Ireland beating Holland, Classic! Classic! Classic!

- Van Nistelrooij and Kluivert don't seem to be able to perform together or alone. Especially Kluivert hasn't played even a decent game for the national squad in years and nobody seems to understand why.

- Makaay doesn't seem to be able to play effectively with either of the two above, and despite his good form at the moment isn't top choice for a 1-central-striker 4-3-3 scenario.

- despite his solid playing at Milan Seedorf is still national bogeyman number one for an extraordinarily long streak of weak games in the national team (and for missing three penalty kicks at various times) while still laying down demands on what position he wants to play. Much to everyone's surprise he has performed rather well lately though.

- Van Der Vaart and Sneijder have played very weak at Ajax in the 2nd half of the season and seem to be disappear when they're called upon. People start to suspect that their good performance against Scotland was just a one-off.

- Van der Meyde has been warming the bench at Inter almost all season, riddled with small injuries. Whether he'll ever be as good as he was two years ago is anyone's guess.

- Van Hooijdonk is on fire at the moment but there's no chance in hell he'll ever get a starting position with three strikers from top European clubs competing with him.

- Davids was one of the few who looked solid, but seemed to be half asleep during the Ireland game. Everybody is hoping he was deliberately taking it easy.

- Over the last few seasons, Kevin Hofland has proved to be rediculously injury-prone and his development as a player has all but stagnated at PSV. The only two defenders who could arguably have been included are Mario Melchiot of Chelsea and Nigel De Jong of Ajax, but neither are particularly good.

your consolation is that Germany have similar problems and appear to be worse, and not even the Czech coach is confident about his defence according to BBC Sport. it's all looking evermore tangible for plucky Latvia!

Are you all scaremongering so that people change their fantasy football squads and you win, eh? EH?

Yup, John Helm and John Aldridge.

It was Ireland's second string, and they were good. A full-strength Ireland would be quite something, one assumes. But on that evidence, Andy Reid is much too good for Forest to hang onto, and Graham Barrett could yet prove to have not entirely suffered from never seeing Arsenal's first team (c.f. Given at Blackburn). Oh, and all that stuff people always say about Kenny Cunningham being under-rated - all true.

Reid and Keane were excellent.

Clinton Morrison had a bit of a stinker, though. Ireland had chances by the ton throughout the game, including a totally open header for him which his forehead somehow managed to completely miss, despite him jumping and doing the neck-flick and everything. Keane then did this amazing over-head kick thing almost parallel to the crossbar to keep it in play and it nearly went in...

Yes - that was tremendous too.