Germany vs Ghana

1) The problem with these games they play at the same time is that you want to watch both, so end up watching neither. I haven't written about Argentina vs Greece or Nigeria vs South Korea because I spent the whole game flicking between the two of them. I was a bit more disciplined last night, because I have taken quite a shine to the Black Stars of Ghana, who really should have got something out of this match.

2) Annan, who sits in front of the back four for Ghana, has been one of the players of the tournament so far; it seemed in the first half against Serbia that he was simply a studs-up merchant, but he's actually played some seriously tidy football in every Ghana game. His positioning is excellent, he gets stuck in, he rarely wastes the ball, and almost gets forward on occasion. He would cut it in the Premier League with ease, and I expect to see someone make a bid for him. I suppose one criticism would be that he wasn't close enough to Ozil to stop him scoring, otherwise I thought he was excellent.

3) Ozil, on the other hand, was fairly quiet apart from a missed chance and scoring probably the second best goal of the tournament so far. He'll need to be picked up fairly consistently by England, but as long as he's not in space the whole time, I don't think he's as good as he looked against Australia, who pressed ahead of him, and then just let him wander about between the lines. Not that I have any faith in Gareth Barry to do any sort of job on him.

4) Asamoah should really have scored when through on goal: I haven't been impressed by either him or Prince Tagoe and they, along with the limitations of the hardworking Gyan, are the reason that Ghana did not win the group: they do not have sharp enough players in the top 4 of the side. Their defence is decent, and Boateng and Annan are excellent. Excepting Ayew, the quality is not there further forward though.

5) Schweinsteiger and Lahm really are excellent players. Schweinsteiger hardly wastes the ball. Lahm can be exposed at the very top level (Milito, Torres), but against most opponents he just gets on with it and does his job back and forward.

6) In terms of their future prospects, Ghana and the US will be fascinating, in that the US are far stronger when they are bombing forward, and Ghana would prefer to counter from a fairly organised, rugged defence. Hopefully Ghana will win; either side will remind England how crucial it would have been for either Rooney or Defoe to have buried straightforward second half chances.

Germany will of course be playing England. I have learnt my lesson, and would not even begin to assume what England should do against Germany, because as was demonstrated, I (fuck it, we) know fuck all about football. I reckon the key though will be to make Khedira and Schweinsteiger have to play fairly deep, through Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard, and to have someone reasonably close to Ozil. They will also be fairly vulnerable whoever is playing at left-back: Badstuber was dropped, Boateng is not a left back, and quite how Marcell Jansen must feel about being dropped for a player who doesn't even play in that position is questionable. Friedrich doesn't look that good either.

England can beat Germany, of that I have little doubt: Germany are nowhere near as good as they seemed to be as they picked their way through Australia's terrible defence. Ghana should have secured at least a draw last night, after all (yes, I'm assuming that England are better than Ghana).