At The Final Whistle

Terry Takes His Toll

2012-02-07T19:27:00.001Z

The past few days have been a tumultuous nightmare of bad publicity for the England team and the Football Association. As the spiralling blame game continues, none of the associated parties are emerging without any fault.

The FA started the ball rolling when they decided to remove John Terry from the England captaincy last week. Their reasoning was that once Terry's trial date had been moved to after the European Championships this summer, they had no choice but to act. Though they may have been clumsy in only making this decision at this late stage, and in neglecting to properly include Fabio Capello in the decision making process, they ultimately, haphazardly reached the correct choice of action.

The press have fuelled the pressure to act, but whatever your reasoning, John Terry's position had become untenable. His profile and former position as captain have responsibilities that exacerbate his precarious reputation, and neither of these should have been allowed to make him immune from the seriousness of what he has been accused of.

The FA were clearly hoping to have had Terry go to trial and to be (ideally) found innocent of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand. It is difficult not to be cynical about the FA's motivation and beliefs. Once the police had decided that their investigation warranted a prosecution, the FA should have made a moral stand at that juncture. Instead they have hesitated and squirmed until matters have forced their hand. Ultimately, even the FA realised that for England to go into a major international tournament, with their captain facing such charges, would be a monumentally embarrassing PR disaster.

However, much of the last few days has shifted focus upon a clearly irritable Capello. The England manager has said his piece on Italian TV, in the full deliberate glare of the press and public. Credit where due, he has fairly stated that John Terry is innocent until proven guilty by a civil court. But, he is choosing to ignore Terry's obligations when acting as the figurehead of the national team. In fact it is a common practice for any normal employee under investigation to be suspended or put on gardening leave. Capello should really be grateful that he is still free to select the Chelsea captain at all.

The fact that he can has raised further anger amongst critics. This is understandable as whilst he is apparently unfit to lead the England team, the FA's compromise leaves him able to engage in the full range of his other obligations. Baffling as it may be, there is clearly a grey area over an issue that stems from a black man being allegedly abused by a white man.

The discussion over who will succeed Terry as captain has also been complicated. Capello has made his feelings clear that whoever does get the final nod (most likely Steven Gerrard), will do so in the knowledge that the England manager doesn't really regard them as such.

Of course Terry has already lost the captaincy once before. The infamous situation regarding Wayne Bridge's former girlfriend was denied by all parties except Bridge, who has remained in a silent, self-imposed international retirement ever since. This was preceded by accusations about the Chelsea captain making lucrative sums of bonus money by selling private tours of the Chelsea training ground.

None of these incidents have ever been proven or properly corroborated, but they have all added up to besmirching the character of John Terry. It could be that he has simply been unfairly portrayed over the years by a narcissistic media and that he should be given more credit. Then again, there have been further rumours that Terry was shunned by some members of the England squad when it last met up, suggesting a far from wholly supportive atmosphere.

Whether or not that is the case remains to be seen, but no doubt the former England captain will find the next few months stressful, as will Anton Ferdinand. What is now apparent is that between the FA and Fabio Capello, the England set-up has missed any opportunities it had to handle the issue without creating further ones. If this is as decisive as things get, Euro 2012 may well end up being even worse for England fans than the last World Cup.

Arsenal come Acropo-lis!

2011-12-08T20:59:00.001Z

On Tuesday evening I was present amongst the away fans at the Karaiskakis Stadium to witness Olympiakos versus Arsenal in the Champions League. Although the result wasn’t to end up matching my expectations, the experience as a whole was to more than make up for the disappointment.

It was my first experience of traveling to an away game for a European club competition, and whilst I have previously traveled to away games in England, the excitement was altogether different. The major factor in this is that you can combine your day at the football, with a small holiday too, what’s there not to like!

Things started off bizarely enough as I made my way through departures at Heathrow, and as I glided down the escalator I realised that Richard E. Grant was standing right in front of me. Thankfully I thought better of disturbing him with 'Withnail and I' quotes, especially as it was early and he didn't look to be in the mood. What I will say though, is that the silver screen doesn't do his height justice!

From the evidence of my flight out to Athens, and the following two and a half days, it was clear that a number of other Arsenal fans had also decided to elongate their trip, rather than plumping for the over-priced 24 hour option offered through the club. And, it must be said, there is an amusingingly surreal nature to bumping into fans of the same club as you when you’re 1500 miles away from your home ground.

What’s even more amusing is when you bump into such fans in the most unique of places. On Monday afternoon, my partner and I were in the midst of wandering around the Acropolis and the temples that adorn it, the most famous of which being the Parthenon.

It’s a mind boggling site, even in its current state of restoration and surrounding scaffolding. An ancient mythological achievement from more than 2000 years ago, and yet here I was, finishing my look around, when I spotted the distinctive site of bright yellows and red.

Three Arsenal fans, with a mixed heritage of Turkish, Pakistani and English between them, were proudly sporting their replica shirts atop the Acropolis. If ever there was proof needed to symbolise that us football fans can be cultured, this was it. We may sometimes drink too much and be a bit loud, but at the very least we contribute to the local tourist industry and learn about our surroundings!

(Here I must thank the guys again for being good sports and for giving me permission to take photographic evidence of them for this article-at the south side of the Parthenon)

As for the game itself, we don't need to go over the scoreline and details again too much (ahem! 3-1 to the home team). Rather, the atmosphere was certainly a pretty tense one to behold. The reputation of the Olympiakos fans had left me expecting to need to be pretty cautious, however, this was misleading.

Whilst the crowd could clearly be intimidating, there was no sense of fear as you would expect away at Galatasaray for example. It was more like an old Eastern bloc political rally at times, with very well regimented chanting and the holding of placards. Around kick-off, the North Stand unveiled a banner than ran the length of the advertising hordings, which simply said 'Score, win and let us dream'. This was something that was to become strangley apt later on in the night.

Arsenal's opening half was calamitous, with Fabianski and then his replacement Mannone both making a hash of the goals. Sébastien Squillaci was awful, and if Johan Djourou ever plays right back again, I will have nightmarish flash-backs.

Therefore, the second half was a case of it can only get better. And sure enough it did, Yossi Benayoun was an inspiration, playing like he had a point to prove he was the driving force going forward.

André Santos also joined the injury list, and his replacement Ignasi Miquel made a good impression on his European debut. He showed far better resolve than plenty of other more experienced players, and contributed to the Arsenal goal, when Benayouns excellent volley found the net.

Sadly, despite chances (especially a late Rosický one-on one), Arsenal could not nick a point and instead they conceded an 89th minute sucker-punch. Nonetheless, the well-represented away fans got many last laughs. The Gunners won their group regardless, and in injury-time news came through that Marseille had dramatically recovered from 2-0 down to eventually defeat Borussia Dortmund 3-2, thus ending the home fans dream.

The Olympiakos support suddenly went very flat as the 'Gooners' got very smug. The boldest chants were for the home sides deadliest rivals Panathinaikos, and the funniest concerned the Greek deficit. Although it goes without saying that it was all in good taste- it seems that politics and culture are the surprising bedfellows of English football!

So, all in all my first European away fixture was a lot of fun to be had. I will certainly be planning future voyages, competition progress withstanding. It is doubful though that any future return flight will be matched with the splendid news that both Manchester United and Manchester City would soon be facing up to the Europa League. Never has a defeat been so easy to take!

What will Sepp Blatter do next?!

2011-11-17T22:08:00.001Z

If it wasn't so tragic, you could almost laugh at the awkward absurdity that has enveloped the football world in the past couple of days. Sepp Blatter, the embarrassing elder statesman of the sport- and still the most powerful man in it, has struck again. FIFA may like to claim that they are the victims of a witch-hunt by a resentful British press, but with friends like Blatter, they have all the enemies they could need.

Many people will have heard of the FIFA president's comments regarding racism, made in two separate interviews, and which came to light this Wednesday. If only diplomatic relations could be settled by the shaking of hands, think of all the wars and conflicts throughout history which could have been ended before they had started! Blatter must believe we live in a naive Utopia where everything can be swept under the carpet.

Alas this is far from reality, FIFA's leading figure has simply notched up another in a long line of clangers. If you look back at his track record there have been comments about women footballers wearing more revealing kits, and last year he jokingly suggested that homosexuals “should refrain from any sexual activities” during the Qatar World Cup in 2022.

With his latest episode he has edged closer to a full house of ignorant comments, it's as if he wondered- “hmmm, sexism-check, homophobia-check, what am I missing? Oh yes something inappropriate about racism issues!”

All of this doesn't even touch upon the large dossier of unanswered questions that remain over the alleged corruption that FIFA is riddled with. Surely this man's position is completely untenable? Sadly, it is more likely that the ageing Swiss will dodge another scandal and maintain the norm. If you think politicians get away with far too much, try the plush surroundings of a FIFA presidency to make yourself impenetrable.

Rather depressingly there has been far from widespread global condemnation of Blatter and his slip-up. Either other footballing associations are in fear of the despot, or campaigns such as Kick it Out have plenty left to negotiate when tackling attitudes towards race around the world. England players being abused on the basis of their skin colour has occurred in Spain and Bulgaria in recent years, and this has demonstrated how less ethnically diverse societies still have a long way to go in eradicating old prejudices.

The former footballer Paul Elliot, in an interview with Thursday's Guardian, spoke about how football mirrors wider society. He makes a very good point, and I have mentioned this in the past in relation to times of economic woe, and this coinciding with a rise in football violence amongst fans (Football Troubles).

Racism had already re-emerged as a prevalent issue in the British game due to Luis Saurez being charged by the FA for racially abusing Patrice Evra, and John Terry being under investigation for similar actions towards Anton Ferdinand. However, on the positive side, society in Britain has moved on in a huge way from the 1970's and 80's. Rather than these incidents and Blatter's comments being accepted, they have been rightly and widely condemned as unacceptable.

Of course, this does not mean that bigoted views no longer exist in grounds around the UK, education is still required to further improve attitudes, as organisations like the BNP are sadly still visible- even if they are a twisted minority.

Football and other sports are still very far from dealing with other areas of discrimination too, such as on the basis of sexuality and religion, but as society becomes more accepting so should this improve. What could help is the bringing in of a younger generation at the top of the FIFA infrastructure, and the resignation of Mr Blatter.

Ultimately, the likes of Kick it Out will face being undermined if the most accountable man in football is allowed to keep making a mockery of a game that is played by and can influence billions of people.

Cristiano Ronaldo- great football skills, poor people skills

2011-09-23T18:23:00.000+01:00

Not all football fans may have seen a small, but widely circulated, news story last week. It concerned the Portuguese and Real Madrid no. 7, who during his mercurial career has never been one to stray too far from some form of wind-up. However, this wasn't to do with anything that happened on the pitch, but rather what came out of Ronaldo's mouth.

Back in January 2007, I witnessed first hand the kind of widespread vitriol that was aimed at the then Manchester United talisman. Whilst warming up for an international friendly against Brazil, the crowd mercilessly booed his every touch in a near pantomime fashion. Admittedly, with the match at the Emirates stadium, there 'may' have been some bias from the fans gathered. But, it was his infamous wink at the proceeding summer's World Cup that had led to many fans abusing him afterwards, in the vast majority of stadiums around England.

Of course, many of those same fans can contribute to giving football a bad name, by either failing to see the bigger picture or simply not being at all rational. For example, in that World Cup, Wayne Rooney had hardly helped himself. His quarter-final sending off against Portugal was as much to do with his own frustrations, as it was to do with Ronaldo's goading. Witch hunts are a default mode for football fans when things go pear-shaped, and the passions that fly around often lead to there being the need for someone to blame, rather than any collective.

Still, this is a natural reaction when anything negative happens, from natural disasters to economic meltdowns, we all feel better venting our anger at a target. Of course, when a target seemingly goes out of their way to present themselves, one may start to question the psyche that is involved! This brings me to Ronaldo, who last week said, I quote, "I think that because I am rich, handsome and a great player people are envious of me. I don't have any other explanation".

