL semi-final to wean him back into the team.
-- Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink: Not a bad substitution in itself, but at 1-1 with Monaco a man down it would have been far more sensible to bring Jimmy on for Gudjohnson (who had had a poor game apart from the assist) instead of disrupting what was at times a very unsteady back-four by taking off Mario Melchiot.
-- Robert Huth: Again, the idea was right, but the way it was carried out was wrong. Scott Parker was having a fairly solid game, so if Claudio had wanted to fix the defence, then how about taking off one of three forwards and reverting to the original 4-4-2?
All in all, three formation changes (4-4-2 to 3-4-3 to 4-3-3) was always going to be a mare for the team. This time it really backfired.

- And finally congratulations to Norwich on their return to the Premiership.

The big news today (apart from Celtic winning the Scottish Premiership) is that Beckham may well be on the move again this summer. He is apparently being targeted by wannabe Real Madrid president, Enrique Sobrino, as the scapegoat for Madrid's poor season and may well be on his way back to England (and probably Chelsea). Of course, the fact that they've got a non-existant defence has got nothing to do with it.

Hillsborough

Something I saw on Football 365 a while ago and have been meaning to post for ages now.

Eriksson's Answers
Sven, if you're reading this (and I think we all know that you're secretly a F365 regular), I just want to offer a bit of friendly advice regarding the constant bitching, moaning and second-guessing that seems to be directed your way just recently.
It works like this:
Numbskull: "You're handling the friendlies all wrong, why aren't you playing Beattie/Sutton/Alan Thompson/Gareth Barry/Alan Shearer/John Barnes/Tom Finney/whoever?"
You: "One defeat in competitive matches. Against the world champions. In the World Cup quarter-final."
Numbskull: "But why are you sticking with Scholes/Heskey/Cole/Nancy when others obviously deserve their place?"
You: "One defeat in competitive matches. Against the world champions. In the World Cup quarter-final."
Numbskull: "And all those substitutes, you shouldn't be doing that, why are you doing that, Sven?"
You: "One defeat in competitive matches. Against the world champions. In the World Cup quarter-final."
Numbskull: "Your teams are so boooooring, I'm so booooored, Sven. England are so booooooring with you in charge..."
You: "Yes, things were much more interesting in the good old days when Kevin Keegan had the job, weren't they?"

You're quite welcome, mate. Just keep those wins in games that actually matter coming, and as far as most of us are concerned, you can swap as many people at half-time as you like.
Dan Roe, Watford

Jason McAteer watch out, Roy's back. But on the whole it's a good thing that a player has kissed and made up with his national team; he's now got a far wider range of fellow professionals to mutilate.

There seems to be little other news. Man U won yesterday to take them within three points of Chelsea with a game in hand. Arsenal's 4 points over the Easter weekend seems to have settled the league once and for all, so the exciting part is the battle for 4th place where 4 teams have got a realistic chance of getting that crucial Champion's League spot.

4 Liverpool 33 49
5 Newcastle 32 49
6 Aston Villa 33 48
7 Charlton 32 47

The fight to avoid relegation has also intensified. Ok, so Wolves and Leicester are almost certainly down, but with Portsmouth and Leeds both showing signs of a revival and Man City and Blackburn increasingly losing easy points, this too could go down to the final day of the season.

15 Man City 33 34
16 Blackburn 33 34
17 Portsmouth 32 34
18 Leeds United 33 32

On a completely unrelated note, for any of you fans of the old North American Soccer League (NASL) out there who want to wonder down memory lane and see Pele and co do their thing in the US then Dave Brett's website is to place to head to. As he runs the NASL videotape archive he's got the most complete selection of taped games from that era. Have a look if you're interested.

The 26-goal striker's agent Rodger Linse suggested on Spanish radio that van Nistelrooy would not be completely adverse to joining the Catalan giants should United indicate they wish to do a deal (via The Guardian). Ruud would apparently be purchased to replace Ronaldinho who is to move to Chelsea (no surprise there), along with David Beckham. And Owen. And so on.

Man Yoo have proclaimed these rumours to be rubbish. We shall see, although let's face it, the only big changes we'll see this summer will be numerous top footballers rapidly being sucked towards the footballing blackhole that is Chelsea FC.

Well, I was wrong. The so-called "Swiss cheese" defence of Deportivo held firm and instead it was Milan who capitulated miserably. Although many would agree that after dishing up last season's dull final that's all they deserved.

And so with the Porto the only team that went through with a relatively straightforward result (a 2-2 draw; 4-2 on aggregate) the semi-finals look like this:
Monaco v Chelsea
Porto v Deportivo

And some might say that it's pleasant to see that not one of the G-14 (or G-18) clubs are in the final four.

Thanks to last night's win, it seems that the Save Claudio campaign is already surplus to requirements. Who could sack him now?

As Jim has correctly pointed out: "We need Claudio to stay not only for his mad post match interviews, but because he is the only premiership manager who looks like Agent X20 from Stingray."

A question being asked by non-Arsenal fans the world over and suddenly Arsenal only have the league to fall back on, and even there Chelsea are within distance of catching up. Naturally, every journalist will be saying that Arsenal's reign is over ...blah...blah, etc. The answer is that they have simply got tired. Henry looks like he could do with a few week's rest and the rest of the team look as though they wern't quite as fresh as they could be. And it's almost certain that Wenger will be renewing his interest in Sebastian Frey after another clanger by Lehmann.

Man U and Chelsea have also bucked up their ideas; Man U were under enormous pressure to recapture some of the ground conceded to Arsenal and in recent weeks, Chelsea have looked a different team to the one that failed to score a goal against Stuttgart. Nevertheless, Arsene will certainly be kicking himself for missing out on a potentially easy tie against his old club and now faces the task of getting an Henry-less team back on its legs.

At least Real went out though eh?

Over the last week the England team has learnt a few things. Firstly, in contrast what has been reported in numerous English newspapers, Sven has shown an interest in various offers from various clubs, but instead decided to sign a contract extension. To all you journalists out there, there is nothing wrong with this. If a company offers you a reasonable job, it is considered polite, as well as useful to talk to the party in question.

Secondly, Phil Neville cannot defend for toffee. He is simply to rash to be used at international level. Consider the game against Sweden: one very late tackle, one nutmeg (recipient of) and one poor attempt at blocking the ball (the cross which led to the goal). It did seem bizarre however, that Sven played Phil and Jamie Carregher at right and left-back respectively, as they play in the opposite position at club-level.

Thirdly, Alan Thompson is not the answer to England's left midfield "problem". But is having a right-footed midfielder in that position such a problem? I personally favour Owen Hargreaves. He is more consistant that any of his fellow contenders and is sufficiently defensively-minded to drop back when Ashley Cole goes forward.

Fourthly, Emile Heskey. Sven considers him to be "physically strong". Unfortunately, he does sweet F.A. "I know he doesn't score that many goals but he's been important in many games for us." Everybody agrees with the first part of the statement, but then Rooney is strong. And both Vassell and newcomer Jermaine Defoe show pace and indications of an attacking-mind.

Finally, it would appear that John Terry will be partnering Campbell in central defence, as he has been paid a glowing compliment by England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who hailed the Chelsea defender as "a young Tony Adams". Presumably without Tone's youthful drink problem though?