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With both Paul Robinson and Wes Brown announcing their international retirements recently then you have to think where England are going from here. Is the lethargy to play for your own country so bad these days?

With other players like Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard not having many more World Cups left in them then we need youth coming through but the problem now is that the youth of England are not getting regular games for their clubs.

With Ben Foster pulling out through injury then Capello was forced to call on two goalkeepers who have never played in the Premier League. A few years ago Alan Shearer and Paul Scholes announced their retirements from International football when they were still young enough to have done a job for their country.

But I really do not know where we go from here, the established players have a history of under performing hugely in major championships and they will be 2yrs older come the 2012 Euro’s and 4yrs older come the next World Cup.

England simply do not have the quality coming through because not enough English players are playing regular football for the big six clubs in the country. We can put together a good first team but our squad strength has always been a worry.

So I think that the future is bleak for English football and even bleaker than it was after the 2008 European Championships debacle. I think that everyone was filled with hope under Fabio Capello and especially with the qualifying campaign going so well.

Tonight’s performance and team selection will be interesting as will the reaction of the crowd and the attendance.

The fall from grace of the greatest golfer on the planet and arguably the greatest ever has echoed around not just the world of golf but also the sporting world in general. Tiger Woods recorded his worst ever four round score of +18 at the weekend and that is a clear indication that his mind isn’t right.

After a couple of good runs in majors then we thought that perhaps the problems with Tiger were over but the horror show at the WGC Bridgestone tournament at Firestone was proof that something is seriously wrong with Tiger’s game.

I was listening to an interview with Butch Harmon yesterday who thought that Tiger had packed it in mentally. There are doubts now about his appearance in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor and the golf betting is going to reflect that this week and I expect the odds for a USA victory to lengthen.

It would be a huge blow for the USA not to have a fully “on it” Tiger Woods at Celtic Manor. But like he said yesterday, if he is recording scores of +18 then he would not be of any help whatsoever to the team and I would have to agree.

But two months is a long time and Tiger has it in him to overcome whatever is wrong with him in that time. He has proved in the past that he has the mental strength to cope after his famous win in the US Open where he had an injury to his knee.

However, golf is mainly a mental game and if Tiger is not right mentally then this could take some time but I am sure that there will be a lot of help around him to get through this.

It seems like yesterday that John Terry was lifting the Premier League trophy and Chelsea ended Manchester United’s run of three straight league wins. But with just over two weeks to go until the start of the season then it is time to start looking at the merits of the respective teams.

Once again I think that the title will be between Chelsea and Man United and we have to go back to Arsenal in 2004 to find a winner of the league that did not come from either of these two clubs. I can only see the same again as Arsenal still look the same to me……very pretty but lacking toughness.

Tottenham took fourth place last term but that could be their undoing this year. Harry Redknapp would have loved to get his hands on Joe Cole but Liverpool got there first. I think that Joe possibly thought that he would get less grief moving north than across London.

I think this is a great signing for Liverpool and that combined with Roy Hodgson’s arrival could see Liverpool regain 4th spot again. I say “could” because Manchester City are my main pick for a Champions League spot. I think that the signings that City have made coupled with the extra game s that the Champions League will inflict on Spurs could be the difference in who comes 3rd and 4th.

I can well see Arsenal being the team that suffers but I also think that Villa and Everton will be up there but will ultimately miss out again. So my tip for the top four are Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal.

The wind certainly did blow at St Andrews yesterday and the overnight leader of Rory Mcllroy failed to handle it. He carded an eight over par 80 to drop like a stone to 34th place. To be fair though, he certainly hit the worst of the weather and many players were affected.

In fact things got so bad that play was halted and that is one of the rare times when extreme wind has halted play in a major. Some players complained but the course was simply becoming unplayable. What all this means of course is that South African Louis Oosthuizen is now on -12 with a five shot lead.

But luck can win you a major and of that there is no doubt. However the rest of the field is really bunched up so if the leader has a slump in form then the pack will be waiting. TigerWoods is decently placed at -4 as is England’s Paul Casey at -6.

The leader after Oosthuizen is American Mark Calcavecchia on -7 so this underlines that any player on under par is still in with a chance and would only be six shots back at most.

I may be wrong and I have been wrong before about Open winners, namely Ben Curtis and Todd Hamilton and you can never rely on players to crack under pressure. Sometimes a series of events combine to ease a players path to victory. Although I do expect Oosthuizen to fall away, either that or for someone to catch him. Yesterday would have come totally unexpected to him and he would never have dreamed going into yesterday that he would be sitting here with a five shot lead.

My prediction for today is that Oosthuizen will at least have a greatly diminished lead by the end of play and that makes him a lay in my book.

Makes a nice change not to be talking about the World Cup anymore and there was me looking forward to it for so long. But The Open Golf Championship started yesterday and Rory Mcllroy hit an absolute superb round 0f 63 to equal the lowest round ever at a major.

In fact the scoring was so low that Tiger Woods commented on how crazy it was to have to make -5 just to be in the top 10. I have a sneaking feeling though that it will not last. A combination of tougher pin positions and worse weather could lead to higher scores either today or tomorrow.

Either that or we could have an Open Champion come Sunday evening on -20 or more which would be literally unthinkable. Tiger Woods said that the players “took the course apart” and I think that he was right. But I have seen enough Open Championships over the years and days like these have been known before. I have also known other extremes as well where only one or two players broke par on a given day.

