England vs Ukraine – match predictions

England are playing Ukraine tonight at Wembley in a World Cup qualifier – kick off in just under an hour, and I’m going to massively over-exert my clairvoyant capacities and predict the following:

England will win 3-1 (1-0 at half time)

Gerrard, Agbonlahor and Rooney will score – perhaps even in that order. At least one Beckham assist (that’s right, another cap for Becks)

Fate-tempter: Shevchenko WON’T score

And…oh, I don’t know…3 yellow cards for each team, at least one shot will hit the woodwork and the commentators will make a terrible April Fool’s joke within the first three minutes, possibly combined with a remark about England’s new kit.

How wrong can I be? Post your own predictions below:

World Map of Sport

Check out my new google map showing British sporting acheivements across the globe. It’s just a bit of fun, but I thought it would be interesting to see just how far-flung our sportsmen and women are all year round, not just during major events. More additions will follow soon.

Shearer new Newcastle manager

Alan Shearer has been named as the next Newcastle United manager, taking charge immediately until at least the end of the season. That makes him Mike Ashley‘s fourth managerial appointment in one season, after Kevin Keegan, Joe Kinnear and Chris Hughton, which must be some kind of record.

Mid-season comeback

I must apologise. Two weeks without the internet has rendered this blog as relevant as Wales’ Grand Slam hopes. The world of sport has been spinning faster than Monty Panesar in my absence, so I’m going to do a quick rundown of the best and worst before resuming business as usual:

Good:

• English clubs all look set to progress to the next stage of the Champions League. Premiership: best league in Europe.
• Tiger Woods returning victorious to matchplay golf. Not Brit-related but great to see him back on the fairway.
• Formula 1 testing new cars – Ferrari’s in particular looks great. Will be interesting to see how the new technological developments affect racing – more blogging on this in the months to come, I’m sure.
• Manchester United winning the Carling Cup and slimming down the quintuple odds day by day. Just a matter of personal bias, this one.

Bad:

• The attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Not British but momentous, an awful intrusion of terrorism into the world of sport, and a terrible loss of life.
• England failing to understand that there are rules to rugby. Our spectacular lack of discipline - 10 yellows in 4 games – has become a weakness everyone knows they can exploit.
• James DeGale being booed in his first professional bout. Ok, so he didn’t perform at his best, but he won every round. Give the guy a chance, it’s his first pro fight…
• Andy Murray pulling out of the Davis Cup with a virus.

That’s all for now, but rest assured, some genuine blogging is on its way.

Hiddink for Chelsea

Image via Wikipedia

You heard it here first folks – looks like my powers of prediction are improving. Guus Hiddink is being lined up to take charge at Chelsea, the BBC are reporting.  Roman’s been bending the ear of the Russian FA, by the sound of things.

Who will win the Six Nations?

My predictions (like all the best soothsayers, I waited until I’d seen the first round) are:  Wales to win but not to get the Grand Slam. Ireland to finish second,  France third, England fourth, Scotland fifth and Italy sixth.  Lets see how wrong that turns out to be – feel free to post your own predictions.

Extreme weather? Just strong Windies…

Where do you start? England’s cricketers looked as helpless as Devon drivers in the snow against the West Indian bowlers. I had intended to use the test to explain cricket to my Chinese housemate, who despite my attempts to demonstrate in the kitchen with a frying pan is still hazy on the aim of the game (I know, unbelievable. I will get round to posting the rules and history of kitchen cricket here one day). But I couldn’t quite face the conversation. “And when the bowling side has got all the batsmen out, they add up the runs and see who’s the winner.*” “So is 51 a good score?”