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You don't get to play a Champions' League final every year, and the manager showed in recent weeks that he's not scared to play players who are out of contract at the end of the season. He brought Vladimir [Smicer] on with 20 minutes gone and he's not certain what he does next season That's not been a problem We've all been professional, that's what you've got to do. "Not just a little! Everyone is talking about a new goalkeeper, but it doesn't matter to me I never think about that When I came here, everyone was talking about Chris Kirkland. I have to be confident all the time, or it is difficult to be focused When I don't feel pressure, I can feel best in the world. For this is not the Liverpool of Bill Shankly, who when asked for his line-up liked to declare: "Same team as last season."Rafael Benitez knows he must improve his options for the next Premiership challenge and that in order to do so, some of the 37 players currently in possession of a squad number must have it taken away before August.Might the man who was proudly sporting the No 1 on his back last Wednesday be among them? It seems so.
A quiet summer beckoned until he received a late summons to Sven Goran Eriksson's depleted England squad. Yesterday he made the most spectacular England debut for 30 years scoring at each end of the first period as England secured their first win on American soil since 1985.In the city where the skyscraper was born England suffered a blow prior to kick-off when the human tower, Peter Crouch, failed a fitness test. His goals were responsible for Wigan's ascent into the English Premiership and McCulloch would love to continue that form."I know our manager, Paul Jewell, is going to have £25m to spend of new players now that we're in the Premiership," said McCulloch. "Then, we did well defensively and were unlucky not to get a goal.
This time, the onus will be on us to be positive and adapt."No one suits that description more than Lee McCulloch. The Wigan Athletic player made his debut in Moldova and played wide on the left of midfield against Italy. When you consider that he is still only the same age as Garry O'Connor and Derek Riordan of Hibernian, whom we think of as inexperienced at 22, it seems unfair."Smith feels he has nine potential strikers in his squad for the qualifying ties and would prefer to use the game with Moldova to blood O'Connor and Riordan, who scored 43 goals together this season for Hibs, though the Edinburgh club will listen to offers for the latter now that he has turned down a new contract."This will be a much different game to Milan," pointed out Smith. United States 1 England 2 United States 1 England 2 United States: Dempsey 79 England: Richardson 4, 44Half-time: 0-2 Attendance: 45,000Nothing in Kieran Richardson's season will have prepared him, or us, for this.
