Are England worse than Scotland?

We won’t have much longer to find that one out in cricketing terms as the Auld Enemy are due to cross paths at the weekend, in what is now a must win game for England if they are to stand any chance of progressing from the group stages.

After Australia comfortably beat England in the tournament opener, New Zealand, compounded England’s misery by hammering them, quite literally in Brendon McCullum’s case, out of the ground this morning.

For avoidance of any doubt, England were atrocious, lacked any fight and went as far to make the three lions on their chest, look more like lame domestic cats.

The England bowling attack had no conviction, no aggression and worryingly in the case of Finn, Broad and Anderson, no wickets for far too many runs, particularly in the case of Steven Finn.

The batting was no better. Captain Eoin Morgan seems to have been struck by the curse, as he posted another below par score, although at least this time he actually did score. Bell, Ballance, Taylor and Butler all fell cheaply with only Joe Root able to really hold his head up with a little pride with his knock of 46.

Sadly when everyone else is failing around you, a bigger score is needed on such occassions and Root has not yet shown that he is at the stage to be able to carry a team in that way, not that he should be expected to at such a young age with relative international inexperience.

A lot has been said in the build up to this tournament about the England rebuilding process after the Ashes whitewash and who should and shouldn't be in the team. The one thing this current crop are, rather annoyingly, doing is going along way in proving that Piers Morgan has been right all along, not that anyone with half a brain doesn't know that already.

I have seen many tweets saying I bet Kevin Pietersen is loving this, but to be quite frank I doubt he is. He clearly wanted to be a part of this World Cup and as he is not getting any younger this might have been his last chance to shine in this tournament, as he so often does on the grand stage.

He was dropped from the squad for a list of ridiculous reasons, when in essence it was because he was the obvious choice when it came to choosing the scapegoat for what happened in Australia.

It is not like Dowton or any of the other selection committee can point the finger at a lack of form or action, as Pietersen was in Australia a matter of weeks ago, playing the sort of cricket that contributed massively to us being crowned World T20 champions in 2010.

Unlike Joe Root, he is the sort of guy that can lift a team when the chips are down and although he didn't manage that in the debacle in Australia last year, he was still our highest scorer of the tour.

I don’t want to just dwell on Pietersens omission though, I am a fan of his because he is a great player, but I am a fan of any player who helps England achieve in sport.

Michael Carberry is another notable absentee from this World Cup squad after he played so well in the Big Bash. Why is beyond me? Alex Hales is another that would certainly provide more positivity than some of the current crop, as would Ben Stokes, yet they have been left behind while the others wilt in front of the whole cricketing world.

Going into Sunday’s game, the Scots must now be fired up and full of belief that they can repeat the Irish achievement of the last World Cup and England should certainly not feel that they have any right to entitlement when it comes to gaining a victory over their local rivals.

It takes guts to come through and win when under pressure and right now it is highly doubtful that this current England regime have either and the buck doesn't just stop with the players either.

The selectors for a long time have taken they easy way out i.e. the removal and effective banning of Pietersen. What would have taken guts in the build up to this tournament is, on the realisation of just how lacking the current team is and in light of KP's Big Bash form, the selectors admitting they have made the wrong judgement and recalling our best player in time for us to actually have a chance of competing against the World's best. No such luck on that front.

Then there is the bizarre decision to bring back Peter Moores as coach. It didn't work the first time and it certainly isn't working now. We have heard a lot about ‘great team morale’ and a ‘happy dressing room’ but how on earth can that be when you are getting stuffed every week. I have played my share of sport, although not professionally and I know only too well how it feel when you are getting hammered every week. Something has to give.

Surely once this World Cup is over, and judging from the first two games, that won’t be long, the time will have come for Paul Downton and Peter Moores to go and a full overhaul of English cricket can truly being.

If not we are going to have another painful few years of watching England get whitewashed in all forms of the game and the Ashes may as well be given Australian citizenship, as that is where they will be spending most of their time.

