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It barely seems like yesterday that Diego Milito fired Inter Milan to their first European Cup win since 1965. But here we are on the cusp of the group stages of the Champions League once again. So how do I rate the chances of the English clubs? I really think that Tottenham have a very tough task but it is one that they can pull through. Inter Milan are the reigning champions and you do not get much tougher than that.

But questions will be asked if they can match the performance levels under new coach Rafa Benitez that they attained under Jose Mourinho. Werder Bremen will also provide another stiff test as will Dutch champions FC Twente. My gut reaction is that Inter will win the group with Tottenham coming second.

Even though Valencia will be a weakened team this year then I do not see them not qualifying from Group C along with Manchester United. I just do not see Rangers and Bursaspor coming ahead of these two teams over six games even though Rangers versus United will provide massive interest.

I also expect Arsenal to top group H even though they have a couple of tricky ties. Chelsea also have a couple of potential banana skins in Spartak Moscow and Marseille. Chelsea have also picked up some key injuries as well during the early part of the season but I would be very surprised not to see them qualify. So for me then Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea will all make the knock-out stages and even though I expect Tottenham to do so, I cannot say that with any great degree of confidence.

This summers longest running transfer saga ended yesterday and James Milner finally joined Manchester City to take their summer spending past the £100 million mark. This comes hot on the trail of Mario Balotelli joining earlier in the week. Along with Jerome Boateng, David Silva, Alexander Kolarov and Yaya Toure.

All of these players are quality players but Stephen Ireland and Craig Bellamy have been moved out with Bellamy going out on a season’s loan to Championship side Cardiff City. The big question of course after all of this spending will be can Roberto Mancini turn that into a winning formula and bring a top four finish? Some people are touting the light blues as possible title challengers and they could be dark horses this season.

But to win the title this season then they have to hit the ground running and do that very quickly. Saturday’s 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane against Tottenham was encouraging but City were on the back foot for long periods of that game and keeper Joe Hart was man of the match which sort of told its own story. At the end of the day, Chelsea and Manchester United are settled sides which I think will make the difference.

I think that realistically, City will need a season to settle down but do not write them off as top four material as I think that they will do that this season. But I also feel that it will be the 2010-2011 season that sees them have a serious tilt at the title. I think it is only a matter of time before City win the league but the Chelsea and Manchester United teams look past their best of a few years ago so do not rule City out this season.

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After watching the England vs Hungary International at Wembley stadium last night then I really cannot make my mind up what is happening inside Fabio Capello’s mind. He seems to have changed his story about why England failed so dismally in the World Cup several times. Which is it Fabio? Is it because the players are not fit? Is it because the players cannot handle the pressure of the World Cup or is it the disallowed goal vs. Germany?

I think the blame lies at Fabio’s door first and foremost and I also think that the retirements of Paul Robinson and Wes Brown may have been connected to not wanting to play under Capello. The way that he announced that David Beckham would no longer play for his country in competitive games was poor. If Beckham did not see that interview then it would have been possible for some football fan on the street to have told him and that cannot possibly be right.

England played well in patches against Hungary but I never really expected a great performance to be honest. I thought that the crowd were very forgiving all night apart from the odd booing directed at John Terry and Ashley Cole. I also thought that the attendance of 72,000 was marvellous given that it was so soon after England’s worst ever performance in the World Cup finals. There were encouraging signs from players like Theo Walcott, Ashley Young and especially Adam Johnson.

However if England really are turning to youth then I do not expect England to be a major force at the next European Championships or the next World Cup in 2014 which will be in the heat and humidity of Brazil.

The arrival of Joe Cole at Liverpool will have angered a few Chelsea fans I am sure as Cole was a very popular player at Stamford Bridge. But Ancelotti’s comments yesterday struck a chord with me when he cited his reasons for letting Cole go to Liverpool in return for Yossi Benayoun.

While he conceded that Cole was quicker than Benayoun, he also said that Benayoun was better tactically. This is yet another sign that our top players are not as good as we think they are. Cole would be a regular in the England side were he fit but Ancelotti also said that Benayoun would be more receptive to his methods.

