With a few World Cup qualifiers taking place midweek, (Northern Ireland won 3-0 in San Marino and Ireland beat Georgia 2-1 at home) most other teams engaged in some friendly action. David Beckham equaled Bobby Moore’s English record of 108 caps for an outfield player as England hopped over to Spain. Their performance was as flat as a pancake though and with a non-existent attack, were beaten 2-0. England did have their share of possession at times, but could only muster up a couple of chances with Shaun Wright Phillips and Carlton Cole both blowing glorious opportunities.

Spain is on a 29 game unbeaten run at the moment with 27 of those being wins. It’s a little hard to judge England’s strength at the moment though as Jermaine Defoe, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, Michael and Wayne Rooney were all absent. It looks like it’s about time manager Fabio Capello found a goalkeeper though as the squad can’t rely on 39-year-old David James much longer. If England are going to go anywhere on the world scene they need to get a good young keeper between the posts and they better get him some experience soon.

In EPL news, Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs, the team’s longest serving player of all time, has signed a one-year extension to his contract that will take him to the end of 2009-2010. The 35 year old has been at United his entire career and has been a first-teamer since 1991.

Chelsea has signed 62-year-old Dutchman Guus Hiddink to lead the club until the end of the season after sacking Brazilian Luiz Felipe Scolari. Hiddink is also currently the manager of Russia’s national team and will continue in that role until the end of the season.

It seems that Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is getting under the skin of his players too now, not just the fans as Liverpool defender Daniel Agger has threatened to walk out on the club if he doesn’t get more playing time. The 24-year-old Denmark international, who hasn’t signed a contract extension may try to buy out the rest of his contract in the summer. “It’s never nice for a footballer to not play regularly. That is something I will not hide. But my situation at the club is that he [Benitez] doesn’t want to let me play. I feel I am good enough. Therefore, it irritates me when I don’t play.” Agger said.

Former England manager Sven Goran Erikkson is staying true to his recent trend of getting hired and then fired from everywhere he goes because of poor results. He could get the deserved sack again soon from his current job as Mexico’s national manager as the squad has only managed to win one game since he took over and were beaten again this week 2-0 to the USA in a World Cup Qualifier.

Erikkson has been linked to the Portsmouth job after Tony Adams was fired, but why Pompey or anyone else would want him remains a mystery to me. Erikkson has a brutal track record lately of taking over teams, failing miserably and then leaving town with a nice cash settlement. Just ask England, Manchester City and now Mexico.