Well sure, I was wrong about Walcott playing, wasn’t I? Clearly England have more pressing things to worry about than seeing whether a 17-year-old rookie has got what it takes. England have a great set of players, but the team is not clicking, and is suffering from the ancient English art of giving the ball away stupidly often. And yet, here we are already qualified with a game still to go. There’s time to improve, I still think [even though I said that before the last game. But there still is].

Still, at least we can be comforted by the knowledge that things could be worse – we could be France. Despite playing pretty well, dominating utterly (and scoring their first World Cup finals goal since 1998 – well done Thierry), les Bleus fannied about in the second half and ended up conceding a late goal. Whereas England are swanning about in Baden Baden, France will be forced to sweat.

All things Arsenal are on the backburner, which is understandable, but also a bit strange given that our once-a-lifetime stadium move is now exactly one month away – with a 20,000 capacity training day on 20th July. This is presumably the first of the three games to be played at New Highbury to fulfil Health and Safety regulations – one at 20,000 capacity, the second at 40,000 (Dennis’s testimonial) and a third, the details of which I don’t think have been released.

It’s exciting stuff, and the new ground is a match for any of the excellent new German stadiums (though not as beautiful as the Allianz Arena, which is something else).

Most of you will have seen this site before – but if you haven’t it’s worth a butcher’s, with some excellent recent photos of progress at the Grove.

And – well.

Well.