I'm glad someone else noticed.

I'm gonna put her in the fave cheese thread!

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But it was quite disappointing to hear that people wanted him to be fined for his celebration in his Superman pants.

You have to be so careful nowadays with how you celebrate because it seems that the fun element when celebrating goals is disappearing.

It is not as though he was naked or anything and it was not hurting anyone so I do not really see anything wrong with it.

To be honest, I was supposed to do that celebration with him. We both bought the same pants at the same time!

However, I was not playing so I could not join him - and I am quite pleased now because otherwise I would have got the same stick.

I know Stevie really well, after coming through the ranks with him at City, and his mates here have helped him through his problems, which are well documented.

He lives opposite me - his front door is about five seconds away from mine - and we always help each other out.

I have been out since twisting my knee against Bolton but the good news is that hopefully I will be fit to face Portsmouth on Sunday

Some of the things that have been said about him in the press recently have been ridiculous and, at the end of the day, he is a normal human being.

People are always trying to criticise Stevie but he actually has quite a strong character, so for him still to be putting in good performances for City, with everything he has had to deal with, shows that.

He is a quality player who was always highly rated when he was a youngster at City and is now one of the top players in our first team.

Stevie has so much up his sleeve skill-wise and has a good goalscoring record as well. He is always in the right position.

If you have seen his goal against Sunderland then you can see what good technique he has. Some people would have taken an extra touch and some would have fluffed the volley but, from the way he took it, you can tell he is a special player.

It was frustrating for me to miss that game through injury. I watched it from my box at Eastlands and I was kicking every ball - like any player I just wanted to be out there.

I went down to the changing room afterwards just to congratulate everybody because it was not an easy game.

Sunderland work hard and have some good players. It was never going to be a walkover so it was a good three points to get.

We did not play well and people may say we are riding our luck at the moment but we are not third for no reason.

606: DEBATE Give your reaction to Micah's column

It was good to bounce back from losing 6-0 to Chelsea by beating Bolton in the Carling Cup and then to get another home Premier League win was important.

I have been out since twisting my knee against Bolton but the good news is that hopefully I will be fit to face Portsmouth on Sunday.

At the time my knee felt really painful but a couple of days later it was a lot better. It was only bruising and I should be back in training on Thursday.

Portsmouth will be a tough challenge because, even when they were not doing so well in the league, going there is always a hard game and they are currently fifth in the Premier League.

We have won seven out of seven in the league at home but we know there is room for improvement with our away record too.

I am not exactly sure what that is down to but it makes a big difference when you have 40,000 fans behind you at home. I did not think that when I used to watch games but when you are playing the crowd makes a difference.

Whatever the reason, we have to get it right and start winning games away from home if we want to challenge in the top six.

Feliz Año Neuvo

It will not be enjoyable but I will be watching the Israel-Russia game on Saturday night. I just have to.

I get the weekend off after England fly back from Friday's friendly with Austria - I don't have to report back to the squad until 10pm on Sunday - so I will be watching on TV at home.

There is nothing I can do except hope and pray that Israel pick up at least a point.

It is not nice to be relying on what other people are doing for us to qualify for the Euro 2008 finals but I am sure Israel will give it a good go.

It was important for me to be back in action for Manchester City against Portsmouth on Sunday after my knee injury and I have not suffered any ill-effects.

We know ourselves how difficult it is to go there - we only got a 0-0 draw - and hopefully they can do the same against Russia and we can beat Croatia on 21 November.

Depending on what happens elsewhere, it is still possible that we can go through with a draw but we have to focus on getting a victory at Wembley.

The memory of our defeat in Russia is still painful but that is now in the past and we have to concentrate on the task in front of us.

There has been a lot of speculation about coach Steve McClaren's future if we don't make it - the English media can be very harsh - but that is not something I am thinking about right now.

There is still a lot to play for and it is not impossible that we can make it. We just have to concentrate on qualifying.

