Posts Tagged ‘Premier League’

Sniffer Nose 26/10/09: Leeds United, Newcastle United, Premier League, Collymore is a fool special

Oct 26th, 09 / Comments Off

 

Your reading a pre 2010-11 archived article

You would think as a Leeds fan I would be pleased to see this piece of intellectual ruminating that appeared in this morning’s Daily Mirror: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/stan-collymore/To-make-the-Premier-League-the-best-get-Leeds-and-Newcastle-back-get-rid-of-small-clubs-and-scrap-relegation-and-promotion-article201025.html well you’d be wrong, very wrong.

Rather die than be promoted by stealth.

Lets gloss over, mainly for the benefit of sanity the reality that Stan Collymore’s place in history will be more related to the use of his fists in Paris and his knob on turn 7 than it will be for anything he ever did on the pitch or that he competes with Ian Wright for the “summariser with no idea” award, as they are not really germane here, the advocate of the ideas contained within the article could have come from the most respected of hero’s and it would still be dangerous rubbish. That a national newspaper pays Collymore money to produce this stuff only adds to the growing feeling of a game going slowly off its rocker!

Now I may attract a lot of flak off me own for this but I can’t think of anything worse for Leeds United to be arbitrarily promoted, at the expense of financially better run (and in reputational as well), football managed better and recent track record successful clubs. I can’t think of anything that would be worse in getting the shyster Bates out or cutting off at the legs Grayson’s possible potential and just as importantly can you imagine the extent of the glory hunting we would attract with that kind of fast track? No just in terms of my club, bollox to that.

Having tasted so much pain since 2002 I’m dammed if we are going to be denied the glory and pleasures of EARNED promotion simply to satisfy an idiotic concept.

Definition of a “big club”!

The article goes on about “bigger” and “smaller” clubs as if that definition can be applied rationally, big town, must be a big club, except in Bristol of course, small town, small support small club except Premier League winning/League Cup winning Blackburn Rovers. What tosh, it is one of the glories of our national game that the fortunes of clubs ebb and flow regardless of “size”, the best example of this is Newcastle United, a club Collymore would also fast track into his no relegation PL. How do the Toons quality as a big club other than none footballing related factors? Well it isn’t success, last trophy in 1969, 40 years ago! It certainly isn’t how they are run, the irony of the Ashley reign is that it is just the dessert to the Sheppard years.

Now I may attract a lot of flak from the barcodes for this but one Fairs Cup in my lifetime (47th season of) does not “big” club make. Within that time-span St James Park used to “rock” to crowds of all of 15k, the only reason it has the overblown ground it does now is due to the Keegan years coinciding with the explosion of monies within the PL (something which itself has meant a distorted competition both with the lucky 20 and the full 92). Even the small coal town down the road and the smoggy mess from the next estuary down have had more success than Newcastle since 1969. If you’re going down the road of franchise operations in PL football the only chance the Toons have of being the representatives of the North East is to merge with their two rivals and relocate to Hartlepool Marina (hang on I think I just gave Ashley an idea).

Tradition, investment, even a passion for the game, have no meaning unless the club claiming them have and CONTINUE to earn the accolade’s be it “big club” or not.

Death by franchise.

To be fair to Collymore he isn’t the first to spout this idiocy, Phil Gartside has being trying to flog a variant of this for the last few years (irony alert, Bolton would probably be classed as a small club by Collymore as would Bradford City, Leicester City and as likely as not twice European Cup winning Nottingham Forest, clubs Collymore was happy to ply his trade at!) including Rangers and Celtic. The prime motivation for all this is monopoly, greedy clubs with greedy chairman trying to prevent others getting a piece of the action. This greed gets distorted into ideas about banning promotion and relegation and consequently becomes just another version of the franchise concept. Is it a coincidence these type of idiocies are happening as American ownership of PL clubs explodes? No I don’t think so either given the moribund state of their so called big 5 sports!

Now I may attract a lot of flak from the glory hunters supporting PL clubs for this but any top division experience since the late 90’s is an inferior product to the more competitive nature of the other 3 divisions and 72 clubs. How any supporters, be they Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Bolton, Fulham or Wigan can stomach playing the same teams for the same positions year in year out I know not. Everyone of those clubs has a history where they had to overcome adversity and /or relegation, each of them knows success doesn’t come without the long road of preparation and ladder climbing. To even want a closed shop in theory is the thinking of the selfish and deluded. Don’t give me all that “investment” crap, life can be unfair sometimes but nothing is more unfair than monopoly.

Twenty years ago you could be confident that all supporters would hound an idea like Collymore’s out of town with super speed, not today, the innate selfishness of the glory seeking supporter would see to that. That reality however shouldn’t stop all right thinking fans, from all clubs, including those that might benefit from idiocy, to just stand up and shout NO!