This gem of a response came after Ronaldo was asked by an interviewer, in the wake of Real Madrid's 1-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb, his thoughts on their fans. Just like I had seen four years ago, Ronaldo was on the end of endless jeering. You could look at this response from many different angles, such as, is he that self-obsessed or was he deliberately trying to get a rise out of his detractors?

On the other hand, some people may say that it was a justified reaction from a player that has received more grief from football fans than any other in recent times, why should he have to put up and shut up? Well, in the grand scheme of things, he is an extremely talented football player at the top of his profession, and one who reportedly earns €11 million a year. With the current global markets as they are, I'm pretty confident that there would be a long line of the world's population who would gladly take that sort of trade off!

This doesn't mean that the rich and famous deserve abuse, far from it. Instead, I suggest that it may improve Ronaldo's standing if he was to be a little humble, kind of like his rival (and the altogether more gifted) Lionel Messi. Football fans are actually not that unforgiving, beyond the initial anger. Fabregas has left Arsenal as a revered player, he may have left for Barcelona after their incessant tapping-up, but he has still departed with good grace. Compare that with Samir Nasri, who has petulantly engaged in a war of words with Arsenal fans after joining Manchester City, and it is safe to say that the Frenchman has soured what reputation he had at the Emirates.

Unfortunately it does appear to be the case that too many of the generally rich and famous exist in a bubble of ignorance. Comments such as Ronaldo's only serve to ostracise him from ordinary members of the public, especially when the economy is in such strife and his inflated sense of self-worth apparently indicates our envy. Sadly football in general has failed to recognise this, with ticket prices continuing to rise, namely to cover the spiralling wages of players.

Regardless of the debates about salary caps or football clubs running at a loss, the fans of the sport can be just as fickle as they are forgiving. If Cristiano Ronaldo really wants to be remembered as one of the great players, he would do well to reign in his ego and to train his people skills up to match those of his feet. After all, without football fans making the game as popular as it is, he couldn't be so proud of being rich.

Good and bad money matters, for Swansea and FIFA

2011-06-01T23:28:00.002+01:00

Prior to the continuing debacle that is FIFA, this article was originally going to solely concentrate on me having been at Wembley on Monday afternoon/evening. Instead I'll reflect upon what was an entertaining, and at times pulsating Championship play-off final, before looking at the elephant in the room that is Sepp Blatter.

So, we begin with Swansea and Reading; who produced a classic example of 'a game of two halves'. Swansea rode their luck after an inconspicuous opening, before they capitalised upon a despondent Reading, as they established a 3-0 half-time lead. A Scott Sinclair brace and Stephen Dobbie's pounce on a defensive half-clearance set the scene.

To their credit, Reading spent the opening twenty minutes of the second half laying siege to the Swansea goal. The Berkshire club clearly believed that they could emulate Liverpool's 2005 Champions League final comeback against AC Milan. And they were only to be denied by half the width of a post, when Jem Karacan's deflected strike swiftly followed a Joe Allen own goal and a Matt Mills header, which had brought the score back to 3-2.

This was the key moment of the game, for if Reading had managed to overturn a 3-0 deficit, Swansea's spirit may well have been broken. But even though Reading stayed on top as the half developed, their momentum and energy began to sag. With ten minutes to go Brian McDermott's side conceded a second soft penalty, and with it Sinclair completed his hat-trick and Swansea's rise to the top tier of English football.

The Swans fans had been nervously quiet since the first half, but the fourth goal transformed their end of Wembley into a playground of excitable, bouncing white shirts. All in all it was a great advert for the Championship and for Wembley, which continues to establish itself amongst the world's best stadiums.

As for next season, Swansea look like they will entertain the top level in the same fashion as Blackpool and Burnley have in recent times. Although they may also struggle to avoid relegation, something that followed both teams' good starts. Reading meanwhile must be among the firm favourites to go up in 2011-12, if of course they hold on to the likes of Shane Long.

Now, on to FIFA and more pertinently Sepp Blatter. The question remains as to why and how this man is allowed to treat football as if it is the sporting equivalent of Silvio Berlusconi, namely corrupt and embarrassing.

Whether Blatter likes it or not, FIFA is in a crisis that is slowly coming to some sort of head. Sponsors such as Emirates have voiced their concern, and ironically it may be the threat of financial losses that could spur the organisation into acting.

However, after today's actions, this looks very far from happening. At a press conference, Blatter and 172 delegates demonstrated their lack of contact with reality. The English FA, represented by David Bernstein, had presented a joint motion with the Scottish FA to postpone the election for the FIFA presidency. Their reasoning is that FIFA should really be investigating the corruption allegations against Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner, rather than giving Blatter another unopposed mandate as President.

And so instead, FIFA's overwhelming majority has endorsed a one-man election, reminiscent of a totalitarian, one-party state. Blatter has said that in future all delegates should be involved in the World Cup bidding process, but there has been little recognition of the wider concerns involving the accused members of his executive committee.

In fact many delegates chose to stand up for Blatter in the most unashamed manner today. In response to Bernstein's proposal, the FA was subjected to wild name-calling and general nit-picking to the extent of frustrating hilarity. Many implied that the FA is simply stirring-up trouble and that they are retaliating to the failed 2018 World Cup bid.

This is simply a blatant attempt to discredit and then shoot the messenger. The Panorama programme that helped to spur several corruption allegations has some very pressing and real questions for FIFA, Blatter and his executive committee to answer. However, in response they are waging a PR war against those that disparage them, in a crass attempt to distract from and bury the issue.

And now, football fans around the world have another four years to enjoy of an institution that is led by a man who is increasingly painting himself into a corner. Blatter may be right to value the independent status and power that FIFA has, but if he is to allow this prestige to be abused, football may be better off if it has to answer to the politicians. Otherwise the fear is that football will continue to be ruled by an ageing old boy’s network intent on scratching each other’s backs...

Kenny Daglish- what a relief?!

2011-02-15T23:50:00.001Z

As a certain songwriter once said, these times they are a changin...
Even the most pessimistic of Liverpool fans can't have failed to get misty eyed about the managerial return of Kenny Daglish on January 8th. And so far the romantic reunion has lived up to expectations.

There were many doubters about Liverpool's choice of successor for Roy Hodgson. The shock of last season's LMA manager of the year being sacked, coupled with the end of Daglish's ten year hiatus, meant that nostalgia went into overdrive.

Much was made of the large gap in his C.V., and I even saw the move compared with Newcastle's reappointment of Kevin Keegan (midway through 2007/08). All of this was understandable but also a little insulting and presumptuous.

Football may have got more lavish in it's spending, more physically fit and owe too much to T.V. companies. However, the bare essentials are more or less the same as ever. Tactics, motivation and training evolve slightly, but they are skills that are not easily dispersed, especially if your name is Kenny Daglish.

It is hard to find any examples of a player turned manager, who has been so synonymous with the successful history of a single club. George Graham at Arsenal is an obvious comparison, but even his achievements pale next to Daglish.

Aside from the 3 European Cups, and later the domestic double in his first season as player manager, there is one other nagging statistic. Liverpool's last league title is from another era, and of course Daglish was in charge of that 1989/90 campaign.

His Anfield return has obviously fuelled hopes of a resurrection of the Liverpool glory years. And whilst this may be far from realistic, the signs so far have been encouraging.

Since his first spell as Liverpool manager, the Scot will have witnessed the footballing balance of power shift dramatically. His time there preceded the rise of Ferguson's Manchester United and their subsequent battles with Arsenal and Chelsea. Money has also contributed to Liverpool losing their number one status, although the January transfer window saw a statement of intent.

For all the fuss over Torres' £50m move, it seems increasingly like Daglish has pulled of the shrewdest dealings. After also offloading Ryan Babel to Hoffenheim, the club have made a net loss of a little over £1m and recruited two strikers.

Luis Saurez will undoubtedly provide quality and fire power, and although over-priced, Andy Carroll could be moulded into a proper international. Their greater depth up front and the strong likelihood of more summer signings, all suggest a serious new ambition under Daglish's influence.

Rafa Benitez's era was sometimes haphazard in the transfer market (Robbie Keane, Alberto Aquilani), and he made a fatal error over Xabi Alonso from which he would never recover. Over time his Liverpool became frail and were too reliant on Torres and Gerrard. In contrast it is difficult to imagine Daglish overlooking a squad that isn't the equal of it's individual parts.

The odds are now very slim on there being anyone else in the manager's role at Anfield come next August. The recent run of four consecutive clean sheet victories, after a relatively slow start, have demonstrated the new serene and confident air around Liverpool.

The Reds are still a work in progress and at best should aim at re-consolidating themselves in the top four next season. But with 'King Kenny' back at his spiritual home, Liverpool may have at least restored the values behind their last league triumph, and that is a start.

In Daglish's own recent words, "The players know the football club is more important than any individual". Despite that, you can be sure that there are some fans who believe that that individual is back where he belongs.

Should international players be good on and off the pitch?

2010-11-10T01:18:00.001Z

Every so often the subject of whether or not a player should be playing for his country gets raised. Usually it's a gripe about a player's form, but there are occasions that concern what they are up to outside the game of football.

The latest in this line of 'undesirables' is the much talked-up Andy Carroll. The Newcastle striker has impressed on the pitch so far this season, and has scored 6 league goals in 11 games. He clearly learnt his trade well during last season's Championship winning campaign.

At the same time football fans would have found it hard not to be equally aware about Carroll's recent problems of a criminal nature. There have been three separate cases of varying degrees of assault in the last two years and he is currently on bail until January for the most recent one. Living with the Newcastle captain Kevin Nolan has not saved him from more unwanted press attention after his car was set alight and use of cocaine was alleged in their presence.

Glenn Roeder weighted in with his opinion that whilst Carroll deserves an England call-up (for the upcoming friendly with France), he should be made to wait a little longer for his debut. The former Newcastle player and manager reasons that if he appears for England so soon after his recent indiscretions, it would send out a poor example to young players and fans alike.

This is a fair point, and one that will probably divide opinion. However it should not be brushed aside, morally speaking it seems perfectly reasonable, surely football players should face similar consequences to everyone else. If that means that Andy Carroll has to prove that he can not only play well but behave well for a period of time, that's fair isn't it?

Of course some arguments seem to mostly bypass this line of thought and are developed from a purely footballing perspective. If the best players are fit and available then we should play them and reap the awards. That is a typical line that plays well to the spirit of wanting to win, but it is less welcoming if you are to consider integrity.

Newcastle team mate and former bad boy Joey Barton has stated that "sometimes you need the players who don't always toe the line”. This is an understandable point to make if we're talking about a player with disciplinary problems on the pitch- who hasn't commented that the England team could do with being a bit feistier at times. Unfortunately however we are talking about assault, something a bit more serious, and that's where Barton's logic fails.

Players can redeem and rehabilitate themselves as much as anyone, Barton himself is a case in point. A clear record since Alan Shearer's ill-fated time in charge of the Magpies, coupled with his impressive form this season should ideally lead to him receiving a first England call-up since 2007. I like many appreciated Barton's comical analysis of Frank Lampard's autobiography after the 2006 World Cup, but perhaps he is rather thinking of himself with his quote.

The midfielder also said of the selection process facing Fabio Capello, that "hopefully they will stop worrying about Goody Two Shoes image which the sponsors want for England”. He goes on to suggest that this is in part to blame for England's horror show in South Africa last summer. But this is clearly wrong, you only need to look at some of England's most established players to see that they're not all shrinking violets!

Between Rio Ferdinand's forgetfulness over a drugs test and John Terry selling tours of the Chelsea training ground, there are several players who have 'slightly' flouted their positions. Steven Gerrard was also very lucky by some accounts to get off free last year, from his charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray.