If that is correct then it appears that Chelsea have struck a good deal but football is played with the head at the highest level and you need more than just pace and trickery. Messi at Barcelona is a prime example, people tend to only see his mazy runs and fancy footwork but his positional play and link play with people like Iniesta and Xavi is exceptional for someone so young.

This is a big flaw with our game because the speed of it means that strategic and tactical finesse is sometimes sacrificed. But I do not like it when a top manager says that one of our supposed top players cannot understand his methods.

This is even more so when the team that he is in won the title last season so it isn’t because other players were not understanding what he wanted. I think Joe Cole will be happier at Liverpool and he will certainly get more games under Roy Hodgson who had Fabio Capello not had two years left on his £6m/year contract would have certainly been England manager by now.

With the exception of Manchester City, there are not many clubs who have spent hugely this year. The sensible thing was always to cut back as transfer spending was becoming rather silly and the Portsmouth fiasco has taught many clubs a lesson and is a serious warning sign.

The lack of spending could help Manchester United but they do have a combination of older players and young kids coming through that may not fully make the grade once bigger things are expected of them.

I expect Chelsea to retain the league this season and they are my tip but I do not say that with the same confidence as when I tipped them last season. I was surprised that the league season went to the final day but Chelsea do have an aging squad and this is something that Carlo Ancelotti will need to address.

It is difficult to see Arsenal making the final steps needed although I am sure that they will continue to look good against the weaker teams. Liverpool under Hodgson and with Joe Cole should do better than last term but they will have their work cut out to get a top 4 slot.

The fast emerging Manchester City will be pushing hard for top four this season and I expect them to get 3rd or 4th and I still do not think that the title is beyond City even this season although I think that it is a season or two too early for them. But the size and strength of their squad means that they could do some damage this season and their opening day fixture with Tottenham will be one to watch.

I never actually thought that I would be talking about Fabio Capello so soon after our World Cup fiasco. But England’s friendly with Hungary in less than two weeks time has me somewhat intrigued as to what sort of team he will field.

Capello is in a very difficult situation now. The older players are clearly not doing the business and if he puts too much faith in youth and building towards future major tournaments then this will surely come too soon for the 2012 European Championships.

In fact a lack of experience could see us in danger of not qualifying so my tip is for him to mix experience with youth. The amount of bad feeling now with regards the England football team is worse than in any other era that I can remember.

Never has so little been delivered in a World Cup by an England team that promised so much. If Capello sticks with his tried and trusted players then the public will switch off. They need to see that we are building towards the 2014 World Cup and beyond and if this means sacrificing the 2012 Euro’s then so be it.

In fact in the heat of Brazil in four years time then it may be the 2016 Euro’s until England next have a major tilt at a major championship again. Personally this may need to happen if we are to make progress but whoever manages England is going to be handicapped severely by any player who puts their club before their country.

Unfortunately for England in the modern climate, this means all of them.

Yesterday I spoke about my own individual view of sports betting and how I used data to place bets. I will expand on that a little more today by looking at my lay of England in this years World Cup.

Basically I form my strategy around what I call the “Even Money Concept”. Actually this isn’t a known concept but just something that I invented some time ago to hopefully make a little money in betting on sports. I use the idea of assessing events around break even.

Looking at a football match between two very evenly matched teams is instructive.  When two teams are evenly matched then the deciding factor on who is favourite is home advantage. But in England’s case in the World Cup then this didn’t apply.

So when England qualified for the 2nd Round but then had to face Germany, almost certainly Argentina in the last eight, Spain in the sem-final and Brazil or Holland in the final then we base the strategy of looking at each game that England had to play around the “Even Money Concept“.

Tossing a coin is Even Money and the chances of you winning one coin toss are 50%…….two on the trot is 25%…….three is 12.5%…….four is 6.25%. So for England to win the World Cup then their chances were 6.25% at best as they would have to win four big games where they would not be favourites.

But this all assumes that England would be a coin flip in these games. Against teams like Argentina, Brazil and Spain then they would certainly be underdogs and this would reduce the percentage chances even more.

A better way of building from this example would be to look at England’s chances as being 50% against Germany (silly in hindsight) and 33% maximum against the other three teams. This then reduces Englands chances of winning the World Cup to something under 2% which when equated to odds is around the 50/1 mark.

