Joe Cole has not ruled out a return to Liverpool but is enjoying his time on loan at Lille and feels it would be 'logical' for him to stay with the French club.
Cole joined the Ligue 1 champions on a season-long loan deal over the summer and has caught the eye with a series of impressive performances both in their domestic games and the UEFA Champions League.

Why Downing needs to deliver at Chelsea, England will wilt when the heat is on and you need to lump on Germany

Most Liverpool fans will have been as frustrated as they were pleased to see Stewart Downing prove, in an England shirt, that he's a £20million player. Because he's yet to set Anfield alight.

Rejoice! International break is officially over, and as far as we can tell, everyone should return to Liverpool in relatively good health. Which mostly just means that we can shift our collective focus of complaining from the utter stupidity of having a bunch of mid-November ticklefights to the teeth-gnashing prospect of two matches away to Chelsea sandwiched around a home date with Manchester City, with the latter two coming in a 48-hour stretch just under two weeks from now.

FIFA have continued their tradition of embarrassing themselves on the world stage by refusing to let England wear poppies on their shirts during their friendly match with Spain. This latest PR disaster follows on from the recent gaffes of substantiated allegations of vote fixing for World Cup venues, refusing to deploy technology to make the game fairer and voting in their bumbling leader, Sepp Blatter, unopposed for a third term.

Many years ago I read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the classic novel set in the time of the great depression in the US. Families migrated towards California in search of work and it was evocative and really quite bleak.

Without trying to be melodramatic in any way, shape or form, this Interlull is already like the great depression and I'm considering packing up and heading west in search of elusive blog fodder.

Darren Lewis: Why this is the biggest battle of John Terry's career

He has survived a sex scandal, a tours-for-cash controversy and various other ­misdemeanours. But if – and it is a big if – he is found guilty of racist abuse, then surely there will be no way back for John Terry.

Influential Everton center back Phil Jagielka has praised teammate Leighton Baines, telling the club's official website that the left back has been the club's "best player" in recent years.

Despite a convincing defeat at the hands of Chelsea on Saturday, Baines will welcome the comments as Fabio Capello begins to contemplate his squad for next summer's European Championships.

By Geoff Reid

Saturday 15th
Liverpool vs Manchester United from Anfield, Liverpool
What a fixture to welcome back club football from it's international break with the biggest rivalry in English football! Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has a full squad to choose from for this one with everyone being healthy for the first time in recent memory.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

In this week's review section, we look back at stories from the African Natios Cup qualifying groups as well as at England striker Wane Rooney. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below, or highlighted in blue.

By CALEB SONNELAND

Just a few months after shocking the soccer world and snapping up Samuel Eto'o from Inter Milan and making him the highest paid player in the world, Russian big spenders Anzhi Makhachkala are planning a couple other eyebrow-raising transfers.

Scott Parker c/o
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club
Bill Nicholson Way
748 High Road
Tottenham
London
N17 0AP

27th September 2011

Dear Scott Parker,

You probably didn't know this, but I never wanted you at Spurs. Over the last few transfer windows your name was constantly linked with a move to The Lane.

Joe Cole refuses to give up on England comeback after Lille move

• Lille loanee sets sights on forcing his way back into squad • 'I see no reason why I won't get back in the [England] team' Joe Cole says he has not given up on his international career after his season-long loan move from Liverpool to the French club Lille.

Liverpool youngster Martin Kelly has revealed his delight with England manager Fabio Capello's recent words of praise.
The defender, 21, broke into the first team with the Reds under Kenny Dalglish last season and he has been reliable when called upon, though injuries have restricted his availability.

Following on from the Frank Lampard debate I posted on here on Saturday (check it out and get involved), John Terry has lept to the defence of our midfielder. Lamps has come until scrutiny for his performances so far in a Chelsea shirt and as a result lost the start for England against Bulgaria the other night.

Of late, it seems that Chelsea fans are beginning to question the role Frank Lampard has in the side at the moment as being honest we haven't seen Frank at anywhere near his best so far this season.
As you can imagine with news that Frank Lampard was on the bench for England's 3-0 win over Bulgaria last night, the knives have come out for him regarding his England career.

By Chris Wright

Presenting: the finest thing Fab Muamba will ever do in an England shirt...

Video: FATV

Whilst watching England's latest debacle unfold, I kept hearing blunt phrases and outbursts hurled at the TV such as ‘That Walcott is bloody useless!', ‘what's he doing now?!?', ‘Oh God not Walcott again' and ‘DO SOMETHING WITH THE BALL YOU MUPPET!!'. Then I realised it was my voice.

