England not as good as they think

OPINION: It was a quiet week on the Premier League front last week, with attention in England turning to the national team which under manager Fabio Capello has qualified for next year's World Cup in South Africa.

Capello hasn't made any real changes as a manager. All he's done is understand that pace is a major issue to do well, rather than being static and relying on dead ball situations and he's picked players like Aaron Lennon to help him achieve that.

He knows how to get a team to qualify for the World Cup, unlike his predecessor Steve McLaren, who had people telling him what to say to players before and after games.

Capello will look at the World Cup and know that to do well he'll need stability at the back, while having as many match winners on the pitch as possible.

Everyone is already writing in the newspapers that England are going to do fantastically well in the World Cup.

They qualified for the World Cup without any real problem but their supporters need to appreciate that whatever pool they're drawn in, it's not going to be easy because they're not as good as they think they are.

The Champions League kicks off this week with the pool stages and I can't see any of the English clubs (Manchester Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal) having any trouble qualifying for the next stage.

For the first time there aren't any English teams in a dodgy group from which you think they might struggle to qualify.

It is a juggling act to cope with the fixtures in the Champions League as well as keep Premier League aspirations alive and you need to a big squad to do that.

Chelsea are the best equipped to do this because of the experience they've got in their squad.

Liverpool's best 11 doesn't have many household names in it and when you look beneath that you won't know any of them.

Arsenal have always had problems durability-wise throughout a season and they'll have to hope they won't be as unlucky with injuries as they were last season.

You have to wonder whether Manchester United have got enough quality to win the Champions League given that they've lost Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo.

As for the only Scottish team in the Champions League, Rangers, you have to say that it's always been difficult for a Scottish team to get through to the next stage.

Rangers are the only Scottish team that's got through to the second stage and that's only happened once, so just getting through to the knockout section will be seen as a success for them.