Two points to clear up

We're just hours from kickoff, so I best clarify two things:

1. Ben made a great point regarding Anelka. I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him, but he said it best, plus he does follow Chelsea a hell of a lot more closely than I:

Whilst I am a fan of [Anelka] and recognize his contribution to the team, that is usually in the form of his drifting wide of the box to open spaces for people like Drogba and Lampard to exploit. The problem for the French is that I don't see who they have that can exploit those he will create.

This reminds me a bit of - don't laugh now - Stéphane Guivarc'h and his role in France's 1998 winning team. You could argue that France won that World Cup without any 'real' strikers: along with Guivarc'h, they employed Christophe Dugarry upfront for most of their matches, and though I can't recall how many goals either scored, or if they scored any, they were recognised for more for their contributions off the ball, creating space for others. Despite Guivarc'h's lamentable record at Newcastle - 1 goal in 4 matches and the dubious honour of coming top of the Daily Mail's list of the top 50 worst strikers in Premiership history - his international teammates always highly valued his off-the-ball movement and workrate on the pitch, things that don't often get recognised. There are parallels here with Anelka's efforts with Chelsea last season, though I'm certainly not comparing the two.

I should also point out how laughable is my egregious comment that Anelka 'had been banging them in all season'. Basic schoolboy error here. Not that this is any excuse, but I was getting seasons a bit mixed up, and I really should have said that he'd been banging them in over the past two seasons: after all, in 2008-9, he did win the Golden Boot in the Premiership with his 19 league goals. This past season, he had 11 league goals, and 14 in all competitions.

However, two further points here. In Drogba's absence at this year's African Cup of Nations, he did score 6 goals, meaning he does have that ability to lead the front line. And second, I should have made it clearer that because he's being asked to take up a more central role leading the French, I don't see him drifting as much; thus, I for one expect him to score a few more goals than his international goal scoring record would suggest (14 in 66 matches). Ben is right in that if Anelka does drift wide and create space, then there's a question over who will exploit it. If Anelka doesn't play well, I might look to Cisse over Henry to provide the spark.

2. Let there be no doubt, that no matter what I may have predicted, I'm behind the USA all the way. I do think Slovenia will qualify ahead of them, but I really hope that's not the case. And in Saturday's epic versus England, I'm going for the US, and that's not a terribly difficult choice to make.