Easily the best footballing side in the Championship last season, it's hardly a surprise that Swansea have been attracting a lot of positive attention due to their performances in the Premier League. Thomas Rooney thinks a couple of Swans should be given a chance in the England squad and if the widely predicted changes happen after Euro 2012, Thomas has a point!

Thomas Rooney takes us through some of the candidates and they're not necessarily the ones you'd expect.

The FA have begun their annual search to find out who England fans rate as their player of the year for 2011. With the disappointment of 2010 well behind us, 2011 has certainly been a much brighter year for the national team, with renewed optimism about their hopes for Euro 2012.

We're in Group D with Ukraine, France and Sweden.

Games:

Monday June 12th v France (6:00pm)

Friday June 15th v Sweden (6:00pm)

Tuesday June 19th v Ukraine (8:45pm)

We're in Group D with Ukraine, France and Sweden. More to follow.

If you're reading this, you'll be familiar with the story that broke yesterday morning.

This is one of those posts I'd have preferred not have written: it's an unfathomable tragedy that any 42 year old family man should apparently chose to end his life in such a devastating manner. I didn't know Gary Speed, but I knew about him: he was one of the best Welsh players of his generation and looked as if he was about to oversee a long overdue revival of the fortunes of the Welsh national team.

Well, I've got to admit that I wasn't expecting England to beat Spain – earlier on today my brother in law sent me a text saying ‘Xabi Alonso 132 passes, Scott Parker 37 passes' which made me laugh but before I replied with ‘Frank Lampard 1, Spain 0' I decided to be a bit more magnanimous.

The Spanish press seemed to think we'd turned into the Italians (if that's the case, it's taken Fab nearly four years to complete his mission) which considering the Italian record over the last four decades isn't the worst thing that could happen.

Before we take a look at tomorrow's friendly against Spain, it's worth a quick review of tonight's playoffs for the last four places in Euro 2012.

The first thing that jumps out is the quality of the teams in the playoffs. Since Euro '96 Croatia, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Turkey have all reached the knockout stages of at least one of the subsequent competitions with Portugal reaching the final in 2004.

I can actually understand why FIFA might be a bit touchy about emblems on shirts.

They've got it wrong before.

For example, in the 1934 FIFA World Cup tournament the Italian team (who won both that competition and went on to win in France in 1938) wore the Fascist symbol on their shirts: it's clearly visible on the official tournament poster and TOFFS are still making and selling that particular shirt.

Well, despite Wazza losing the plot yet again, England qualified for Euro 2012 last week guest blogger Richard Smith runs the rule over some of the prospects that could make their international breakthroughs in Poland and the Ukraine next summer...

Having confirmed their place at Euro 2012 next Summer as any England fan will acknowledge nothing is straight forward when it comes to the "Three Lions" and tournament football there is plenty of reason to be optimistic about the future of the English National team.

Pete South reports on a couple of players who will be fans for the evening...

Rio Ferdinand and Jermain Defoe have been left out of Fabio Capello's England squad for the Euro 2012 qualifier against Montenegro on Friday.

Ferdinand has struggled with injury so far this season and only recently made his comeback for Manchester United against Stoke two weeks ago, and was a substitute in United's last Premier League encounter against Norwich.

You've got to hand it to Wales bottom of the group without any wins or hope of qualification and they beat our nearest rivals on Friday night. We're now three points clear at the top of the group with a far superior goal difference to Montenegro going into tonight's game.

We've not played Wales at Wembley since February 1983 (the qualifier for the 2006 World Cup was played at Old Trafford) which surprised me a bit because I grew up with the old Home International tournament and we played each other at least once a year until that competition was abandoned almost 30 years ago.

Over the next five days England have two very important games that will go a long way to resolving what you'll be doing and where you'll be doing it next Summer. The answer we're all hoping for is ‘watching England playing in Euro 2012' regardless of whether that's in the Ukraine and Poland, in an Irish pub somewhere in the Med or (in my case) the biennial ritual hiding behind the sofa with the curtains drawn whilst swearing your head off and trying not to scare the neighbours.

Pete South comments on Theo Walcott's recent foray into the world of publishing in which the Arsenal star may inadvertantly give us an insight into his relationship with Ar

Theo Walcott has openly criticised England manager Fabio Capello for his "cold and clinical" regime that undermined England's World Cup campaign in South Africa last year.

Due to the recent 'events' in London and elsewhere, the England v Holland friendly tomorrow evening has been postponed we'd received a preview article from William Taylor and although the game's off, William's points are worth reading.

The emergence of Jack Wilshere on the international scene has cast doubt over the future of Frank Lampard's England career.

Fantasy football has moved on a lot since my mate Andy and I were invited to join a league by the landlord of our local about 15 years ago. In those days, a group of us used to gather in the upstairs meeting room at about 7:30pm a week or so before the season started. We weren't allowed out until we'd finished the auction, which normally didn't happen until after closing time and also lead to some very debatable decisions.