Should Balotelli pay the ‘penalty’ for last nights ‘spot’ of bother?

Why always him? It is safe to say there is always a degree of controversy following Mario Balotelli around, whether he is playing in Italy or over here in the UK. Why? Well, to put it simply, he is one of life’s characters.

Mario Balotelli arrived in the summer as last ditch gamble by Brendan Rodgers, who was perhaps still smarting over the loss of star man, Luis Suarez, and honest enough to realise that his earlier signing, Ricky Lambert, would not be the man to fill the Uruguayans free scoring boots.

It would seem that Rodgers likes the element of a challenge and sees it as a good thing for the team and the supporters to have a maverick individual around, hence why he opted to bring Balotelli back to English football, despite his previous spell with Manchester City ending in controversy caused mainly by the player himself.

After an encouraging debut against Spurs, where he got himself into several good scoring positions and led the clubs fans to believe that it would only take a matter of games to get his eye in, it has all gone horribly wrong for ‘Mario Magnifico’. Goals have been hard to come by and his notorious antics have often surfaced to create talking points off the pitch as opposed to his on field play, although this is largely down the scandal digging culture of today's media.

Balotelli's struggling form could not have been helped by Liverpool’s remaining star man, Daniel Sturridge, being out injured for so long, but realistically it looked as though Brendan Rodgers’ gamble had backfired… until more recently that is.

With Sturridge now back playing, albeit not yet scoring at the rate of knots we come to expect from the England marksmen, and Liverpool starting to rectify their poor form that saw them slump to mid table, it would appear that Mario is following suit.

Now it might be a little silly to get carried away with two goals in the last three games but it should be noted that he has come off the bench for both of those goals and taken Liverpool to victory on both occasions. Sometimes it’s the magnitude of what you do, as opposed to the quantity.

Which brings me to last nights game against Besiktas in the Europa League, which since an extra Champions League place has been attached to it, has become more of an interest to teams this season as it has done in the past.

With five minutes remaining the increasingly impressive Jordan Ibe wins a penalty. Usually there is only one man for the job in this situation but iconic captain, Steven Gerrard, is up in the ITV studio swapping opinions with Peter Reid and Gordan Strachan, so is not available to resume his normal responsibilities.

His deputy, Jordan Henderson, has the ball in hand, when Balotelli, who stood out far more in the short time he had on the pitch than other players who were on from the start, comes over and takes the ball from him. Cue the uproar.

Yet anyone who knows their football knows that Mario Balotelli has one of the finest records in European football when it comes to taking penalties. What’s more he is your striker, signed to score goals, so he therefore he is the right man to take the penalty and I would say it was admirable that he had the confidence to come over and take the responsibility on an important night for the club, despite his troubles this season.

I have seen people comparing this incident with with the one involving Leighton Baines and Kevin Mirallas a few weeks back on twitter, but in truth they are nothing alike at all.

On that occasion, Everton’s primary penalty taker, Baines, was on the pitch, so therefore he should be the first choice to take the penalty, especially considering he has only ever missed one in his career. 

Now, had he been off the pitch then maybe Mirallas would have had a case to answer for his determination to put the ball on the spot but that wasn't the case and therefore he was wrong, which was only amplified when he went on to miss.

But at Anfield, last night, Steven Gerrard, was not on the pitch and therefore the sensible choice, which most of the Liverpool fans in the stadium and who I have spoken to since, agree with, was Mario Balotelli.

Yes Jordan Henderson was captain, but that does not give him the right to be selfish in the hope he would get the headlines the next day. Being captain is about making the best decisions for the team and when a penalty is awarded in the absence of your elected taker, the best decision is to give the ball to the best penalty taker on the pitch at the time.

Another way of looking at the situation is that surely Liverpool want Mario Balotelli to start scoring? So what better way to boost his confidence in front of goal, than letting him win the game for you, for the second time in a matter of weeks, with the winning goal. That is, after all, why he was brought to the club in the first place.