In fact the more you look at it, perhaps the more the England squad should be made up with 'goody two shoes', if they're not always looking over their shoulder they may enjoy playing for England more. It's an argument that can go on and on, but there should be a line of trouble that you cross that has some consequences.

After all, we can't all be a crazy genius like Diego Maradona. Modern footballers may not all like it or realise it, but with their greater power there really is a greater responsibility...

English football is great again, yes?!

2010-09-10T18:49:00.006+01:00

The way in which England have started their new qualifying campaign for Euro 2012 has seen a remarkable about turn by certain sections of the English media in their regard for the national team. Football like a lot of sport is a fickle business so maybe the reporting of it is as prone to the highs and lows as those who partake in it.

For example fans always get on the back of a striker during a goal drought, but other supporters and pundits will be just as keen to stress that once the drought is broken the goals will come flooding back. Likewise there is the old adage that form is temporary and class is permanent, a good line for those that wish to argue with detractors of a player going through a rough patch.

With England's performances during the summer's World Cup there was more of a uniform agreement between English fans. The team had under performed and the display against Algeria was especially dismal and disappointing. There always follows the emotional crash when the national team exit a major competition, partly because we have such enormous hype before the event itself.

It is easy to completely blame the media for this; after all they have the power to engineer such hype. All the more since the onset of the Internet and the development of phone and other technologies meant that we are never too far away from seeing or reading something. This ties in with the advertising that is now bigger than it ever has been and utilises the Internet more than any other source it seems.

Even so we cannot hold the media to blame for much more than contributing to our own self-created hype. Football fans themselves would have been building up to the World Cup, they love the game and it is the biggest competition in this or any sport, plus- you have to wait 4 blooming years for the next one!

England fans in particular are used to perennial disappointment, in some ways you could say we thrive off of it. How else do you explain the way that however crap England are it's not long before they are playing to (almost) sell-out crowds again. The support is often touted as being amongst the best in the World and more of our fans travel to watch the national team and invest in going to World Cups etc than most- as many as 25,000 were thought to have made it to South Africa.

Still, we're not all driven by romanticised blind faith, I would like to think that the majority of football fans are driven by a sense of loyalty to their team even if they don't provide anything else. I once had a school friend who back during those days supported Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers and finally Newcastle United within the space of 2 seasons! Commonly referred to as a glory supporter he was the proper definition of such and even though he was just a fashionable fan a part of me had to voice my disapproval.

So what to make of the recent 'thrashings' handed out by England to Bulgaria and Switzerland respectively? Completely renewed optimism of course, the World Cup was obviously just a blip, that or they peaked too soon!

Although it's not quite that easy this time. I was amongst those that doubted if Steve McClaren was really becoming England manager at the right time, but the low of not qualifying for Euro 2008 meant that the subsequent positives from Capello's takeover sucked in even the most consistent of cynics. More to the point, this last World Cup was a slight watershed in that many fans overwhelmingly blamed the players for the flop in South Africa.

Yes Capello made some mistakes, and the performances in the last week have compounded a couple of those. The positives of seeing Adam Johnson, Theo Walcott and Joe Hart excelling themselves is slightly countered by the thought that Capello should have taken them to the World Cup in the first place.

On the whole however we should be happy to have Capello on board. It may seem quite a while ago now but England was at times very impressive in the qualifying for South Africa. The fact that they have started the same way for the next Euros in the Ukraine and Poland should be welcomed, even more so now that England appear to have a budding selection of youngsters vying for the positions of the old guard.

After the World Cup we just experienced there has though been some reigning in of the traditional optimism concerning England, at least where the fans come into play. I know some friends who whilst previously being ardent fans of all football decidedly avoided England's recent matches with Bulgaria and Switzerland.

Some of England's players have and are going through a difficult time in their private lives, all of them allegedly suffering from the same lustful temptations. Pardon the comparison, but it is possible that like some of these disclosures, the way England were during the summer was simply a straw too far for some of it's followers.

Nonetheless I'm sure those same fans will eventually forgive and forget. It just means that however emphatically England qualify for Euro 2012 we should all be wary to leave our predictions until the first group game has been played and not a moment sooner! As long as Capello ignores the famous musings of Alan Hansen and does put his faith in the kids, those years of hurt may finally, possibly (wishfully) get to an end.

Bundesliga review and early blues for McClaren

2010-08-28T16:58:00.005+01:00

The Bundesliga is off and running and this weekend delivered the second round of league matches for the 2010/11 season. The British press will be keeping a particularly keen eye on the competition this campaign as they wait to see if Steve McClaren can follow up his successful two-year tenure at FC Twente with another league title in a new country.

Whilst McClaren's new employers Wolfsburg should be in the mix of the title race, the focus will also be on some usual suspects. Lois van Gaal's Bayern Munich will be the team for everyone else to beat after they secured a domestic league and cup double last season and almost claimed the Champions League as well. Another strong contender is Schalke 04, runners-up last time out and managed by Felix Magath- a man who has already won the Bundesliga 3 times with Bayern and Wolfsburg.

Outside of these there are several clubs that with a bit of luck could feasibly sustain a title bid for a domestic league that has been fiercely competitive in recent seasons. The most notable of these are Werder Bremen, Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund.

Werder Bremen may have lost Mesut Özil after his star shone brightly during the World Cup, but they have brought in Marko Arnautović. A youthful forward the Austrian international was groomed by McClaren at FC Twente and was impressive during the Englishman's first season there. Last season his rising stock led to a loan move to Inter Milan who had an option on buying him this summer, luckily for Werder Bremen he was frozen out and the opportunity came their way instead. Today he scored twice in their 4-2 win over FC Köln to get his and Bremen's season off and running.

Leverkusen for their part acquired Michael Ballack on a free from Chelsea. It may not be clear if he is still the German captain or not, but what is clear is that at 33 years of age he still has the drive and determination for one last hurrah back in the Bundesliga and his influence could be crucial.

Of course the most high profile move in the Bundesliga over the summer was that of Real Madrid legend Raúl leaving the Bernabéu for the new surroundings of Schalke. There is no doubting the Spaniards ability and though he may be 33, like Ballack he could become a very canny signing and one that could propel Schalke 04 that extra bit towards a Bundesliga title. His experience in the Champions League will also provide his new team with an extra edge in their upcoming fixtures in Group B.

As for McClaren and Wolfsburg, they yesterday signed Diego from Juventus for a fee of £12.7M only a season after the Italian side had signed him for almost £21M. A big loss for Juventus then and a big bonus for McClaren, the Brazilian play maker had established himself at Werder Bremen before his big move to Italy and should provide several goals and assists for Wolfsburg now that he's back in familiar surroundings.

That first goal came today as Wolfsburg attempted to immediately put behind them their unfortunate opening day defeat away at Bayern Munich last weekend (when they went down 2-1 to a stoppage-time winner from Bastian Schweinsteiger). This afternoon's opponents at home were Mainz 05, a club who finished 9th last season and have spent most of their history outside of the top flight.

Things started incredibly well for McClaren as his team surged to a 3-0 lead within half an hour where they were stylish and rampant in their play. A brace from the highly rated Edin Džeko made it 3 goals in 2 league games so far, to add to the 48 he's scored in the last two seasons! Diego then followed this by grabbing himself a debut goal when left one on one with the keeper.

Mainz pulled one back before half time when a shot from Rasmussen went through a crowd of players and in off the Wolfsburg post, but a second half comeback was to stun the home crowd and the former England boss. Moments after the break and Mainz had reduced the arrears to one goal after a low ball found Soto free in the box, ten minutes later and the score was incredibly level after a slight deflection steered a 25 yarder from Andre Schurrle into the bottom right hand corner.

Wolfsburg tried to reassert their dominance of the opening half but were instead caught again when Adam Szalai had time to stroke home the winner from the edge of the box with four minutes remaining. Somehow they had contrived to blow a dominant 3-0 lead into a 4-3 home defeat! A bad day then for McClaren but at least he knows that his team is capable of the flair that he had at FC Twente and with Diego now on board they can look onwards and upwards.

The silver lining for Wolfsburg was that both Bayern Munich and Shalke 04 also lost this weekend. Last night the promoted champions of the 2nd Bundesliga- Kaiserslautern shocked Bayern Munich. They may have spent four seasons in the second tier but Kaiserslautern appear keen to make up for lost time, their 2-0 home defeat of Bayern puts them second in the Bundesliga table with two wins from two. Bayern meanwhile were left to reflect on missing a host of chances in each half and being punished by conceding 2 goals in a minute shortly before half time, a sucker-punch of a result indeed!

Shalke lost 2-1 at home to Hannover 96 and will be concerned at having lost both of their opening fixtures after losing by the same score line at Hamburg last weekend. We should expect a riposte in their next game but it will be difficult as they go away to face the early league leaders TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, who have also won their opening two matches against Werder Bremen (4-1) and St Pauli today 1-0.

Some of you should remember Hoffenheim from the season before last when they made such a dramatic entrance in their first ever season in the Bundesliga. In 2008/09 they led the championship at the season's halfway stage and impressed many observers with their slick brand of football, which appears to have returned for now.

Finally, mentions for Hamburg who with Ruud van Nistelroy have made a good start to the season in winning their first two games. Last weekend the Dutchman scored both goals in the defeat of Schalke and today he scored again as his team came back from a goal down to defeat Eintracht Frankfurt 3-1 with two strikes in the last ten minutes.

Two fixtures in and the Bundesliga again looks like it will keep the fans intrigued this season as results and form turns this way and that. What is certain is that McClaren will want to forget the reverse his team suffered against Mainz 05, if he didn't know what to expect from this league yet he certainly does now!

Ligue 1 champions Marseille get usurped by Ligue 2 equivalent

2010-08-19T18:03:00.008+01:00

The French league got underway on 7th August, and whilst the season may only be two fixtures old the Ligue 1 table already has an interesting look to it. For a start the current champions Marseille have managed to lose both of their two opening games, to Caen and Valenciennes respectively. The latter may have finished in a respectable 10th place last season but Caen is the real surprise package...

The club may have been founded in 1913 but it would be another 70 years before it could finally leave behind the travails of the third division without slipping back (yet anyway). Since 1983 they have been the French equivalent of West Bromwich Albion, yo-yoing between Ligue 1 and 2.

They were promoted to the top tier for the first time in 1988 and stayed around until 1994/95 ended in relegation, they even qualified for the Uefa Cup (as it was then) after the 1991/92 season. A swift return came when Caen won Ligue 2 in 1996 with a young William Gallas just starting out, but they couldn't survive the subsequent year.

It wasn't until 2003/04 that the club again claimed top status, however following a familiar pattern they once again fell back to Ligue 2 at the first attempt. Promotion came again in 2006/07 and finally Caen stuck around for more than just one season achieving a very commendable 11th place finish.

Normal service was resumed in 2008/09 as Caen were narrowly relegated yet again, and no prizes will be given for guessing that they went on to win Ligue 2 last season. They were so dominant that only one win in their final seven league games gave them the title regardless. The club has plenty of prior experience in Ligue 1 then, but like WBA they have not recently managed to convert that into a longer stay amongst the elite.

This campaign may turn the tide however, especially if judged by their first two results, Caen won both games and they were against Marseille on the opening day and Lyon last weekend. No team could have wished for a harder start to the season and yet Caen brushed aside the champions and runners-up from only a few months ago.

Their first goal scored back in the division came from the captain and one-club man Nicolas Suebe, who has been an ever presence in the starting line up since the 2001/02 season. Marseille, playing at home and heavy pre-match favourites, thought they had salvaged a point when Mamadou Samassa equalised with thirteen minutes to go. Instead Caen's El-Arabi headed a famous winner in the 86th minute to leave Didier Deschamps exasperated with his side.