The Other 91 Basket Cases

Football management zen and the art of moaning.

Aug 25th, 09 / Comments Off

Your reading a pre 2010-11 archived article

Two weekends into the new Premier League season and already we are witness to the wonderful range of whinging, moaning and one-eyed comments that have become compulsory with top division managers and coaches. Egged on by the controversial provoking nonsense that is the John Champions of this world and badgered by questions so convoluted they grate before they end the usual suspects have clearly had a good pre-season practising imaging injustice and perfecting outrage and as is usually the case, making bigger fools of themselves than they make of the referee/player/other manager attacked. It was always thus.

This weekend we witnessed two classic examples of why the Football Association should impose on the media a similar “no talking to managers for 30 minutes after the game ends” rule that is imposed on managers when thinking about approaching referees. Portsmouth’s Paul Hart and Blackburn’s Sam Allardyce gave us an exhibition of the art of accusation before establishing the facts. Before I go on to ritually humiliate this two an important point needs to be made. Managers like Allardyce and Redknapp who support the invading presence of video technology (“it would only take 10 seconds” is the incessant cry) seem incapable of using said tool to check before talking to the television companies that provide it. The FA didn’t help with the idiotic ban on TV’s being on benches while games are on that came in last season, the consequence of which is to provide managers with more scope to make unfounded criticisms.

Allardyce was particularly on form after the Sunderland game. The video showed clearly that the two disallowed goals were spot on decisions, with Samba the culprit on both occasions. Match of the Day at least had the decency to show the first incident as they broadcast his illogical blast, with the flying barge of the goalkeeper so blatant as to nearly constitute an assault. Now given that Allardyce is a poor man’s Sir Alex Ferguson on matters moaning (although to be fair to SAF he hasn’t really kicked it his season yet, he will though) it comes as no surprise he doesn’t understand that standing on the other teams goalies toes, on the goal line, constitutes interfering with play! Not for lesser bigger Sam than he was an analysis that lump ball didn’t work (apparently Allardyce gave his team an ear-full after a first half of productive ball-passing that brought the best out of his lone striker), that would involve being self-critical, something he couldn’t do if his life depended on it. Just to prove the point, when a day or so later (where no “sorry” towards the ref he lambasted was forthcoming) Blackburn’s well paid manager managed to paint the whole club as “a small town outfit” and that the reason he was losing Warnock to Villa and not attracting decent players was he hasn’t got the Jack Walker millions. With that level of innate public relations skill I sense he isn’t long for that job.

Sitting in the opposite dug-out was old conspiracy theory specialist Steve Bruce. Whilst not given a decent excuse to have a go after the victory he has still managed to spend the whole of the season so far ranting about fixture congestion, his main beef being he is having to rest players after 4 games!! Well such a line does rather lack credibility when your squad is still 50 players strong and you can throw in the likes of Healy and Reid for League Cup ties. Maybe if you had confidence in their fitness regime you could use rotation with the same productivity this seasons temporary Chelsea saviour does. Ancelotti is yet to come out of the media love-in that spookily replicated the same love-in that Scolari was in this time last season, but he is Italian so we will either get a Zola style “at peace with the world” or a Vialli style soap-opera at some point.

Anyway back to this week’s main offenders and specifically Paul Hart. As if this man isn’t under enough pressure already, managing a club no-one is sure who is going to own it, no transfer funds (although given that Hart has been Academy Director at pompay for a few years you’d think he’d use that experience to blood a few of his own products) and a previous management record that exudes failure. Cue a visit to the Emirates and we are witness to an early leader for this season most pathetic interview. In a monologue it must have taken hours for the VT editor to sort out Hart went on to state that if the referee had sent Gallas off for the heinous crime of being nearest Arsenal player to his own as that player kicked the back of his own leg, then his team would have gone on to win, right. Not only was he so wrong about the incident it was painful his attitude shows he has no place as a PL managers, he doesn’t want the rules or fair play to decide games he wants then decided by referees so scared by the pressure put on them they give decisions to save their careers. Utterly sickening and yet not so out of line with a series of similar managers throughout the leagues, like the world class “Colin” Mr Neil Warnock (well you didn’t think I was going to exclude him just because he manages in the Championship did you?). If Hart isn’t charged for this then the game becomes a little bit more like gridiron, something we will all regret.

