WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Nothing is happening. It’s as if somebody has pressed the global pause button. The World Cup has ground to a halt, even if only for two days. The transfer window is in danger of becoming even more boring than that game between France and Denmark.

What is going on and where is the news?

It got so bad that poor old Jim White on Sky Sports News had to resort to reporting the “incredible” news that a man had seen a bear in the woods in Montana and a shark had been spotted in the sea off the Australian coast! Truly incredible stuff!

Not to worry, avid readers, if there is any football-related news we will find it. Even if we have to actually read some other rags to do so. As far as the World Cup goes, this is what we think we know.

Dele Alli is injured, Ashley Young is injured, Jamie Vardy is injured and Harry Kane is injured. Kane will make a miraculous recovery and the others don’t really matter as Alli has done nothing in any of the games as of yet and we are still not really sure why Young is even there! Jamie Vardy has only played in one game and has otherwise been used as an impact sub at which he has had little, if any, impact.

Sweden have a couple of “potential” injuries according to potential radio station talkSPORT. They will potentially be without Albin Ekdal and Jimmy Durmaz who will potentially not recover in time to face England. Our guess is that, potentially of course, they will both be fit in time for the game.

Edinson Cavani is injured and may miss Uruguay’s quarter-final defeat to France. This is highly unlikely as star players have a better than average chance of recovering in time for important games, unless they are James Rodriguez. It’s in their metabolism and is the bit that separates them from mere mortals.

So we can expect Cavani to trot out alongside Uruguay’s very own Nosferatu, Luis Suárez, on Friday.

As far as we are aware there are no injury worries in any of the other teams despite Neymar breaking his leg on at least four occasions, getting shot by someone in the crowd twice and only now recovering from serious ego strain, he is still, remarkably, expected to be fit to face Belgium. The bigger surprise is that, for the same match, Vincent Kompany is also expected to be fit!

Russia and Croatia either have no problems or else nobody can be bothered to report them, one or the other.

So there’s your round-up of the quarter finalists in the World Cup and what is being reported about them. Fascinating stuff eh? (Stifle that yawn).

Back home…..

Meanwhile, over in sun-drenched England, football supporters and patriots who don’t have a clue about the game, are getting very excited about England’s prospects of actually winning the World Cup.

IF they beat Sweden they will play Croatia or Russia in the semi-final and then who knows?

The problem, which English fans fail to appreciate as usual, is that England aren’t as good as Sweden and could easily lose that match. But let’s assume they can raise their game sufficiently to beat the Swedes. The chances then are that they will face Croatia, who are a much better team than England. Let’s assume they can raise their game even more and win that one. They will then face one of France, Uruguay, Belgium or Brazil.

They will not be able to raise their game enough to beat any of those teams in the final.

Never mind, it’s all conjecture anyway as they won’t reach the final.

And finally…..

The transfer window is open isn’t it? There are now only eight teams left in the World Cup so surely some business can be done!

Yerry Mina, the 6’5” Colombian centre back, is of interest to Everton and it appears that Barcelona may be ready to sell him.

Manchester United manager José Mourinho is another who is now, allegedly, interested in Xherdan Shaqiri of Stoke City and Switzerland fame.

The Munchkin-like midfielder seems to be generating more interest since appearing for Switzerland than he ever did in the whole of last season at Stoke and this despite the fact that most of the interest is, reportedly, from Premier League managers!

They obviously didn’t watch him even when playing against Stoke.

According to The Sun, (so it must be true), Mourinho is also interested in pensioner Mario Mandžukić and would use him as a back-up to you-know-who.

‘Union’ Jack Wilshere will probably sign for West Ham now that they are offering a three year contract, (he just wanted to feel the love), and Jürgen Klopp has decided that he doesn’t need a new goalkeeper because they are just so damned expensive, but it doesn’t really matter as he has every faith in……..Loris Karius. Good luck with that then.