We have to stay positive. If we had an away game as our last qualifier then it might be a different story but we seem to be a different team at home and we are confident that we can keep that up.

Our last three qualifiers at Wembley were all must-win games. We won all of those and it is the same again this time, we have to produce.

We will have to go out there and play our game, block everything else out, try to get the three points and hopefully that will be enough.

Friday's friendly with Austria will be a chance to test a few things out ahead of the Croatia game, which is the big one.

With John Terry's injury and Rio Ferdinand being suspended, I could be asked to play at centre-back and I would feel more than comfortable to play there.

606: DEBATE Your chance to quiz Micah

As I have said previously, I do not mind whether I play at right-back or in the middle and if the manager asks me to play somewhere then I will always give 100%.

The main thing in that game will be to stay injury free. I have already mentioned we have JT and Rio out, as well as Wayne Rooney, so any more injuries would be a real blow - we have to make sure we stay fit and fresh.

On that note, it was important for me to be back in action for Manchester City against Portsmouth on Sunday after my knee injury and I have not suffered any ill-effects.

We knew Pompey would be tough opponents and a draw was a good result for us.

In a few of the games he has played for us, our goalkeeper Joe Hart has not had much to do and in the Chelsea game he could do hardly anything about their goals.

But on Sunday he showed why he is number one. He was excellent, not only his shot-stopping but his communication to the rest of the defence as well.

"Sven, Sven, wherever you may be, you are the King of Man City, you can have my wife on our settee if you win us a cup at Wem-ber-ley!"

The players definitely thought he was the right man for the job but when you are England manager you get assessed on results.

After what happened on Wednesday, people are going to think 'why should we keep him?' but I am sad to see him go.

Becks tried to touch my dong

He gave me my England debut and for someone to pick a defender for England at 18, like he did with me, takes balls.

I feel sorry for him that results did not go his way because it is not just me that likes him - all the lads do.

It is not easy to come into the England set-up at that age but Steve made me feel welcome and he put me on the map.

I haven't spoken to him yet but I will send him a text in the next week or so when things cool down a bit to tell him thanks for everything he did for me.

There have been lots of names put forward to replace him, some of them English, some British and some foreign.

The English like things done the English way, but maybe you can look elsewhere and just look at a manager's status, rather than where they come from.

We will have to see, but to me it doesn't really matter as long as whoever gets the job can drive us forward, like McClaren planned to.

I still can't believe what happened in our defeat by Croatia. I thought I felt bad after Manchester City's 6-0 defeat by Chelsea in October, but you can multiply that by 10 - I was just devastated.

I feel for the fans who witnessed that at Wembley. The players know they are gutted but we are as well and it really hurts.

I had some texts after the game saying 'unlucky' but I didn't want to hear that. We had just lost and we were out of the European Championship.

I felt sorry for Scott Carson because people don't see behind the scenes and he has been England's best goalkeeper in training for the last month.

People asked why McClaren put him in but we don't go training for nothing, we go to show what we can do.

Scotty had done that, and has been in great form for Villa this season, but he was unfortunate with the first goal and kept us in it with some good saves. He showed character and that is why he will come back from this.

606: DEBATE Your chance to quiz Micah

Where did it go wrong? Well, I can't say we were unlucky because we weren't. We got beaten by the better team which is upsetting because we were at home in front of nearly 90,00 fans.

The players have to take as much responsibility as the manager for what happened.

Because we only needed a draw I think we got a little bit complacent. There were nerves too, which normally go after the first whistle.

When we went 2-0 down, we all knew - well I knew - that if we got the first goal when we came back out we would get it back to 2-2.

But when we did equalise we seemed to take our foot off the gas which was a bad idea and we were punished.

There are plenty of 'ifs, buts and maybes' - it's gone now - but there were players out there who didn't perform and I will hold my hand up as being one of them.

The thing is with England is that we have such good players but we don't really seem to play to the best of our abilities and I don't know why.

We've got some of the best players in the world and we seem to do it every week for the clubs, it's just disappointing that we can't do it for our country.

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