Last weekend was in many ways all the more spectacular, backed by their home crowd Caen pulled off a 3-2 victory over a Lyon team that almost reached the Champions League final last May. Youssef El-Arabi scored in consecutive games, this time with a confident solid chip from outside the box after running onto a through-ball.

In a thoroughly entertaining match Lyon equalised after an angled header from the brilliantly named Bafétimbi Gomis, only to go behind again within ten minutes. First Yatabaré for Caen and then Gomis (again) traded similar goals, where a miss-hit shot became a perfect assist for them to score and to make it 2-2, all before the half-hour mark!

Anthony Réveillère then got himself sent-off after a rash and miss-timed challenge meant he took out Yohan Mollo on the left wing, earning him a second yellow card just before half-time. The winner came with thirteen minutes to go as Lyon were seemingly caught cold by a Mollo free-kick, by the time that Ismaila N'Diaye had gathered the ball and fired into the net he and three other Caen players were closer to the Lyon goal than any impeding defender.

With Marseille's 3-2 loss to Valenciennes the previous day and Lyon's own opening day disappointment in a 0-0 with Monaco, the top two teams in France are in the unusual position of occupying places in the bottom five. Meanwhile Caen is in second and separated from top by goal-difference to Toulouse.

Toulouse are a solid team that finished fourth the season before last and third two seasons before that (2006/07). Between those campaigns they were very nearly relegated so one may imagine that the Toulouse support won't be getting ahead of themselves just yet.

As for Bordeaux who gloriously won the title in 2008/09 under Laurent Blanc's guidance, they have also had a disastrous start. Like Marseille they have lost their first two games, 1-0 to Montpellier and then 2-1 to the aforementioned Toulouse. Life without the new France manager will clearly take some time to adjust to. His replacement is the former Fulham boss Jean Tigana and it is his first job in management since a spell as Beşiktaş boss ended in 2007, after he had led the club to a Turkish Cup victory.

Tigana was not only a great international player but he also spent 8 seasons at Bordeaux during the eighties, playing over 250 matches and helping them to three of the six Ligue 1 titles they have ever won. It's fair to say that the fan faithful should give the former favourite enough time to make a new mark as manager.

Special mention should also go to AC Arles-Avignon as they are encountering their first ever season in the top tier of French football. At this time they are second bottom, also with no points from two games after losing to Sochaux (2-1) and Lens (0-1). Incredibly they have climbed through four divisions in the past five seasons to this point, a rapid rise that even overshadows Graham Taylor's early Watford years.

The manager responsible is the criminally unheralded Michel Estevan, who has been in his position since 2005 and for all of 'Les Lions' promotions. Bizarrely he was sacked for roughly a week back in June, after a new contract was withdrawn due to finances and the new chairman reacted! A completely nonsensical move that makes you see why Brian Clough always mistrusted his club’s majority shareholders.

Thankfully they reneged on their decision and Estevan is back for the opportunity that he has earned, but if he can keep them up against the odds he will have over surpassed himself. As for the rest of Ligue 1, it appears that the Bundesliga may have a rival for the most competitive league in UEFA.

Marriage made in Wales for Cardiff and Craig Bellamy

2010-08-17T16:46:00.009+01:00

After much speculation and some predictable developments Cardiff City have secured Craig Bellamy on a season-long loan deal. The Welsh capital team are amongst the strong favourites for Championship promotion after their performances last season saw them finish fourth and narrowly lose the play-off final to Ian Holloway's Blackpool 3-2.

Now having secured Bellamy in their quest for the Premier League, Cardiff City have made a massive statement to the rest of the Championship contenders. By placing the erstwhile striker up front with the impressive Michael Chopra, Dave Jones' team have a forward line-up that would be intimidating enough for rivals in the Premier League alone.

This summer has been far from plain sailing for the Bluebirds however; they were plagued by financial worries that concerned an outstanding £1.9M debt to HM Revenue and Customs. Threats of a winding up order and protracted High Court appearances were eventually resolved on June 16th, when the debt was fully paid following investment of £6M from a Malaysian-based consortium.

This also led to Peter Risdale leaving his position as chairman to be replaced by the consortium head Dato Chan Tien Ghee. With the new owners being backed by Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun, who sounds like he has even more cash than names (!), Cardiff City can finally look ahead with optimism.

From having been between £30M and £40M in debt and then being placed under a transfer embargo, the club have demonstrated how fickle finances can be in top-level football. Peter Risdale may have laboured another club with debt in the pursuit of glory (after Leeds United), but their relative success under his tenure still attracted the financial backing that should inch them that extra bit that's needed to reach the Premier League.

As for Bellamy, he has played the PR role as best as possible after his public rejection at Manchester City and at the hands of Roberto Mancini. Prior to this summer he had spoken of a desire to play for his 'hometown club' and one that he has "always wanted to come back" to. Either way it is still a step down for a player that Harry Redknapp described as being outstanding and who would be wasted in the Championship.

Of course part of Redknapp's motivation was to attempt to persude Bellamy that playing for Tottenham would be a better move for him. Rumours have also circulated that Manchester City were unwilling to sell or loan the player to any of their Premier League rivals. Whether or not this is true is unclear, it is just possible that Bellamy is genuinely thrilled by the prospect of helping to lead his local team into the top tier and that Tottenham, Fulham and Celtic were not as attractive a proposition.

Celtic's captain Scott Brown was quick to refute claims that Bellamy's decision against a move to Celtic was a sign that the Scottish domestic league is inferior. And whilst he may be right in this case, it is worth remembering that Celtic have also failed to sign David James and Sol Campbell this summer and they are hardly spring chickens. Most damning for the SPL is how Celtic's Georgios Samaras is able to look like a decent player ever since he moved north and away from Manchester City, an indictment if ever there was one!

Meanwhile SPL rivals Motherwell have been infuriated by Bellamy's move to Cardiff City. They are still owed a total of £175,000 from two missed payments that is a part of their sale of Paul Quinn to Cardiff City. As a reaction to the Championship team acquiring Bellamy as well as several other signings since their transfer embargo was lifted, Motherwell feel that the debt owed to them has clearly been put down the list of priorities.

A writ has been issued and the Scottish club has mentioned warnings of a new attempt at a winding up order. Cardiff City for its part has simply stated that the matter will be dealt with in the next seven days. So, barring any new calamities Cardiff City may finally have their house in order and be able to concentrate on their ambitions for the season ahead.

This loan deal for Bellamy will make it the Welsh captain's ninth club in a very varied career, time will tell if being near to his family will provide the platform for him to finally settle down. What is clear is that after a mutual history of trouble with the authorities, Craig Bellamy and Cardiff City may be the perfect cocktail for turning over another new leaf and taking each other to the heights.

Fantasy Football Style- Premier League predictions for the new season.

2010-08-05T20:27:00.008+01:00

Time draws near for the beginning of the new football seasons across Europe. This weekend (aghh tomorrow- time waits for no fan then!) the Football League will get up and running again in England. The following weekend will be the Premier League’s turn (August 14th).

In fact one of the Premier League clubs have already got their season underway- Liverpool having just begun in their quest to emulate Roy Hodgson's former team Fulham. By entering the Europa League at the third qualifying round they face the prospect of a long and arduous season, but Liverpool fans will be hopeful that their new manager can raise his team to the challenge like he did last season.

Liverpool's hierarchy, though much maligned by their fans, have by securing Hodgson done their best to rectify the sour end to Benitez's reign. With his experience and history of making the most out of what's at his disposal, I find it hard to believe that Liverpool won't climb back into the top four this season although I stress they will finish fourth at best.

In fact I expect the top four for 2010/11 will ultimately comprise of the 'traditional' top four of recent years, despite the growing might and credibility of Manchester City. They may have signed even more impressive players such as Yaya Touré and David Silva with further outlays on Jérôme Boateng and Aleksandar Kolarov, but questions will remain over how Roberto Mancini will handle his burgeoning squad.

I may end up with egg on my face but I will plump for Manchester City again finishing in 5th place this new season, with them perhaps making a breakthrough in one of the cups for that coveted piece of silverware. Would that be enough to keep Mancini in a job? As harsh as it would be I would fear not.

As for who will be champions, well the initial feeling has to be that Chelsea will be the team to beat. They may be a year older and with an arguably worse squad that varies little from last season, but Carlo Ancelotti clearly has the ability to inspire them in the big games that matter in the league.

That said, both Manchester United and Arsenal have made interesting alterations to their squads and this campaign could see a genuine three-horse race that goes the distance.

On the evidence of the World Cup and his friendly outings for the club, the signing of Javier Hernández could be a real steal for Manchester United. The Mexican appears to be ready for a potential starting place already and his raw skill may come in very useful throughout the campaign. When adding him to Rooney and Owen (as long as he stays fit) Ferguson's team should not complain for a lack of goals.

Meanwhile Arsenal appear to be edging even closer to telling Barcelona where to go once and for all when it comes to Cesc Fàbregas, even if it is for just one more season! His appearance in pre-season training and more pertinently the team photo seems to strongly suggest that the tiring saga is coming to an end for this transfer window, even if many of Barcelona's outspoken players don't wish to accept it.

It may not officially be defined as tapping-up, but the way several players and especially Carlos Puyol have consistently bleated on about Fàbregas has left a sour taste. Many, many clubs may operate their transfer dealings through the media but it's only the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona who have the audacity to whine when they don't get their own way and yet still assume that they have the ethical higher ground.

Aside from their captain, Arsenal will be very pleased to have Marouane Chamakh playing for them. The Moroccan striker looks like a more skilful version of Nicklas Bendtner and should put away some of the chances that go begging from Arsenal crosses.

Wenger may still be putting his faith in the youngsters but they are that much more experienced now, particularly the likes of Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere and Carlos Vela. There are several what-ifs but in keeping to that theme, Arsenal could be real title challengers if they can get a full season out of their key players- particularly Robin van Persie.

As for below the top five, again it is difficult to look beyond some usual suspects. Tottenham should finish 6th, last season's efforts were a fantastic achievement but if they don't add to their squad then you can see them getting bogged down in the Champions League and paying the price with their league form. Harry's known for his wheeler-dealing but does he actually have any one up his sleeve..?

Everton and Aston Villa are probably the clubs who are most apprehensive about maintaining their status, they both have solid squads and extremely good managers but how far can they continue to go when all those around them are splashing out in comparison. They will both still finish inside the top ten but unless their chairman can back them up with spending power the feeling will remain that David Moyes and Martin O'Neill are destined for greater things at a so-called bigger club instead.

Looking at the promoted teams we have Newcastle United's return from hiatus, the ever yo-yoing WBA and the underdog story of Blackpool and Ian Holloway. I don't know about you but I will be rooting for Holloway and his team, in many ways they could be a more likeable version of Hull City during their first season in the Premier League. Do I expect them to stay up though? Not really, but at the same time I don't think it would be as big a shock as some assume if they were to survive.

Newcastle should probably achieve a lower mid-table finish, but never rule anything out with football's equivalent of a soap opera (although they have improved, like growth in Northern Rock!). As for WBA, this may be a season when they don't immediately go back down to the Championship. Their signing of defender Pablo Ibáñez from Athletico Madrid is impressive and if they can score goals in support of Roman Bednář, they should do enough to stay around for another season.

Finally then, who does that leave for relegation? I'll plump simply and quickly for Blackpool, Wigan and Wolves in no particular order. No team looks like being completely left behind but someone has to go down. As for the others, if you haven't been mentioned hope for mid-table mediocrity at best or relegation scrap at worst- gentleman start your season tickets!

Can David James or the next England goalkeeper please stand up?!

2010-08-03T02:26:00.005+01:00

The big news from beneath the Premier League this last week was all about Bristol City, or namely all about David James. The current England no. 1 signed a one-year deal for the Championship side last Friday after the confirmation of his release from Portsmouth (where he had initially been offered a new contract after their relegation last season).