England fell behind 2-0 to Switzerland before recovering to draw the match at Wembley. Luckily for England, Montenegro were held 1-1 by Bulgaria so both sides remain level at the top of Group G, six points ahead of Switzerland.

Switzerland, needed a win if they were to have any hope of reaching Euro 2012m and they came out and attacked England from the opening whistle.

England fell behind 2-0 to Switzerland before recovering to draw the match at Wembley. Luckily for England, Montenegro were held 1-1 by Bulgaria so both sides remain level at the top of Group G, six points ahead of Switzerland.

Switzerland, needed a win if they were to have any hope of reaching Euro 2012m and they came out and attacked England from the opening whistle.

So Paul Scholes announced his retirement from football this week, after an illustrious career that spanned well over 700 appearances for club and country. Upon hearing the news I was struck with a strange, indescribable feeling. It wasn't surprise, as I knew it would either be now or in 12 months time.

With so many goalkeepers pulling out of the England squad as of late, we're eagerly awaiting a call up call to the Kickette office. We figure that it's only a matter of time before Fabio Capello runs out of options and seeks help from the leading proponents of football fluffery. It's a long shot, sure, but we've packed for a heavy Joe Hart 'training' session.

John Terry is haunted. Not by the faces of referees he screamed in, not by guilt brought on by being a serial philanderer, not by the failure to produce the goods in the England shirt, not by eating human babies every day. No, EBJT is still haunted by missing a penalty in Russia. Buck up JT, maybe hopping into the sack with Mrs Cech will help to ease the pain!

We are back to competitive EPL action at the weekend after an international break, and it feels so long ago since we saw a Premiership match, with a lot of other competitions being played at this stage in the season. So to bring us all back up to speed we take a look at the the opening game of the upcoming round.

As suggested last night on RoM, Danny Welbeck has been called up to the England squad.

Welbeck could represent Ghana if he wanted because of his parent's nationality, but so far, as represented England at U-16, U-17, U-18 (2 goals in 2 games), U-19 (2 goals in 8 games) and U-21 level (3 goals in 10 games).

Aside from Aston Villa, Spurs have supplied more England Internationals than any other club. When you dig deeper, you'll find that many of Villa's players were supplied at a time when there were fewer clubs in existence, so this is an impressive statistic.

Although most of Spurs' England contingent failed to feature on Saturday, Michael Dawson earned praise for his team mates for an assured display that should put him high up Capello's pecking order.

Written by Harry

As 69000 and a couple of blow up sheep packed into the Millennium stadium, to watch a home nations clash, something that has sadly been missing from the annual footy calendar, it was however just seen as a mere sideshow to the main event for many gooners..

Ahead of England's European Championship qualifier against Wales this weekend, the press have decided alot of the attention on our Chelsea boys. First of all it was JT getting the Captaincy back and now it's a possible end to Frank Lampard in an England shirt.
For me and I know some people will not agree with me, Lampard has been stifled in an England shirt and we haven't really seen his full potential.

This week was the release of Fabio Cappello's England squad who over the next two weeks are set to face both Wales and Ghana, two sides who the English support as well as the British press will assume can be surpassed with a degree of ease and aplomb (but with the height of England's expectations who aren't they allowed to surpass with ease and aplomb?

Last night after days of speculation, Fabio Capello reinstalled John Terry has England's permanent Captain. He said:

"After one year of punishment, Terry will again be the permanent captain. I think one year's punishment is enough. John, when he played without the armband, was every time a leader on the pitch, a leader in the dressing room.

Last night all over the Internet was the speculation surrounding Fabio Capello and England. Speculation is mounting that Capello will make a remarkable u-turn and reappoint John Terry as England's Captain ahead of the Euro 2012 qualifiers.
If it happens there will be people slating Capello and fans unhappy at the choice.

England fans are a bunch of supporters who don't turn their noses up at friendly victories over apparently lesser sides in world football such as Denmark. After all, we can't really afford to do that after the general misery and frustration, not to mention lack of success, of the past four years or so.

Here we go again.
With the class of 2010 ruthlessly chewed up and spat out by the media; labelled spoilt over-paid, over-rated wasters, the press hordes have moved onto their next target.
That person is Jack Wilshire, a young player of extreme talent yes, but one who is already been placed on a pedestal he is not yet qualified to fill.

As part of Nike's French 'new era' campaign a Nike representative talks football to new manager Laurent Blanc. It's all arty and stuff...

Oh, and it looks like a rugby shirt.

Related posts:

1. More than just a shirt sponsor...
2. Pottinger tackles.