Will need to step up tonight

What a wonderful night of football yesterday was, if only for the one game which mattered. Nicklas Bendtner did us no favour as he squandered an early chance to put his team ahead but Sunderland won it right at the death to beat Roberto Mancini's Manchester City.

Bah. Just as the Odense fiasco represented more than just another defeat, so too did last night's pathetic exit from the FA Cup. Nobody's pretending it's easy to go to Everton and get a result if it was we'd manage to get points there once in a while but there's something horribly wrong about these disjointed farces.

Bah. Just as the Odense fiasco represented more than just another defeat, so too did last night's pathetic exit from the FA Cup. Nobody's pretending it's easy to go to Everton and get a result if it was we'd manage to get points there once in a while but there's something horribly wrong about these disjointed farces.

Some players like lots of time and space, others can operate in crowds.

To play in central midfield you need to be at one end of what we'll call the space-time continuum; if you are not at the right end you may struggle in that role. In that case you need to find somewhere else where you will get space and time.

That's 'goals' plural for Clint Dempsey, who scored twice in Fulham's 5-0 romp over Wolverhampton. Dempsey wasn't Fulham's top scorer on the afternoon, with Pavel Pogrebnyak putting the home side up two goals before Dempsey got on the board in the 56th. Pogrebnyak finished off his hat-trick five minutes later.

With the exception of a forced change here or there, it would not be a stretch to say Martin Jol has settled on HIS lineup as of late.

And, its interesting to note the name and age of the lineup. Especially when looking at the players who are not playing.

Below are all the players and their ages that saw at list 1 minute of playing time in the last five matches:

David Stockdale 26 Brede Hangeland 30 Philippe Senderos 26 John Arne Riise 30 Stephen Kelly 27 Danny Murphy 34 Steve Sidwell 28 Damien Duff 32 Simon Davies 31 Clint Dempsey 28 Bryan Ruiz 25 Mark Schwarzer 38 Chris Baird 29 Stephen Kelly 27 Dickson Etuhu 29 Moussa Dembele 24 Marcel Gecov 23 Aaron Hughes 31 Pavel Pogrebnyak 28 Andy Johnson 31 Mahamadou Diarra 30 Kerim Frei 18

When crunching the numbers, our squad age in this span comes out to be:

Average: 28.

One of the more annoying message board debates has been around Philippe Senderos' impact on Brede Hangeland. I remember when Aaron Hughes was regularly criticised by fans, one respected poster frequently bemoaning how Hughes 'forced' Hangeland to play in the left centre-back slot which limited him as a player.

One of the more annoying message board debates has been around Philippe Senderos' impact on Brede Hangeland. I remember when Aaron Hughes was regularly criticised by fans, one respected poster frequently bemoaning how Hughes 'forced' Hangeland to play in the left centre-back slot which limited him as a player.

When I was younger and played 11 a side football on a regular basis, I was a centre back. Coupled with Italian heritage, I have always been a big fan of this rather unglamorous position. Italy's World Cup success in 2006 was as memorable for the peerless defensive work of Fabio Cannavaro (later seen being imitated by a stand-in at Craven Cottage in 2010) as for the thrilling victory against Germany or the Materazzi inspired head butt in the final.

When I was younger and played 11 a side football on a regular basis, I was a centre back. Coupled with Italian heritage, I have always been a big fan of this rather unglamorous position. Italy's World Cup success in 2006 was as memorable for the peerless defensive work of Fabio Cannavaro (later seen being imitated by a stand-in at Craven Cottage in 2010) as for the thrilling victory against Germany or the Materazzi inspired head butt in the final.