This was subsequently withdrawn after the appointment of Steve Cotterill as their new manager, a position James was rumoured to have been keen on whilst also wishing to prolong his playing career. Instead Steve Coppell has made the first seismic signing in his Ashton Gate surroundings and bolstered those fans hoping for a repeat of his Reading successes.

The PR for Bristol City as a club is obvious in that they have succeeded in signing England's World Cup goalkeeper of only a month ago. Even if this may only be the case until England's friendly with Hungary on Wednesday 11th, the Robins can happily claim that their new 'keeper will provide a very solid base for an assault on the promotion race.

The entire clamour about James also over-shadowed the fact that Coppell acquired two other new players on the same day. Defenders Nicky Hunt from Bolton and Damion Stewart from QPR were drafted in as Bristol City continue to look like a good outside bet for reaching the Premier League this season. Coppell may not pander to such speculation, but the club's fans can't help but speculate themselves about how he may push the club that little bit further than his predecessor Gary Johnson managed.

As for James, he had in the days leading up to his West Country move been heavily linked with a transfer to Celtic, and possibly Sunderland. He subsequently stressed that being close to his family was a significant factor in his decision-making, and with the family home being in Devon and Bristol City being the best club in the area- it appears to be a marriage made in convenience and ambition.
(Make your own conclusions about where that leaves the quality of the SPL).

The England 'keeper was also keen to speak about the chances of adding to his 53 caps thus far. Meanwhile Coppell surmised that with the pressure of a clean slate following England's World Cup meltdown, his new goalkeeper should think of an England re-call after the Hungary game has passed.

The question remains, after turning 40 on Sunday and with his future in the Championship for the next season at least, should James be gracefully overlooked for the future generations? Like Coppell has said, there is a large amount of pressure on Capello to shun some of the England regulars and to let them know that they are capable of being dropped.

Just look at Brazil. Their new coach following Dunga's exit, Mano Menezes, has scythed away the bulk of the 'failing' World Cup squad- Kaká included. If the Brazilians can be this ruthless over their star players, one can hardly build much of a case for Wayne Rooney avoiding a similar kick up the backside- especially after his rant to the cameraman following the Algeria game.

The English squad and players may not appreciate being booed by their followers, but Rooney would have done well to remember just how far these fans had followed. Add all the expenses involved and having to hear the tired excuses of previous campaigns following an even greater level of ineptitude, and a lack of patience doesn’t seem so out of place.

Back to the goalkeeping issue. Even though David James was one of the few England players to maintain their reputation in South Africa, it would be easy for Capello to use his Bristol City move as an excuse to cull him. However, James believes he can still deliver at that stage and he may do so if none of his rivals step up.

Robert Green has joined the long line of recent goalkeeping errors for England, which have marred many an aspiring hope, namely Paul Robinson and Scott Carson of yesteryears. These mistakes shouldn't serve to be death knells to their international careers though, otherwise how does anyone ever learn from them?

Joe Hart and Chris Kirkland still remain untainted by any such calamities. Hart is touted as the new future for England and he does look set to have a bright future, but so did Kirkland once and he is no longer that fresh-faced. He is on the threshold of turning 30 years old and yet he has only 1 solitary cap back in 2006 to his name!

On the other hand the longevity of David James shows that whilst all footballers can potentially have longer careers at the top, the goalkeepers can go further still in their impersonation of a Duracell bunny. So there is still plenty of hope for Kirkland if Capello sticks by one of his earlier principles of picking players on form rather than reputation (Rooney take note!).

Clamour has also grown in certain quarters for the return of Paul Robinson to the England fold. Upon hearing that he wouldn't be in the World Cup squad his manager at Blackburn Rovers Sam Allardyce said, "If you look at his form for Rovers, there has not been a better goalkeeper who has been so consistent". And it would appear that some of the statistics backed this up, especially Robinson's greater number of clean sheets for an English 'keeper than any other (13) regardless of being at a less glamorous club.

Beyond looking at this handful of usual suspects, it is difficult to see any other potential England goalkeepers coming through imminently. You could argue that things are not that bad, there are the several usual suspects as mentioned. What is most paramount is that one or two of them threaten to oust James over the next season, otherwise you will have to question where their reputation is let alone their form...

Has Steven Gerrard lost his ambition or is it just misplaced?

2010-07-22T01:05:00.008+01:00

Congratulations are in order for Liverpool FC, not only have they appointed Roy Hodgson as their man to replace Rafa Benitez as manager, but it now appears that their captain has been talked into extending his love affair with the club. Add this to the acquisition of Joe Cole on a free transfer from Chelsea, and the red half of merseyside have possibly had their best week since the tail end of the season before last!

I have spoken before about the credentials of Roy Hodgson and I have every faith that he will eventually get Liverpool back towards the top four and maybe, just maybe towards a first league title since 1990. More of a major concern for me is why Steven Gerrard has seemingly committed more of his passing career to Anfield in the first place?

There had been strong rumours since the end of last season's anti-climatic campaign, that Gerrard would take the latest failure to end the Liverpool title drought as a signal to find pastures new. These were exacerbated when José Mourinho was made the new manager of Real Madrid, mostly on the reflection that he had come so close to signing the Liverpool captain for Chelsea during the summer of 2005.

Less convincing, but still practical, was the rumour that Gerrard could well be tempted to follow Benitez to his new backdrop at Inter Milan. Either way, after the calamity of Liverpool's last campaign it would seem fair if at the age of 30 Gerrard was to be extremely tempted by a new challenge. Especially if it came potentially via the best club in either Spain or Italy.

Of course detractors of this argument may angrily deny any need to move on for England's World Cup captain. After all, there is a new manager on board and an expectation for recovery, naturally fuelled by the signing of Joe Cole more than anything else. Plus there is hope that last season didn't reveal the true value of Alberto Aquilani. This is all fair enough, and barring the blip back in 2005 Gerrard has on the whole demonstrated his loyalty to Liverpool throughout his career.

However the fact that Gerrard has played at Liverpool since his professional debut in November 1998 should mean that he has earned the right to try his luck elsewhere. As mentioned he has recently turned 30, but in today's game that is nowhere near the scrap heap. Instead it would be no surprise if he was to play on past the next World Cup, to do so for England may be just beyond him but I wouldn't rule it out. And despite the current inquisition into the failure in South Africa it would seem a little daft if his services were to be shunned for the Euro' 2012 campaign.

Still, since the Premier League started in the 1992/93 season, there has been a paltry number of big-name English players willing to test themselves in Europe's other best leagues. Asked to mention such players in recent memory and you would do well to get beyond Steve Mcmanaman, David Beckham and Michael Owen- all of whom went directly to Real Madrid.

Owen Hargreaves is a bit of a unique case in having started his development and career with Bayern Munich. Whereas including Darius Vassell and his ill-fated move last season to mid-table Ankaragücü (of the Turkish Süper Lig) would clearly be scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel!

We may not find out for some time, but perhaps Gerrard had been hoping for a summer move all this time. The links with Real Madrid and Mourinho must seem like the right move at the right time, especially if he has ever had ambitions of testing himself outside the Premier League arena. Such a move could also arguably offer Gerrard his best chance of earning a league winners medal before his career dwindles out without one.

On the other hand it appears that any perspective move to Real Madrid may never have been as likely as expected. The 'Los Blancos' president Florentino Pérez was quoted as saying that Gerrard was too old and too expensive for 30. It appears that the man famous for the Galácticos era may actually be reigning himself in just a little bit!Gerrard's stock is still very high though, and if he really wanted to move there would be other similarly illustrious suitors.

The Liverpool skipper surely can't feel that he owes his boyhood club any more service. He has been their most successful captain since the end of the dominant era that came to pass upon the shock resignation of Kenny Daglish midway through the 1990/91 season.

His roll-call of honours as a player encompasses 2 FA Cups, 2 League Cups, an Uefa Cup and of course that European Cup. Beyond this there is the defeat in the 2006/07 Champions League final and the 2 runners-up in the Premier League. If only Liverpool had won the Premier League title in 2008/09, as they really should have done, perhaps Gerrard's conscience would then be eased enough to seriously consider other offers.

With only two losses in the league that season, Liverpool was defeated less than any other team including the eventual champions Manchester United. The net effect of drawing too many games throughout the campaign ultimately cost Liverpool the party they had craved for after what was then a long 19 years. Gerrard for his part was magnificent, contributing 16 goals and 10 assists for the greatest combined stats for any player that season.

So, with his former efforts and success there can be little begrudging Gerrard the 'reward' of a testing new environment somewhere on the continent, with an equally prestigious club. The news in the last few days would strongly suggest however that Liverpool and Roy Hodgson have succeeded in convincing their skipper that the grass really isn't always greener, even if it is in Spain or Italy.

This then just leaves the question; does Steven Gerrard honestly believe that the Hodgson era can finally deliver an end to their torturous title quest? Or is he simply happy in his comfort zone and unwilling to prove his mettle in a climate where he would no longer be the 'big fish in the little pond'?

I believe it is time for Gerrard to be 'selfish' and to end his Anfield connection, if another season or two passes the opportunity will otherwise surely be lost. Maybe he simply cannot bear to leave, regardless of the accolades. Possible, but I wager that only the elusive Premier League title will stop there being any future regrets. A triumph I fear that is not about to be any more forthcoming...

World Cup: Golden boot consolation and Octopus contemplation

2010-07-10T12:38:00.010+01:00

After very nearly a month the 2010 FIFA World Cup is reaching it's climax. This evening's 3rd place play-off between Uruguay and Germany will have a sense of what might have been for the beaten semi-finalists. However both camps have been keen to stress that there is plenty left to play for, even if the match is usually seen as being of little overall importance.

The sentiments of Uruguay and Germany cannot be judged properly until the match kicks off in a couple of hours, but in front of the press corps there has been plenty of positive talking. Uruguay's boss Oscar Tabarez stated that his team "will go in with the same commitment and enthusiasm as always. We will prepare to fight to the death." Strong words indeed.

Meanwhile over with the Germans, their team manager and former striker Oliver Bierhoff similarly declared that "for us, this World Cup is anything but over". Unfortunately what isn't clear is a prediction from Paul the octopus. The 'psychic' inhabitant of the Oberhausen Sea Life Centre has rather had his focus trained on tomorrow's final between Holland and Spain, for which he picked Spain out to win the competition.

This is understandable, but Paul should really be looking to play the long game. He became a 'celebrity' during the 2008 European Championships, when he 'predicted' the majority of Germany's results correctly. Unfortunately in that final he plumped for a Germany win, only for Spain to burst his bubble.

This time around he has bizarrely managed to pick the correct winner of every German fixture in the World Cup (luckily for him there were no draws!). Of course this meant that Paul learned from Euro 2008 and went for the Spanish when they met again in the semi-final last weekend.

The downside for Paul has since been the realisation that heroes can very quickly become villains and scapegoats. As if to prove once and for all that the German's do have a decent sense of humour, the Sea Life Centre that hosts Paul has received numerous recipe suggestions for octopus in the last week.

So, surely in an effort at appeasement Paul should be given the opportunity to pick the winner for tonight's 3rd place play-off, as long as he picks Germany that is! Perhaps he is simply too upset, or maybe he realises that another German loss would see more blame laid at his aquarium.

Either way it is now clear that England really should have lined up their own 'psychic' creature representative. That way we could have cooked up an excuse for the dire efforts of the players or simply a cruel twist on the celebrity masterchef concept, where the celebrity is the main course.

Back to the football. And although both Uruguay and Germany have had to suffer the strange notion of staying around a tournament they can no longer win, they do still have individuals that can etch their name in World Cup folklore. The Golden Boot is far from decided and intriguingly all four semi-finalists have a player or two who could walk off with the award for most goals of the competition.

All talk at this point suggests that Diego Forlan will take to the pitch for Uruguay. The former Manchester United and current Atletico Madrid striker had had to be subbed off near the end of the 3-2 defeat to Holland with a thigh complaint, but he now appears comfortable enough to compete. Forlan has been instrumental in leading Uruguay from the front in South Africa and he stands on 4 goals so far with a view to more.

