Pipe down Eddie

Does Eddie Johnson realize he is Eddie Johnson?

Currently at Fulham, Johnson hopes to sway new manager Mark Hughes that he is good enough to stay with the club this season instead of being loaned and to gain regular first-team action. The sometimes U.S. international, who got as far as the 30-man preliminary World Cup roster before being axed for younger and hotter forwards to play in South Africa, said yesterday that U.S. players are struggling to be respected in the English Premier League.

Now I don't know who he was talking about considering Clint Dempsey is one of the stars now in the league - ask fans of Fulham about Demps and they will talk about his legendary chip against Juventus in the Europa League last year - Timmy Howard and Brad Friedel are each considered two of the top 5 goal keepers in the league, and Landon Donovan made a pretty nice splash from January to March when he helped Everton accumulate top-notch scalps of both Manchester United and Chelsea.

In fact if you look around Europe the Americans are doing pretty well from Michael Bradley and Steve Cherundolo in the Bundesliga to Maurice Edu in Scotland to Charlie Davies in France to Jozy Altidore perhaps finally in Spain and Stuart Holden in England, U.S. players are certainly making in roads and names for themselves. And each year there are more and more.

Eddie's problem is that he has not been able to make headway in the Premiership because he is not that good and he does not work hard enough on the pitch. NOt to put down the U.S., but he couldn't even crack the roster for the World Cup. It seemed he had a bit of a resurgence when he was loaned to Greek side Aris with Freddy Adu, but to be perfectly honest Johnson probably never will be a regular first team player for any team that is in the EPL because he's just not skilled enough.