So at 11.5/1 then this was a cast iron lay for me.

What will be my final World Cup post was meant to be a celebration of a great football match but sadly it was horrible. However I never expected it to be a classic as these types of games rarely are.

My under 2.5 goals bet was the only saving grace and so I had good reason to be happy at a stop start game. Howard Webb has taken an awful lot of criticism from some quarters……some justified……some not justified.

At the end of the day, he was in a difficult situation and made even more so by the actions of the players, especially the Dutch. The Dutch to their credit largely stifled the Spanish and you have to give credit to their coach for that. If he could have won the World Cup then no one in Holland would have cared. So the coach did what he felt he had to do to get the job done.

But that sure wasn’t pleasing on the eye and I am so glad that Spain won although Spain have hardly been convincing and many teams are learning how to stifle them and they have won the World Cup with four consecutive 1-0 wins.

But Howard Webb was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea because he should rightly have sent off two Dutch players in the first half. But if he had done that then the game would have been ruined as a spectacle and people would have criticised him for ruining the World Cup final. But he definitely was too lenient by not showing red cards sooner and the first red card would have stamped out the rest. Showing one ten minutes from the end of extra time when it hardly mattered was a cop out.

But good luck to Spain and they will be worthy World Champions!

I don’t usually watch the 3rd and 4th place play-off but last night I did. But I did have a bet on the over 2.5 goals which stormed in with plenty of time to spare. So I am going to use that profit from that game to have another bet tonight and that is for the under 2.5 goals in this game.

I know that Spain vs Holland is supposed to be one of the dream finals but “dream finals” have a habit of disappointing. Both teams either cancel each other out or one team tries to stifle the other. The Dutch coach has already admitted that he intends to stifle Spain so if this match fails to produce an early goal then I think the under 2.5 goals bet here looks good.

It has been a productive World Cup for me so far and I have to say that I laid England after their final group game. I laid them at 11.5-1 when I felt that the true odds should be between 33/1 and 50/1. As it turns out of course, with all the dissension and problems in the camp then England’s chances looked more nearer 100/1 than 33/1-50-1.

To look at that percentage closely then consider this. England had to play Germany in the 2nd round. Almost certainly Argentina in the quarter-final. Then it would be Spain or Portugal in the semi-final followed by Brazil or Holland in the final.

If you take each game as a coin flip then the chances of four consecutive coin flips winning are 6.25%. Keeping in mind that England would have been underdogs against nearly all of those teams then that reduces the percentage still further. In my mind England’s chances could have been as small as 0.5%-1% from that stage.

If you can assess sporting events in that way then it can help you to find good value in teams or competitors that are too short. Like Andy Murray for example before his semi-final at Wimbledon against Nadal. I laid him at 3.95 when I assessed his chances of being around 7/1 or 8.00.

I have nothing against the Dutch because they are really nice people but I hope that Spain win the World Cup…….they are the best team in the world and their philosophy and style of football is better than anyone else’s. Even though they have largely failed to fire in front of goal, they have still been the best team.

Germany have looked good in the games that they have played but they were made to look ordinary alongside Spain. When a team retains possession to the level that Spain do and plays so far up the pitch to win it back when they lose it then that is a style that is difficult to combat.

You may say, why don’t more teams play that way? Well I think that it stems from grass roots coaching and even though many of the players play different styles in other countries, they still retain the ability to play that way.

But in the win over Germany then seven of that team played for Barcelona and that is a huge advantage. That can never happen with England because there are too few English players in our Premier League. Holland have the capability to upset Spain and we saw in Spain’s opening group game against Switzerland what can happen when a team nick a goal and then defends it.

I cannot say that I have enjoyed this World Cup over previous tournaments, I think many of the games have been too defensive and I really hope that this isn’t a sign of things to come. I do not think that there will be many goals in the final tomorrow.

The clear sign here is that Spain have played 6 games so far and four have ended 1-0. They won 2-0 but that was against Honduras and 2-1 against Chile who were down to ten men. This reflects just how much teams fear and respect Spain. May be worth having a punt on the under 2.5 goals tomorrow.