At the end of all the bickering and confusion the charismatic Italian coolly proved his point and gave Liverpool the slenderest of advantages to take to Istanbul in the hope that they can reach the next round. 

Who knows, that goal could well be the turning point of his Anfield career and if he goes on to score more goals that eventually lead the club back into the Champions League next season,  I doubt there will be an argument over who is taking the penalty the next time one is awarded when Gerrard is not on the pitch. 

Lukaku has got his head in the clouds over move to ‘Top Club’

Life at Everton football club seems a far cry from what they were enjoying last season.

Currently lying 12 in the premier league and out of all domestic competitions, just about the only thing they still have going for them is the Europa League, which is set to resume in the next couple of weeks.

Roberto Martinez had the fans talking about the ‘School of Science’ last season and even enabled them to look down and laugh as their previous manager, in an attempt to move his own career on to the highest level, failed miserably.

The players were happy and ambition was running through the veins of everyone involved with the football club looking ahead to this season, further buoyed by the permanent signing of their star goal-getter Romelu Lukaku, in what was otherwise a quiet summer.

It is difficult to believe it is the same team this term. Performances have been dour at the best of times, the excuses and feigned positivity from Martinez have begun to wear thin on even the most devout supporters and player unrest or perhaps delusion seems to be breathing throughout the team.

 Kevin Mirallas was the first to talk about moving on to better things and Champions League football, which of course incites disappointment and anger from his home fans as they witness his at times brilliant but more often than not selfish displays.

The argument the fans quite rightly have there is why talk about moving away to achieve better things, when the platform was set last season for him to achieve his goals at Everton.

Next up and the most recent big name player at the club to voice ambition to move on or ‘arrive at a top club’ as he put it, was Romelu Lukaku.

A player that so far this season has quite simply failed to show why so much money was spent on him and perhaps more annoyingly, considering his already inflated ego, proved Jose Mourinho’s judgement right when he saw fit to offload a player who has been talked about as one of the best young strikers in Europe.

Lukaku’s demands for football at the highest level are admirable and it should be every players dream to make it to the very top but at the same time if you want something that badly then you have to go out there and earn it and based on current form it is safe to say that neither Mirallas or Lukaku can honestly say they are at that level.

Let’s make a comparison between these two players and a player who is now, according to the Ballon D’or results anyway, the best player on the planet, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ronaldo joined United as an exciting yet extremely raw prospect from Sporting Lisbon having given John O’Shea the run around in a pre-season friendly.

Slowly but surely over time he honed his potential and worked harder than anyone on the training ground and in the gym (according to the coaches who worked with him) to make it to the very top and he hauled United with him as they won Europe’s top prize in 2008.

Throughout that period, despite always dreaming of one day playing for Real Madrid, he didn’t once voice this to the press.

Simply put he chose to let his football do the talking and when it did, Real Madrid, as well as every other top club in Europe, were listening.

Lukaku and Mirallas could learn a lot from the example that Ronaldo set through his time at United and that was when he was already playing for a team that was cleaning up on a regular basis domestically. If anything he had more grounds to have those conversations with the press.

Having watched a few Everton matches this week it is clear to see that their frailties, that perhaps were not so evidence because of the fresh approach Martinez brought in his last season, have been exposed and unfortunately the clubs in-activeness during the summer transfer window has left them short of improvement on what they achieved last season.

So now is the time that a Lukaku or a Mirallas should be knuckling down and proving their worth to the club, not talking about moving to bigger clubs because no bigger club is interested in signing an arrogant mid table player and there are plenty of them knocking about within the premier league as living proof.

If they want their move to bigger and better things, they should get back on the training field and in the gym and work that little bit harder and start turning out the sort of performances that Everton spent a club record transfer fee to see and who knows maybe they will achieve their dreams of champions league football with success in the Europa League.