19 days till the season starts!

And, y'all, I am so very ready. Not that I don't love the transfer window, but it's hard to get that excited about Man U buying Carrick or Chelsea spending a ton on building Abramovich's fantasy team. We got rid of Cisse and Morientes, and got a couple of good wingers for, you know, less than 18 million pounds. Get us another striker, and I'm happy.

This was pretty awesome, though. I mean, I wouldn't want to see Reina playing in midfield every time, and I'll be happy when the full side starts playing again. But, man. I thought playing Steven as a left-back was odd. Sometimes I love my team. (Where "sometimes" is defined as "pretty much all of the time.")

And speaking of my teams, things my other team needs to do to not suck anymore. I pretty much agree with all of it -- the biggest priorities are getting the midfield figured out, getting a new captain, and getting together a solid backup plan for the next time the Owen/Rooney partnership is unavailable. Which will be pretty much all of the qualification, if Owen takes as long getting over this ACL tear as he did the metatarsal. And with Rooney out for the first two games, they need to figure it out fast. I'm a big supporter of Peter Crouch; he didn't have the greatest World Cup, but he was still England's most prolific striker. Actually, I think pairing him and Walcott up front could work really well. Crouch isn't great as a lone striker, but working with someone smaller, with better pace, could really work well, I think. Maybe not Walcott, since he has yet to play in the Premiership, but I think Defoe or one of the others could be a good choice here.

As far as the midfield, I think you have to go with J. Cole-Hargreaves-Gerrard-Lennon. Beckham's been good, but you have to start preparing for his retirement. Hargreaves had a couple of really good games in Germany, Cole was solid (if you can cure him of trying to cut in all the time), and come on. Is it really even a contest between Gerrard and Lampard these days? I'd like for them to be able to work together, but it's just not happening. You have to at least experiment with them separate. God, England. At least the defense is relatively solid these days. Though I'd bench Rio on the basis of his hair alone.

One more thing -- Steven for captain, dude. Like it's even a contest. I don't see John Terry singlehandedly winning the FA Cup anytime soon, do you?