Meanwhile Germany's Miroslav Klose is looking doubtful due to a back injury picked up in training. The striker has again been a success at a World Cup, even despite his sometimes-abject domestic form with Bayern Munich last season.

If Klose can get onto the field, he not only has 4 goals at this World Cup but 14 overall- spread over 2002, 2006 and this year. This leaves him tantalisingly close to the all-time record of 15 career World Cup strikes, achieved by Brazil's Ronaldo in Germany four years ago. Alas if Klose doesn't make it into tonight's game he will have to settle with joint second in the list, alongside his countryman Gerd Muller.

Luis Suárez may be another contender for the Golden boot, although it seems relatively unlikely at this stage. The 'villain' of Ghana's quarterfinal exit will return from his suspension tonight, but his quality earlier in the tournament means that he has already yielded 3 goals of his own to be in with a shout.

Germany's Thomas Mueller may also sneak off with the Golden Boot. He was suspended for the semi-final but will return tonight and like Forlan and Klose he has scored 4 goals thus far. He may only have 7 caps in total but it appears that this young German team already have their future fulcrum.

On the other hand it seems more than likely that the winner of the Golden Boot will come from the winner of tomorrow's World Cup final, which is probably how it should be. David Villa of Spain and Holland's Wesley Sneijder have both had an outstanding last month, and both are tied with 5 goals apiece atop the goal scoring list.

It should however be mentioned that Sneijder was rather fortuitously gifted a goal by FIFA. Instead of confirming the fact that Brazil's Felipe Melo had indeed deflected the ball off his head and into his own net during the Brazil/ Holland quarterfinal, the powers that be generously awarded the goal to Sneijder who had been responsible for the initial cross that happened to be goal bound. C'est la vie!

So, dare I embarrass myself with another prediction before this largely successful and entertaining World Cup signs-off; yeah of course I should. Germany will have too much for Uruguay and will win before extra-time, you heard it here first!

So it's goodbye from them and goodbye from him!

2010-07-04T14:21:00.005+01:00

First there was France and Italy and then less surprisingly England and Portugal, now Brazil and Argentina have also joined the slagheap for the 2010 World Cup. By the quarterfinal stage many pundits and 'experts' held the belief that the final would feature either Brazil or Argentina, possibly even both, in what would have been a World Cup first.

So much for predictions in the world of football. On Friday evening Dunga's Brazil had imploded in the second half of their quarter-final with the Netherlands, and it now looks like the manager will be leaving his post imminently. Meanwhile Maradona's quest to emulate Mário Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer was shattered by the latter's country.

Many reports naturally covered the German's 4-0 victory with a degree of shock. After all, yesterday's reverse is the heaviest World Cup defeat for Argentina since they were thumped 6-1 by Czechoslovakia in the 1958 competition. The momentum had appeared to be building for Maradona's squad, prior to Germany they had notched up four wins out of four and convinced many that they might be on to something.

Doubts remained over their defence, particularly when Newcastle's Jonas Gutierrez was being used as a makeshift right back earlier in the tournament. Come yesterday and the Germans brutally exposed the space between Argentina's midfield and their defenders through clinical passing and pace.

Much like they had done with England, Germany was merciless in their pursuit of goals and their counter-attacking was a lethal weapon that was utilised every time Argentina desperately tried to test their defence. Whereas England had at least tested Germany a few times during the barrage they suffered, Argentina's wealth of attacking talent was mostly reduced to speculative long shots.

It all seemed a little bewildering to Diego Maradona, who stood pensively in his dug out area. Argentina's favourite son is yet to decide upon his future, and questions have justifiably been asked over his tactics and how he could have omitted both Esteban Cambiasso and Javier Zanetti from his squad.

However despite this crushing disappointment a quarterfinal in South Africa still equates to the nation's best World Cup performance since Italia '90; and in England we think our national team underachieve! Then of course Maradona captained them and two decades later his shadow looms larger than ever.

As for Germany, despite not being highly rated before the competition began they are now clearly the form team. Going back to predications it should really be of little surprise that Joachim Löw's side has reached the last four. In the last 15 World Cups, Germany or West Germany has at least made the semi-finals on a staggering 11 occasions. How did all the tipsters overlook that? Have we all just been distracted by Löw's synchronised styling with his assistant coach Hans-Dieter Flick..?

With the semi-final line-ups complete Europe is once again the dominant force. The South American contingent is of course represented, but few would have expected that representative to be Uruguay ahead of it's highly rated neighbours.

In many ways Uruguay would have been an underdog and neutrals favourite if they hadn't been drawn against Ghana in the quarters. Luis Suárez's talking up of his handball on the line as being "the new hand of God" has felt a little unnecessary. The subsequent penalty miss by Asamoah Gyan meant that Uruguay had dramatically got away with it, but to then raise the issue as if it is a moment of glory is pretty tactless.

Uruguay will next have to overcome the Netherlands, and whilst they will be the underdogs the Dutch will be all to aware that this competition has seen a lot of previous favourites come unstuck. Either way there will be an unusual finalist and one that has not graced that stage for quite some time.

Spain survived a scare against Paraguay on Saturday night. The South Americans, managed by Gerardo Martino, were extremely effective in the way that they harassed Spain and prevented them from getting time on the ball to pass and move. The European Champions cause was also hindered by an ineffective Fernando Torres who has been as off the boil as Rooney, Ronaldo, Kaká and Messi have generally been in South Africa.

The second half of the match witnessed all sorts of drama, most of which centred on the hour mark. First Paraguay was given a penalty for Pique's man handling of Oscar Cardozo. Unfortunately for Cardoza Casillas comfortably saved his kick and come the final whistle he would end up similarly distraught to Gyan the previous evening.

Within a minute of Cardoza's penalty miss, David Villa had surged into the Paraguayan penalty area and been brought down by Alcaraz. The defender was the last man but escaped with a yellow card and was soon to be left off again. Xabi Alonso cooly scored his penalty but then the referee Carlos Batres insisted on a re-take for encroachment, inevitably Alonso hesitated with his second attempt that was then saved.

Immediately from the rebound Cesc Fabregas ran on to the ball only to be blatantly taken down by Paraguay's own Villar- their goalkeeper Justo. Rather than being a third penalty within five minutes, the moment was missed and Paraguay could now count themselves lucky.

Fabregas's substitution onto the field for Torres had definitely given Spain a spark and eventually Paraguay were to pay for a rare lapse in concentration. In the 82nd minute the ball broke through the middle with Andres Iniesta and he expertly laid it off for Pedro. The substitute's shot smacked off of the left post and came straight back to David Villa, he then steadied himself and curled it onto the right post across the goal line and finally in off of the left post! That makes it 5 goals in as many games for Barcelona's new striker and if Spain makes it all the way he should snatch the golden boot.

Still, even after the sapping effect of Spain's late break-through Paraguay almost earned themselves extra-time. An otherwise absent Roque Santa Cruz got to a spilled Casillas shot in the 88th minute, but his follow-up was unable to get past Spain's no. 1 who spread himself well.

Now we must wait until Tuesday and Wednesday for the semi-final showdowns, some will be hoping for a Netherlands versus Germany final- a fixture where there really is no love lost. On current form it would be foolish to bet against Germany again, but then this has been a World Cup full of surprises...

Maradona closing in on greatness all over again.

2010-07-03T12:48:00.008+01:00

After the drama and excitement of yesterday's first two World Cup quarterfinals today sees the realisation of Germany versus Argentina for a place in the semi-final. This match has been talked up since the draw became clear following the second round matches last weekend. And rather like Gary Linekar said after England's elimination to Germany, it's probably best England didn't get through after all, because beating Argentina would have been far beyond them.

Maradona's tenure as manager of his national team has had its ups and downs, most notably when qualification went down to the wire, but was it really ever going to be plain sailing? As a player Maradona achieved heights that were unattainable for even the better than average professional footballer, and it is not without just cause that he is regularly held up as the best player to grace the game alongside Pelé.

In some respects Maradona was a better player than the Brazilian, he may have won less World Cups but he did so with a team that collectively didn't equal those with which Pelé played in. The Argentinian has often been referred to as the overwhelming influence that dragged his side kicking and screaming to World Cup glory in 1986, rather like Zinedine Zidane almost achieved with France in 2006. The evidence backs this up as he both scored and set-up five goals apiece during the tournament.

However that's not to belittle the skill and quality of his then teammates, which included the similarly quotable Jorge Valdano, a striker who played for and later managed Real Madrid to La Liga title in 1994/95. In more recent times he famously philosaphised that Liverpool and Chelsea were like 'hanging shit from a stick', in that subjectively some people will call it art when really it is just what it is!

Further reasoning for Maradona's bettering of Pelé is how he almost repeated his World Cup trick in 1990. By this point the Argentinian squad was not as good as their counterparts of four years earlier, but Maradona with the help of Claudio Caniggia almost pulled it off again.

Then take into account his legendary status at Napoli, where between 1984 and 1991 he inspired the club to its only two Serie A titles in their history, as well as the Uefa Cup in 1989. When you consider that during his time in Naples Maradona was developing a cocaine addiction which ultimately led to him leaving the club after a fifteen month ban, how much more could a completely health Maradona have achieved?!

This leads to why Maradona's appointment as Argentina's coach in October 2008 led to some disquiet even amongst his fellow countrymen. Rather than the squeaky-clean living of Pelé, Maradona has never been too far from controversy since he came into the spotlight.

Be it being sent-off in the 1982 World Cup against Brazil, or through cocaine and weight issues to shooting at reporters with an air rifle in 1994, the Argentinian icon has tread the line of rugged appeal. In reading his autobiography El Diego, you can understand and take heart in the sometimes-brutal honesty and yet endearing charm and passion of a man who has always had absolute and justifiable belief in his skills and ability.

Of course Germany versus Argentina has plenty of history of it's own in the World Cup. Not only did the 1986 triumph come after 3-2 final victory over West Germany (which some people still say was the last great final), but at the last World Cup the two nations met at exactly the same stage.

On that occasion the teams were held at 1-1 after extra-time and the match was decided in the host nations favour, 4-2 after penalties. A lot of the bad blood that has been stirred up this last week revolves around the ensuing mass brawl after Germany's winning penalty, which involved almost all of both squads aside from bizarrely enough the usually controversial Jens Lehman.

The most memorable moment from the infamous incident was when Maxi Rodriguez came from nowhere to launch a flying punch at Bastian Shweinsteiger, interestingly both players are likely to be involved in today's line-ups. It seems that the memories are very short for a lot of the players that took part four years ago, and so a match that was already wound up to the tilt has been put further on edge by recriminations and fear of a growing feud.

Shweinsteiger himself started the finger pointing earlier in the week when he warned that Argentina is known for unsettling opposing teams and trying to influence officials. This was further stoked by Germany's captain Philipp Lahm, who stated that South Americans are generally "impulsive and temperamental and cannot lose", Lahm then added that this view would be tested after Germany defeat Argentina.

Maradona's response to the war of words was to ask "What's the matter with you, Schweinsteiger, are you nervous? All in all the match is set up absolutely perfectly, at least for the neutral observer, and hopefully we are on the verge of seeing a classic that will rival the drama of Ghana's tragic exit yesterday night and more.

Personally, I still believe that Maradona and Argentina are somewhat following a path of destiny in this tournament and that they will win today and in the final on July 11th. Something about Maradona makes you believe as much as he does that this will be their year, we may both be wrong but I'm sure it will be exciting whatever happens. Argentina to win before penalties.

FIFA and the FA need to wise up, whilst the British tabloid press need to grow up.