This sort of reminds of past US Opens where a par score after 72 holes was considered a great score and even a potential tournament winning score. But Tiger Woods once called Rory Mcllroy the “real deal” and it is not too difficult to see why on yesterdays showing.

But we all know what this young kid can do and even though it is often said that it is only a matter of time before some young starlet breaks through, I think that in this case it is true. It will he interesting to see how he handles the pressure of being leader over the next few hours.

With only four teams now capable of winning the World Cup then the tournament is almost over. At least England went out of the World Cup not being the only team to be thrashed by Germany!

Seriously though and the Germans look very good but when you look into  detail at how they have been preparing then it isn’t any surprise that this is happening. I never expected the 4-0 scoreline over Argentina yesterday and I predicted that neither Germany or England would reach the final.

Everyone is saying that it is one tournament too soon for this young German side but if that’s the case then heaven help the rest of the teams in Euro 2012. Holland vs Germany would make for a great repeat of the 1974 World Cup Final but it is difficult to call now.

Can you dismiss Uruguay so easily……I don’t think so. I think that this will be yet another tough test for the Dutch who still look unconvincing but are only one game away from the final. Apart from Germany, none of the last four teams have impressed and Spain struggled again last night against Paraguay and could have easily gone out.

I am worried for Spain because in the last two games, teams seemed to have worked them out. This is why I am changing my prediction and going for Germany to beat Spain and reach the final. I know I said that they wouldn’t win it but you have to adapt when the time has come…….and it has come.

It is difficult to call the other semi-final but I fancy Holland to edge Uruguay.

I am going to be keeping a World Cup betting diary and giving my predictions for the games. Starting today and we have South Africa vs Mexico and Uruguay vs France.

I think that Group A is a really fascinating group and while I think that France are favourites, I do not have any great faith in them. France are very fortunate to be at this World Cup at all and came second in their group to Serbia. Then the Thierry Henry handball sent Ireland out so France have been very fortunate and few people outside of France will want to see them win.

Uruguay will be tough opponents who came close to eliminating Diego Maradona’s Argentina in the group stages. I like the draw in both these games and South Africa have improved massively since last year and have been on a very good run recently that has seen them go 12 games without loss…….impressive.

But Mexico are strong as well and even when losing 3-1 to England at Wembley recently, they showed what a good side they are and they have also just beaten Italy. But I think that the home support could get the South Africans a draw and a draw is what I am going for in both of these games.

Uruguay vs France and the draw is 11/5
South Africa vs Mexico and the draw is 43/20

I will be keeping a profit and loss for all the games and Saturdays games are…..

Argentina vs Nigeria…..I am going for a Argentina win at 2/5
Korea Republic vs Greece…….draw at 2/1
England vs USA……..England win at 21/50.

I will be keeping a profit and loss of the games through the World Cup to see if I can show a profit on bwin prices by the end.

I was up late last night watching the culmination of the World Snooker Championship and with Neil Robertson winning and him being Australian then this could do wonders for the sport.

But it really needed it after the serious kick in the teeth it has had over the weekend with the breaking news that the defending World Champion and world number 1 John Higgins was caught on camera appearing to set up a deal in which he would deliberately lose frames for money.

This is absolutely devastating for Snooker because people are going to say that if someone like Higgins stoops to this with the amount of prize money that he wins then what price lesser players who don’t earn as much.

So hopefully Robertson’s win will go some way to counter balance that by letting people see that the game isn’t just about players from the home countries. Robertson becomes the first player since Cliff Thorburn in 1980 to win the title who didn’t come from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

So it is a huge boost for the sport at a time when it really needs it the most. Is Higgins guilty? Well finding proof of a player deliberately losing a frame or a match would be impossible during actual game play. The standard of play is so high that to lose any one frame only requires a player to miss one shot and anyone can make a mistake so you cannot possibly prove that.

I hope that the authorities come down hard on Higgins if he is proven guilty but the proof needs to come from the taped evidence. It is always sad when things like this happen because other innocent players are inadvertently drawn into it.

All the excitement about the annual relegation scrap in the Premier League and which clubs will lose their status has been decided early this year by the horrible situation at Portsmouth and Hull and Burnley both playing very poorly.

When Iain Dowie and Brian Laws got the respective jobs at Hull and Burnley then I feared for both clubs. Brian Laws was struggling to keep Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship which is a full division lower and then he gets the task of trying to keep Burnley in the Premier League.

Since their great start to the season then Burnley have fell like a stone and in even greater momentum than Hull did last season. West Ham have been fortunate this season in that three clubs have been very poor and it is this that has saved them. But that also applies to teams like Wolves and Wigan as well and even Bolton.

In seasons past then 40pts has been the benchmark for safety but this season Hull are third bottom with two games to go and are only on 28pts. So a few clubs may need to improve their performance levels next season.

But as Manchester City also turn themselves into title contenders then they will obviously be getting more points next season. So in effect that will be sucking points away from the other teams. This could mean that the need to get 40pts to stay in the Premier League isn’t necessary.

This will make it easier for some clubs but in a way, it will be harder to get points. With teams like Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Tottenham and Everton all doing very well then this will have the effect of sucking a vast amount of points out of the league over the space of the season.