Maybe Hart felt he could be so uniquely prejudiced because of the admission from Wenger in the build up to the game that he put protecting his players before he has looked at an incident again before hanging them out to dry. Will this admission lead to those who call Arsene a bad loser to reassess, well of course not, such people have a set position that no amount of factual interference with their opinion will change, the Alan Smith/Leeds United syndrome writ large. Wenger at least has the restraint of his team setting off like an house on fire despite the pundits lining up to suggest they are rubbish. David Moyes on the other hand as no such restraint but instead a major case of the thwarted ego. His behaviour over the Lescott transfer saga has exhibited a singular head in the sand attitude that has done nothing for his club or his reputation. Now interestingly if he had succeeded in cowering Man City and Lescott it would have reinforced his position as SAF’s natural successor, but alas reality kicked in. After 8 years a certain sameness is evident at Everton and when you factor in the 4-5-1/4-6-0 formation being practised at Goodison the less we see of them this season the better for all.

Obviously reference to Lescott brings us to Mark Hughes, normally in any discussion about one-eyed managers he would writ as large as a colossus, but he seems to have mellowed a little since he spread £215m around like confetti. Similarly would someone please release the real Rafael Benitez, because the one that did the interview after this team got humiliated at home to Villa clearly wasn’t him. The real one would have ranged on about the second goal (although again a nano second of thought would place any rational man fully on the side of Martin Atkinson) in that “on the verge of tears” way only he can muster. Instead the real Rafa primed his double with ammunition to fire at his own players, and to be fair it’s almost a relief that Gerrard is no longer “untouchable” when criticism is being bandied about. Now maybe, just maybe the reason why we didn’t get a tirade on the second goal was simple, Benitez looked at the incident again and was clearly struck on how the real issue was a defence so disorganised he must have felt professional embarrassment.

In the end there is a real sense that “less is more” when it comes to moaning football managers, that you get more respect and a better hearing if you’re not a serial idiot, programmed to excuses and finger-pointing ala Kevin Blackwell. For the Martinez’s and Hodgson’s of this world we can only give grateful thanks.

Football through a hardened glare

That time of year again….

Jul 26th, 09 / Comments Off

No copyright issues here.

As the close season gets shorter and television saturation beams games involving Premier League clubs live from every Asian city that would host them it becomes important to have a fixed point where it’s appropriate to start getting excited about the new season. In my case it isn’t the first pre-season friendly I attend (which this year was Kingstonian v Hampton and Richmond Borough, a game that seemed to indicate that the 7th division of English football had more passing and moving in it than the 3rd) instead it is the annual arrival of my mate Nick’s footy prediction league.

Nick’s prediction league, which has been running in various guises for over 10 years, is a good-un, covering all the elements, English leagues down to Conference, Scottish, European, live games including internationals, top scorer, team of the season and the obligatory tie-breaker question. For a small entrance fee about 30 of us have a season long competition, peppered with updates from the co-ordinator. I mention this not to advertise it, Nick doesn’t need it to grow any bigger, but as a prelude to a confession, I have had a mare in it every season for the last 6!

My problem is simple, I will always put my principles (or as my mates put it, prejudices) in front of winning, so no ManU winning anything, no Chelski either, no Celtic/Rangers 1-2, no Madrid, Milan or Munich winning their respective leagues, every year the same avoidance of the greedy clubs, every year the same good natured abuse from the rest of the competitors and every year the same humiliation. Also accompanying this is what’s known as the MG curse, basically I also always back a player from a non top 4 club as top scorer and litter my team of the year likewise and every year the curse strikes. Dean Ashton and Michael Chopra’s careers have never been the same! It happens too often to be co-incidence.

In an attempt to finally establish the scientific basis of the curse i have been inundated with requests to test it to an ultimate breaking point, basically I should back in 2009-10 all the clubs/players/managers whom I detest to see if some unprecedented failure should overcome them. I was resisting that until the moment I heard the Gerrard affray verdict where upon a overwhelming feeling of power overcame me (well disbelief, followed by anger for the death of even-handed British justice) and I decided there were so many deserving of my curse it was time to inflict it on the pampered overpaid pile of shite that this one time potential England captain is a manifest representation for. Yes I’m aware that if you try to create something that happens naturally it works less effectively but unless I grasp the nettle we may never know it’s true potential.

Clearly I won’t be replicating the whole form here, far too long but as a snippet here is my Team of the Season, with top goal scorer and manager of the year, all picked on their capacity to irritate and offend and deserving of bad luck and career knockback. As an added bonus I will be backing ManU to win everything they enter, can’t say fairer than that!

Top Goalscorer: Wayne Rooney. Pug just doesn’t change does he, gobby on the pitch, a bit part in his wife’s soap opera off it, prepared to let SAF play him in any position except the one that suits him, yet to use his youth boxing skills on a innocent member of the public productively but maybe that’s because “once a blue always a blue”, although to be fair can alienate both sides of his home town equally effectively.