2010-06-29T11:03:00.006+01:00

So England are out of the World Cup, this time a little earlier than usual and with more justification than in some past tournaments. The 4-1 second round defeat to Germany punctured a balloon of hope rather than of expectation, and most fans should have been forewarned by the far from convincing displays that had got them through group C. Still, one fairly decent performance against Slovenia in England's final group game had convinced the many perennial suckers for punishment amongst us that England would rise up and overcome the young German squad before them last Sunday.

As it happened England were generally all over the place for the first half an hour or so, and Capello's team found themselves 2-0 behind. What happened next has been well documented and probably will be for too much time to come. England had got back into the match when Matthew Upson headed home a Steven Gerrard cross shortly after Germany's second goal. Within a minute of this Frank Lampard's improvised lob crashed against the Germany cross bar and bounced down behind the goal line.

England were obviously the poorer side overall, but the fact that the goal wasn't given has re-opened the debate for goal line technology, one which I have to subscribe to. This was a case where TV viewers were in little doubt that a goal had been scored and were starting to celebrate an unlikely comeback. Fabio Capello himself was seen to be celebrating from his England dugout, and yet the Uruguayan linesman who was significantly closer to the incident had failed to see it.

Accidents do happen and however much we don't like it, officials are prone to mistakes at even the highest level, as humans they are not infallible. Yet Sepp Blatter has as recently as March rubbished the debate for a technology that could swiftly give a correct decision for such controversial moments.

His argument that fans like to debate such incidents' is indefensible. I can confidently predict that the vast majority of football fans would prefer to discuss a fair and honest result for their team rather than knowing that they had been victims of poor decision making, especially when as with Lampard's goal there is no debate.

If FIFA were to embrace the technologies used by Cricket, Tennis and Rugby, surely even Blatter could see that Hawk-Eye or Cairos (where a microchip is inserted into the ball for detection) would hardly break up the flow of the sport that much. The few seconds involved are clearly worth sacrificing in an effort to stop such occasions being clouded in a negative light.

There has been fear mongering from FIFA that by allowing any such technology they would open up a Pandora's box, where all decisions would be under pressure to be cleared up in this way. Again this is ludicrous, are FIFA that much of a lame duck that they are incapable of setting their own agenda? There is no reason why football's governing body couldn't implement goal-line technology only, this would limit the techniques available to deciding the most make or break decision- is it a goal or not?

Pressure may come for technology to be expanded for offside decisions etc, but these are not make or break moments. A player who breaks through defence when he should be flagged offside may still miss the goal for example.

The positive of England's exit is that the goal that never was has forced Blatter's hand somewhat. Such a foul-up needed to happen on the World Cup stage in order to embarrass FIFA into reopening the debate, and Blatter has confirmed that when the International FA Board meets in July they will do exactly that- here's hoping for some common sense to prevail in that meeting.

Back to England and our own FA has seemingly increased the pressure on Fabio Capello by refusing to make a decision about his future until after the World Cup. Frankly I am in two minds, Capello clearly has some questions to answer tactically (why is Heskey anywhere near an England shirt?!) but is there anyone better who could lead the national team?

The Italian was lauded before the World Cup and rightly so, he had transformed England throughout the qualifiers into a robust and effective unit. However, the World Cup campaign has been a bit of a disaster zone since England arrived in South Africa, from Green's gaffe to Terry's 'big mistake' and then the awful performances against Algeria and then Germany.

Many fans and pundits may be baying for Capello's head, but is he really where all the frustration should be aimed at? Or rather alternatively isn't is about time some of the England players were shown the door at international level, at least until some of them earned their place back. The worry for England is that there isn't exactly a dearth of talent waiting in the wings, Theo Walcott went from being the next big hope to being dropped on the eve of the World Cup- although one can't help but wonder if his pace may have helped England after all.

Personally I hope the FA are not predictable in their nature, and that they stick with Capello and perhaps start to recognise what the FA's in other countries do to support their national team. In his last press conference before exiting South Africa, Capello was asked about the need for a winter break in the Premier League- an idea that he adhered to, as have most former England managers.

It is an option that has never been properly explored by the FA, and one must wonder if this is down to the Premier League's thirst for money and TV rights. After all, the Premier League was set up with the principle of reducing England's top division to 18 teams in an effort to help the cause of the national team.

This is something that should have happened and still should happen, but it appears that the Premier League's bank balance is ultimately where the allegiances lie. After another more humiliating failure at this World Cup the FA should grab the bull by the horns and realise that less may well equal more on a national scale. Similarly the FA could consider scrapping the League Cup in an effort to reduce the inflated playing schedule of some of our players, sadly these answers are a pipe dream and the fear is that the FA will simply let Capello take the fall in an effort to appease the counter-productive British press.

This is where we come onto some sections of the British press, who in some respects are architects of England's downfall. Every international football tournament we see an England bandwagon than rolls mercilessly onwards, and in the middle of it all are certain newspapers that build up England and endlessly ask it's players and coaches if they are going to win the competition. It is mostly lazy, and depending on where you look, tasteless journalism.

Tabloid hacks are so keen to be a part of success in the England football team and yet as soon as the tables are turned there is the inevitable witch-hunting and looking for scapegoats. The English players should be able to handle pressure like all other professionals, but there must be something in it when foreigners consistently cite elements of the British press as being the worst around.

The worst of all can be seen in the Daily Star and the Daily Mail. After England's win over Slovenia had set up the clash with Germany, the Daily Star responded with a front-page headline of 'Job done now for the Hun'. Sadly it seems that some people cannot get over a war that ended almost seventy years ago and which has nothing to do with sport except for the coincidence of nationality.

The largest contempt must be left for Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail, who continues to get away with outbursts that seem to be designed for outrage and who could be accused of inciting racial hatred. In yesterday's Daily Mail he was quoted on the front page as saying 'Thank Heaven The Few didn't defend as badly as England's footballers in Bloemfontein yesterday afternoon, otherwise we'd all be speaking German.'

Again, how this piece of odious journalism belongs in a national paper is beyond me. We are talking about a football match in 2010 Mr Littlejohn, and in case you'd forgotten the Second World War is actually over. All I can say is that life must be incredibly stressful if you harbour grudges since before you were born! I just hope the FA is not as knee-jerk when it comes to dealing with Fabio...

World Cup: England survive to earn German reacquaintance

2010-06-24T17:23:00.013+01:00

After the calamity that was England's second World Cup match against Algeria, I thought it would be wise for me to fore go predicting an England win for Wednesday's crucial encounter with Slovenia. This illogical superstition was richly rewarded as England finally started living up to their somewhat bloated reputation.

England's 1-0 victory was a typically tense and nervous affair, but more importantly it was deserved and relatively dominant. Of course, there will be concern that Fabio Capello's team were unable to score the extra goals that could have calmed us all down or may have even won the group. Instead the USA were able to take some of the shine off for England and leave fans momentarily bemused when Landon Donovan gobbled up a rebound in the 92nd minute of their clash with Algeria.

The goal by USA's talisman meant that the nation dramatically leaped from World Cup elimination to being the group C winners. In fairness it was a result that the USA should have already secured by injury time, a Clint Dempsey tap-in had been dubiously ruled out earlier for off-side and a number of other chances had been thwarted by Algeria's goalkeeper.

With the knock-out format of the World Cup pre-ordained, it would be difficult to meet a fan who had not planned a hypothetical route for their nation. With this in mind as England edged towards victory over Slovenia and the USA remained deadlocked with Algeria, a lot of fans would have begun to look ahead to a second round tie that probably wouldn't feature Germany. The potential quarter-final draw would then have come from the encounter between Uruguay (winners of group A) and South Korea (group B runners-up).

The permutations of England finishing as group C runners-up are now clear. On Sunday afternoon England will once again face Germany in the World Cup, for the first time since Italia '90, from which more baseless superstition can fill us with hope. In the 1990 World Cup England were similarly slow in building momentum. England drew their first two group games 1-1 and 0-0 against the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands respectively. This left them needing to win their final group game to guarantee progress to the last sixteen- sounding familiar so far?!

Of course none of this has any bearing on what will happen on Sunday, the parallels between England's 1990 campaign and the 2010 one so far does not mean that England will get to the semi-finals (or further). Just like the fact that North Korea's only previous World Cup to South Africa was a certain 1966.

What is true is that Sunday's encounter will be huge. The rivalry is always more valued on the English side of the channel, but the Germans would have been just as keen to avoid England at this stage of the competition as England would rather to be taking on Ghana on Saturday (like the USA).

It is clear that England will need to up their game again for the challenge ahead. Their attitude and overall skill was markedly improved against Slovenia and they displayed enough glimpses of the England during qualifying campaign victories over Croatia to suggest that they are capable of stopping Germany from reaching the quarter-final stage for the first time since the 1938 tournament.

Capello said that he had rediscovered the spirit of the team that qualified so comprehensively as the top goal scorers from Uefa. It therefore seems quite obvious that his selection should remain the same, barring any major setbacks.

James Milner snatched the chance to show why he is a more consistent and capable winger that Aaron Lennon, the Tottenham midfielder may excel at White Hart Lane but we have never seen him live up to the potential that seemed on offer when he nearly inspired England to victory in their 2006 quarter-final with Portugal. Milner worked hard and delivered a number of dangerous crosses into the Slovenian penalty area, and this is where Jermaine Defoe capitalised for England's solitary and priceless goal.

The Tottenham striker, like Milner, should now be a shoo-in for England. The argument that Emile Heskey brings the best out of Wayne Rooney should finally be put out to pasture, especially after the awful Algeria spectacle. No other major nation that has aspirations to win the World Cup would justify playing a striker that has scored just seven times from 61 caps, rather it must demoralise the team knowing that one of their so-called forwards is almost guaranteed not to get on the score sheet!

Defoe on the other hand IS a goal threat, he has pace and he is lively enough to earn England corners and to put himself into the danger areas. Choosing Heskey over Defoe has been a nonsensical argument for some time now.

Finally there was the dropping into the deep end of Matthew Upson. The West Ham defender may have come into the starting eleven as the fourth choice to partner John Terry (after Ferdinand, King and Carragher had fallen by the wayside) but he was composed throughout and made a crucial 90th minute block on Slovenia's Matavz. It was a moment of panic when time froze and it looked like England would throw away their prior hard work. On that basis and the fact that Carragher has looked much laboured since coming back into the international fold, the former Arsenal defender should get the nod over the Liverpool vice-captain.

Interestingly Franz Beckenbauer has decided to use his exceptional clout for criticising the England set-up for the second time in a week. Previously the World Cup winning player and manager had mocked England's style of play as 'kick and rush'. Since England and Germany were scheduled to meet in the last sixteen, 'Der Kaiser' has suggested that England were 'stupid' for failing to win their group and that their players looked 'burnt-out'. All that is certain is that Beckenbauer is providing a good source of motivation for the England camp, as if any more should be needed at this stage anyway.

Beckenbauer may be right when he claims that Germany will not fear England, after all they have a far richer World Cup history, but in recent years England have had the measure of their rivals. The last tournament encounter came in Euro 2000, when Alan Shearer scored the winner between two lacklustre sides (1-0). Since then there have been two victories apiece, funnily enough with all coming away from home. The most recent meeting was a friendly in Berlin in November 2008, a 2-1 win for England was notable for being Germany's first defeat in Berlin for 35 years.

Until Sunday however there will be plenty more to keep you occupied, starting with Brazil versus Portugal tomorrow, a match that may shed more light on both nations’ credentials. In the evening Spain will face the difficult task of needing to beat surprise package Chile, surely the Euro 2008 winners and World Cup favourites won't follow France and Italy out of South Africa as well?! After a nervy first week the tournament has certainly come alive, and there will be plenty more to come in the days ahead...

World Cup: None the wiser except for French disaster!

2010-06-17T17:56:00.010+01:00

The World Cup has now seen all of its 32 teams compete at least once, and with it comes the opportunity to review the front-runners and some of the outsiders prospects. Just like any good tournament results have not been entirely predictable.

