It's good to see Charlie Adam's transfer to Liverpool finally go through, considering it has been on the cards since well before the season ended. He has benefited from playing a full campaign in the top flight for Blackpool rather than making a move in January, which so nearly happened, and now he has a full pre-season to get settled at his new club.

It's a great opportunity for the player. After the way things ended with Rangers, he now gets another chance to show he is cut out for a big club. Plus the big hike in wages he will get on Merseyside can't hurt either.

More importantly, though,

To be brutally honest I have never been 100 per cent convinced by Manchester City new boy
Gael Clichy as a player. His concentration levels are suspect and I
wouldn't say that the Frenchman represents a great signing.

Put it this way: if I was a City supporter I wouldn't be jumping up and down with glee.

Clichy
isn't the same player that he was when he first established himself in
the Arsenal starting XI and had people wondering whether he would be a
worthy successor to Ashley Cole - better, even - when the England
international left the club in the summer of 2006.

His form has
slumped quite

Pre-season has changed considerably since I was a player. Back then the attitude was to go away and drink and eat as much as you liked for six weeks. You were told to go and enjoy yourself after a long, hard season, get away from football and go and do all the things you hadn't had the chance to do over the previous nine months.

I certainly dreaded returning to my club for pre-season because after six weeks off we had to come back and work extremely hard. Players took upon themselves to go and have some fun in the sun, and maybe with a week to go they would try to do a bit of fitness work. But

Luka Modric looks set to be involved in one of the summer's big transfer sagas following Tottenham's rejection of Chelsea's £22 million bid for him and his comments about a potential move to Stamford Bridge.

Manchester United had previously been the first name linked with the 25-year-old, but now the Premier League's top two clubs are ready to fight over him.

Manchester City will inevitably try and elbow their way in for a piece of the action, but with David Silva on their books they already have their own midfield magician to call upon.

The little Croatian is a rare breed in the modern

Ashley Young was the right signing at a good price for United but I still think they need more in midfield to complete the jigsaw.

Young is going to have to hit the ground running - Antonio Valencia did really well coming back from serious injury so quickly and his only poor game was, unfortunately, in the Champions League final.

Young has something extra in that he can cross the ball and is brilliant with set pieces, which will help United as they haven't been relying so much on crosses of late.

He may have to change the way he plays a little but United may do so too if they are going to get

There was always going to be a gulf in class between Barcelona and Manchester United at Wembley, but that should not disguise the fact that Sir Alex Ferguson's tactical choices prevented us from seeing a closer contest.

They suffered from a lack of presence in midfield and I was quite surprised to see Darren Fletcher sat on the bench while Javier Hernandez partnered Wayne Rooney in a two-man attack.

I know Fletcher had been out for a while due to a virus and was lacking a bit of fitness, but his natural enthusiasm and his desire to play in the final - having missed out due to suspension in

The failure of England's Under-21 side to get out of their group at the European Championships is yet another in a long line of disappointments for the national team in recent years.

It was not even so much the results themselves that are so unpalatable, but the manner of them. The young players, just like their senior counterparts, seemed to run out of ideas all too quickly. It seems that creativity is just not in the English footballing culture. If you look at the Premier League, the main creative sources in most teams are foreigners.

How many truly accomplished all-round footballers have

Saturday's match against Switzerland at Wembley is a good opportunity for Darren Bent to build on his recent performances for England, but that should not disguise the fact that he is not international class and the country is bereft of top-class strikers.

If Bent scores against the Swiss, as he did in the away fixture in September and the qualifier against Wales in March, then he will have taken the chance presented to him once again. However, his ability pales in comparison to some of the strikers England have had in the past.

Bent is scoring with regularity in the Premier League, and