LeeDixon

Back in my playing days we always liked going to West Ham, the Arsenal teams I played in enjoyed some good results there and the short trip across town never held much fear for us. Times have changed though, and few are expecting Arsenal to get an easy ride at Upton Park in the late Saturday kick-off. The Premier League table offers a clue to the clubs' respective form: seventh plays eighth here, with the east Londoners one place above their north London neighbours after a strong start to the season. Accepted football wisdom has this down as big and strong versus creative and skilful, but it's not quite as simple as that. That assessment of Big Sam's teams is a little unfair on Allardyce. He's been around for some time now and has come up with a successful system. Sure, West Ham...

[u]Manchester City v Dortmund - 19:45, Live on Sky Sports 2[/u] Manchester City thought they had done everything necessary to pull off a famous victory in the Bernabeu. Then disaster struck and they flew back to England devastated. That's the way it goes in this competition - you can have all the money but the teams who compete for Europe's prize over many seasons keep plugging away and can often turn things around when their opponents look like 1.01 certainties. Manchester United, Madrid and Barcelona have all done it. Now City need to take three points against this talented Dortmund side. Last season, the Blues failed to do themselves justice in the Champions League. If they lose this, which I don't believe they will, the competition could pass them by again. Roberto Mancini's...

Early Champions League games can be cagey, twitchy affairs but with two powerhouses of European football coming face to face I'm expecting a full-on affair. City would snap your hand off for a draw, but it could be a good time to play Madrid. They are struggling a bit at the moment, coming off the back of a defeat to Sevilla over the weekend and currently sitting in tenth in La Liga. There will be plenty of pressure on Madrid from the home fans and this will only increase if City can make a good start. It was the start that set the tone of Sevilla's victory over Real - they put Madrid under pressure from the first whistle and, most importantly, got players around Xabi Alonso. The former Liverpool man is a massive player for Madrid; he sets the tempo and is comfortable playing it...

Friday night saw a winning start for England and a clean sweep for this column. You can't say fairer than a 5-0 away win and you can't argue with three successful bets. England were excellent in Moldova and, while nobody is getting carried away after hammering the 141st best team in the world, you can only beat what's in front of you. At the start of a World Cup qualifying campaign, getting the simple things right is essential. That's what Roy Hodgson's men did in Chisinau and they now have a decent platform to build on. Tom Cleverley won plaudits for his performance on his first competitive start. Rightly so, he benefited from having Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard behind him, and his surges in to the box were a key part of England's dominance. I was very impressed by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain....

Even with a depleted forward line England will beat Moldova, and they will do so handsomely. That doesn't mean scoring a bucketful of goals, but a solid victory without conceding will represent a job well done from our first World Cup 2014 qualifying match. I'm about to sit down for the DVD of Moldova v Hungary - thanks, ITV! - but without watching that we already know that this is a gentle introduction to the qualifying campaign for Roy Hodgson. Moldova are 141st in the world rankings, and finished one place above minnow's minnow San Marino in Group E when comprehensively failing to reach Euro 2012. There were a couple of notable results in that campaign, with the Dutch restricted to a pair of 1-0 wins but there's nothing for England to fear. Even the stadium is a tiddler with just...

England are safely through to the quarter-finals after topping their group against the odds. Here are the main talking points ahead of their quarter-final with Italy. [b]The draw[/b] There's always a tendency to get ahead of yourself and try to work out who you will be playing at each stage. Apparently Roy Hodgson was watching the Spain match on Monday night live on TV and now has to watch videos of Italy's game. The consensus is that England have done well to avoid Spain but personally I don't think there's a huge amount in it. Italy have been better than many would have expected, Spain not quite as good as many expected. They've kept a lot of possession as ever but don't always make the best use of it. Italy are a bit more of an unknown quantity in terms of how they'll play...

The biggest positive from the Sweden match was obviously the result. Over the course of a long season a manager will look at the performances as much as the results because you can't keep on getting results over the course of nine or 10 months without playing well. But in a tournament like this, one bad result, however well you played, is normally enough to send you home. So England will take those three points and not worry too much about how they got them. The other big positive from the match was the spirit the England players showed. At 2-1 down they were going out. And they weren't passing the ball that well and having long spells of pressure so a comeback looked pretty unlikely. But they showed belief, togetherness and fighting spirit and in the end were probably just about good...

The general consensus after the draw with France is that England were a little better than we expected but have a lot of improving to do if they're to be serious contenders to win this. I don't think many people would be backing us to beat Germany in a knock-out match the way Jogi Low's team are playing. Russia have looked impressive going forward even though they haven't been tested that much at the back and Italy could be pretty tough to beat, too. And you can say what you like about Spain not playing a striker but the way they pass the ball and move, the system they go with may become pretty immaterial. I still think Germany are the team to beat though and that England's price of 14.5 looks about right. [u]Team selection[/u] I don't think England can beat one of the big guns...

Organisation is key in international tournaments and England have a manager who specialises in it. Roy Hodgson has had little time to prepare for Euro 2012 but the fact that he's the first England boss to have managed at international level before bodes well. One of the reasons Hodgson was unpopular as a Liverpool manager was that he emphasises focus and discipline ahead of flair but, if England string together a few more 1-0 wins over the next few weeks, fans won't be complaining. We may have lower expectations than at recent tournaments but I think that's a good thing. France are favourites to win Monday night's Group D opener but England might relish underdog status. Laurent Blanc has done a good job since taking over after the 2010 World Cup where Les Bleus failed spectacularly. ...