Manager of the Year (joint award for tie): Sam Allardyce and Phil Brown. When these two buddies inflicted their anti-football on the world in the late 90’s and perfected it in the PL at Bolton how could we know that despite the evidence from their first stints of running clubs without the others assistance (Newcastle and Derby) they would both still contend they are gods gift to management!! I can’t decide which I dislike the most, Allardyces whinge that only his brummie accent stopped him getting the England job or Brown celebrating one win in 30 games as the equivalent of a World Cup win. I’m sure the good supporters of Blackburn and Hull are licking their lips at the footyfest to come!

Team of the year (4:3:1:2).
GK: Shay Given. Controversial choice this, some see a world class goalie who was rewarded for his years of Toon service with one of the early post Arab money City deals. I see a mercenary, slightly over-rated and a real streak of delusion about him. Yes I could have picked others for this position but sometimes you need to be ahead of the game.
RB: Glen Johnson. Dartford’s finest shop-lifter is already on his 4th PL club, up there with the Bowyers and Irelands of this world in intellectual rigour. Just as he looks like he might have a European class game he inevitability reverts to inconsistency. A classic example of the modern curse of taking an athlete and trying to make them footballers.
LB: Ashley Cole. No contest, where else can you find such a package of arrogance, idiocy, celebrity culture and popularity in such a small package. Not content with occasional attempted leg-breaking tackles and abusive mouth Mr Cole A also does a running commentary on his psychological obsession with hating Arsenal despite all they did for his career, apparently they didn’t think he was worth £80k a week, scandalous, expensive at twice the price.
CB1: Nemanja Vidic. So your player of the season, despite being humiliated in the game of the season and getting sent off in the World Club Final. The respect he gets seems to be because of his ability to tug, shove, elbow and kick off at the drop of a hat. Such qualities make him potentially a new Beckenbauer, or is that Ian Ure.
CB2: John Terry. It matters not whether it’s at Chelski or City, this over-rated bouncer-bashing loon will still be on £200k a week, still carrying more injuries than an average London A+E unit on a Saturday night and still a disgraceful choice as an England captain. To be fair though, he will always have that penalty!
RM: David Beckham. You know it’s going to happen, a loan move back to England, back to his scummer mates so he can show the best league in the world how to he has lost his legs, float predictable balls into the box, jump on barriers offering supporters out when the mildest criticism is heard, all in the cause of making the England squad for South Africa so he can go into the record books as having been to 4 World Cups and being a fucking liability in them all.
CM: John Mikel Obi. Has there ever been a player so widely hyped that produces so little. ManU must consider they had a lucky escape making £16m on a player they never actually signed! Recent recipient of a new 5 year contract and a driving ban, well maybe he aspires to Jermaine Pennant standards!
LM: Rory Delap. Saints preserve us from the long-throw game. Up there with Beckham as a “special teams” player. Ban his run-up throw (please) and he wouldn’t make Port Vale’s team.
“In the Hole”: Steven Gerrard. So to clarify the Gerrard principal is that because he is well-known he is allowed to punch as hard as he likes anyone who slightly annoys him, despite no evidence of threat and whilst surrounded by his mates (all of which are duty bound to take the rap in Woodgate mates style) and call it self-defence. Well that’s the thing isn’t it on £120k a week personal security just costs too much. Newly crowned scouse knobhead no1 (no mean feat given the existence of Rooney, Barton and most of the Accrington Stanley squad).
S: Michael Owen. Legend. From relegated chaos to CL finalists in one bound (via some nice printed material). Am I the only person who thinks SAF only signed him so he could exchange horse-racing tips?
S: Emmanual Adebayor. If he joined City for the trophies and not for the money then he must have forgotten to ask his agent how much! This player seems to have a Mark Viduka style ability to take a good team down whilst his personal goal scoring form reflects the increase in his sulking.

And finally an extra category I hope to persuade Nick to put in (provoked by a rant I just read) “Life-time Achievement Award”: Sir Alex Ferguson. Where would we be without SAF and his provocative press coverage, all distributed by his groupies disguised as football writers. Take his “City small club, stupid and arrogant” comments recently, remind yourself of his decade long feud with the BBC that had the effrontery to expose his son’s dodgy transfer dealings, mix in the £5m worth horse gift saga, his 25 year long tendency to piss off every other decent manager in the PL (but not failures like Allardyce), intimidation of referees and fourth officials, tapping up and responsibility for half the worlds chewing gum litter problem and how boring would life be if we had missed all that and just had football to concern ourselves with. Here’s to another 25 years of one-eyed wine influenced nonsense never questioned.

Obviously I’m disappointed I no longer have Ronaldo or Joey Barton to find a place in my list, still I can get the former in my mate Rob’s CL prediction league. The latter will look after himself regardless. Now, do I back Leeds or not?

Late July 09.

Football through a hardened glare