Football, football, football.

It's never as good as you want it to be, is it? Unless, I suppose, you were an Argentina fan during their game against Serbia. But I'm an England fan (and a Newcastle United fan) so the game last night was doubly disappointing. Not only did we miss out on beating Sweden for the first time since 1968 - despite being ahead twice in the match - but it looks like we've lost Michael Owen for the rest of the World Cup. Worse still, according to reports on TV this morning, Newcastle may have lost him for the next 6 months.

Which means, that during the year 2006, Owen will have played for Newcastle for about 2hrs. I do hope we complain as much as Manchester United were planning on doing for any injury to Wayne Rooney. And while it would be lovely, I can't see us getting any compensation for this either. Which is a shame, as it's now obvious we'll have to buy a new striker (or get one on loan until January '07) and as there's a potential takeover bid in the offing there'll probably be less money available to get any players.

Not only do I see disappointment ahead for England (remember, if Holland win this evening and we do manage to beat Equador, we'll meet Argentina in the QF) but another season of woe for NUFC. We start in the Intertoto Cup in about a month with - and I'll just count them to be sure - one (yes, one) out-and-out striker. All hail Shola Ameobi. Suddenly, selling Michael Chopra to the Welsh doesn't seem such a good idea, does it? No Alan Shearer any more. Unlikely to be any Michael Owen for a while. And Luque is technically not a striker (as I think we established last season).

Personally, I'd quite like us to put a bid in for Ruud van Nistelrooy. Not that he's likely to be in the least bit interested. Or Zlatan Ibrahimovic - who must surely be looking to leave Juventus after the way their league win was tainted by the allegations of bribery and corruption. But then again, he's carrying an injury as well. Perhaps the ideal choice would be the man who didn't make it to the World Cup, but probably should have done: Jermaine Defoe.

It's not too late to call him up now, is it?

Oh.