The pre-tournament favourites were Spain, swiftly followed by Brazil, Argentina and then (ahem!) England. On the basis of those nations first games the bookmakers could be more susceptible to a costly payout on July 11th than they initially planned. Still, the World Cup is not lost or won through an opening game.

The first round of group matches have been intermittently criticised for a lack of free-flowing attacking football, there has been some truth in this but there should be little surprise. The build up and anticipation for the World Cup is tremendous and there can be little doubt that every nation and their manager has had the awareness in the back of their mind that the worst opening result is to lose.

This hasn't meant that their haven't been entertaining games and good goals, but their has been some negative tactics on show, particularly from France and Greece in their performances. As the second round group matches are well and truly underway, we have already seen Uruguay and Argentina record resounding wins against the hosts South Africa and South Korea respectively.

The second game for every nation is ultimately where there destiny is mapped out, with it being the second of three group matches there suddenly becomes very little room for error as each country battles for the points that will lead to the last sixteen. For Uruguay and Argentina those hopes are all the more real after the last couple of days.

The outstanding performances of the tournament thus far have come from Argentina and Germany, who made light work of an Australian team that don't look like replicating their heights of 2006. It has been mentioned that both these countries domestic leagues have been using the much criticised Jo'bulani ball, official for the World Cup! Alas the Premier League's 'contractual obligations' put paid to any such forward planning or initiative from the English FA.

Still, this practice is not the only reason for the success of Argentina and Germany so far. More the point is that they are the two nations that have shown the greatest attacking verve yet, and at the group stage it is reaping dividends. Of course it is often quoted that the World Cup becomes a greater contest when we are left with the shoot out nature of knockout football.

Looking ahead it seems highly likely that despite any defensive weaknesses Argentina have, notably playing Newcastle's Gutierrez out of position at right back, they should defeat Greece and finish top of Group B. Against the South Koreans they fraternised with blowing a two goal lead but ultimately they were a class apart and seemed happiest when pressurising their opponents with their movement and passing.

Gonzalo Higuaín poached the World Cup's first hat-trick since 2002 and Lionel Messi again did everything but score. So far so good for Maradona who has been far from the predicted disaster and has given the most amusing press conferences! I feel that he will come very close to emulating Franz Beckenbauer as a World Cup winning player and manager in South Africa, but Argentina's first real test of their credentials will come when facing the Group A runners-up, most likely Uruguay or Mexico.

After Thursday evening's match it now looks like a struggle for France to even overcome South Africa and snatch a second round clash with Maradona's team. Mexico were a delight to watch during their 2-0 win over Les Bleus, and at times the contest had the feel of being a winner takes all fixture. Their pace was evident from the first whistle, as Carlos Vela and Giovani dos Santos kept threatening to break a shaky central defensive partnership of William Gallas and Eric Abidal.

France on the other hand had their menacing moments but only truly tested Mexico's goalkeeper via a second half strike from Malouda. Their lame duck manager Raymond Domenech now appears determined to ruin the national team from within, there has been plenty of speculation about the French squad and manager being at each other's throats.

This type of rumour mongering has gone on before, particularly about squads from the Netherlands during Italia '90 and Euro '96. With France the weight of evidence is beginning to build up in support of the rumoured disharmony. Against Mexico Anelka was substituted at half-time and replaced with the even less effective André-Pierre Gignac. And as events turned to the worse for France in the second half Domenech looked serene as he lent against his dugout and refused to bring Thierry Henry into the fray.

BBC's commentators made the point that if Domenech has lost faith in Henry's abilities, then why on earth did he take him to South Africa instead of the dropped Karim Benzema and Samir Nasri. Indeed it is worth noting that David Trezeguet could still be playing for France if he hadn't retired due to being left out of the squad for the last European Championships.

Despite all their travails France could still scrape into the last sixteen, and in their favour is the fact that Mexico should be looking to beat Uruguay in their final group game. They top two may be able to draw and both qualify but Mexico will be aware that the group runner-up will most likely face Argentina next, a path they will prefer to avoid until later and one that France can hope for at best.

As for Spain and Brazil, we can expect better displays from both nations in their second matches, and Spain will know that they must convincingly dispatch Honduras. Their final group game will pitch them against Chile who won many admirers for their endeavour and skill against Honduras themselves, and as far as potential banana skins go they are right up there.

Meanwhile on Friday evening England will aim to fully forget the error that we dare not ponder, committed by their number one(?!) goalkeeper. Regardless of how Capello sways on the goalkeeping issue, England should (and we hope) beat Algeria relatively convincingly. That is so long as Rooney and Gerrard click as an attacking dynamic, the shackles should be off for the England captain now that Gareth Barry will be around to tidy things up behind them. We shall soon see, I will stick my neck out and say 3-1 to England (please don't embarrass me!!)

England and the Premier League take another knock.

2010-06-05T11:47:00.007+01:00

So with just six days to go until the World Cup explodes into life in South Africa, England finds itself in the midst of a déjà vu curse. Rio Ferdinand's knee ligaments ruling him out of what would have been his fourth World Cup, and most likely his last. Meanwhile England must march on with their third captain of 2010, Steven Gerrard.

Capello must be bemoaning the poor judgements and bad luck that has now robbed him of John Terry and then Ferdinand as the players to lead England in their World Cup quest. Reports had suggested that Ferdinand was close to being back to somewhere near his consistent best, after an injury-ravaged season at Old Trafford.

Unfortunately, with England in the closing moments of their first training session in South Africa, an innocuous challenge from Emile Heskey inflicted the damage to Ferdinand's knee ligaments and that was that. Whilst the loss of the Manchester United defender and England captain is clearly a body blow, there is no reason why England cannot get over their loss and get their tilt back on track.

Looking at the cup being half-full, at least England's preparations have gone astray with time in hand rather than during the tournament itself. Any injury that rules out a player within 24 hours or less of a country's first match, would result in the loss of that player without the possibility of a replacement being drafted in to the squad.

With just under a week until the World Cup starts, Matthew Dawson has already touched down in South Africa after taking an overnight flight to Johannesburg. He has already been fully re-integrated into the England squad and taken part in training at their base in Rustenburg. The Tottenham defender has yet to win a cap for England and whilst he has had a tremendous season, there will be some concern over his lack of a single touch in international football.

This is where Capello has come in for some criticism from fellow managers. Dawson's club manager Harry Redknapp was quite right when he was quoted as saying that both Dawson and West Ham's Scott Parker should have at least been given a run out during England's recent friendlies with Mexico and Japan.

The logic in Redknapp's sentiment is clear. If Dawson and Parker were good enough for the 30 man World Cup squad surely they should have been given a chance to impress, thus helping Capello understand what strength in depth he has. Instead both players could have justifiably felt that they had just been going along for the ride. That lack of reasoning has now been somewhat shown up by the emergency recall of Dawson.

Despite this, Dawson is very accomplished and we can only assume that Capello is perfectly confident in his ability to represent England, otherwise why include him in the first place. Besides, the Tottenham defender is far from the first international to be thrown in at the deep end.

Michael Owen made his England debut a mere four months before the 1998 World Cup, and we all remember the impact he had on that tournament. Then in 2002, Danny Murphy was a late withdrawal for England, Sven-Goran Eriksson drafted in Trevor Sinclair who went on to be one of England's better performers throughout the tournament. All this goes to show that when plans change they can still bear fruit, and Capello will be keenly aware of the importance in re-focusing the squad behind the new captain and vice-captain (Gerrard and Lampard).

The sad injury to Rio Ferdinand is likely to bring to the fore once again, concerns over the intense schedule that the Premier League demands of it's players. The last two days has seen confirmation that John Mikel Obi will also definitely miss the World Cup whilst he recovers from knee surgery. This was preceded on Friday by a fracture to Didier Drogba's elbow, during the Ivory Coast's friendly win over Japan.

Admittedly Drogba's misfortune was described as a case of bad luck and he may still feature in South Africa, but it is yet another case of a Premier League star succumbing to wear and tear after a long campaign. Before these recent injuries there had been previous misfortune to strike other Chelsea World Cup stars. Michael Essien has failed to recover since an injury in the African Nations, and Micheal Ballack was denied a final World Cup appearance by Kevin Prince-Boetang's crude challenge in the FA Cup final. (It remains to be seen if Prince-Boetang will face retribution if he turns out for Ghana against Germany in Group D!)

When looking back at England's participation in previous World Cups, there has been a worrying trend of the nation's build-up being distracted by injuries to high profile players. Just looking at the 2002 and 2006 tournaments you could rattle off the names of Beckham (twice), Danny Murphy, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen. If England does want to avoid these calamities the FA could do worse than seriously considering making the Premier League smaller, perhaps 18 teams like the Bundesliga or Eredivisie.

The Premier League may actually be the same size as La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1, but the English clubs do have to contend with a whole other domestic cup competition. Regardless of how many squad rotations may take place, the fact is that more games mean more stress on a player's body and more risk of injury.

Of course if England can overcome the adversity of losing Ferdinand, they can finally render this argument as useless. They certainly have a squad that is capable, and aside from Gerrard a couple of would be captains in the fold, namely Terry and Rooney. Mostly though it should be hoped that no more outstanding players will breakdown between now and the World Cup kick-off next Friday, that way whoever emerges victorious will have had to beat the very best along the way.

What is 'the South African Wave?'

2010-05-18T12:42:00.003+01:00

The heat is on, as Glenn Frey sang so well back in the eighties! The days are counting down to the World Cup kick-off in South Africa on June 11th, and aside from the small matter of a quite intriguing Champions League final, the excitement is well and truly brewing. So, have you got tickets or do you want to know of a chance to get some..?!

Here at The Final Whistle I have been made privy to the 'South African Wave', where you might just be able to get your hands on a pair of tickets for the most coveted sporting event every four years (sorry IOC and the Olympic Games).

The 'Wave' has been set up by Sony Ericsson and was launched on May 4th. In many ways it is like a traditional Mexican wave in celebration of the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The idea is that fans from all over the world can go to www.sonyericsson.com/wave. There you can record and upload your own personal wave, pick your national team of support and bring a little of your own style and sound to the venture- however you see fit.

It will then be posted alongside potentially thousands of other waves to create a constant stream of wave after wave of nationalities from all around the globe. The expectancy is that it will create by far and away the biggest ever 'stadium wave', online and as multi-cultural as the World Cup itself.

All entrants will be entered in with a chance to win limited tickets available for each stage of the competition. Winners have already been announced for the group stage and last sixteen matches (the lucky blighters!).

The good news is that there is still plenty of chance for you to get involved today and beyond. If you contribute to the 'Wave' by May 20th then you will automatically be in with a chance to pick up tickets for a World Cup quarter- final match including your travel and accommodation, not something to be baulked at by any means!

As far as things stand with the wave, England is by far and away the nation out in front. A whopping 18% of contributed waves thus far have come from England, followed by Brazil with 9% and the USA on 8%. If that's an indicator of England's fortunes to come in South Africa, then Capello and co. can be very pleased indeed!

So, have a look at www.sonyericsson.com/wave, it's certainly worth a shot and makes for amusing viewing. You may even come away with one of the number of official replica balls for the tournament. That way you can pretend that you're playing in South Africa yourself, weather permitting of course…

The season of managerial merry-go-rounds and renaissance.

2010-05-17T16:07:00.005+01:00

The 2009/10 season has been a remarkable one for managerial 'come-backs'. It may not be the most favourable term, football after all is full of ebbs and flows and ups and downs. However it is difficult to ignore how this past season several of Western Europe's major leagues have witnessed a revival in fortunes for some recently maligned managers.

The glaringly obvious example is former England manager Steve McClaren. The Eredivisie doesn't get much media coverage in England, where it is over-shadowed by La Liga and Serie A when it comes to foreign leagues. It has been interesting to note how little recognition McClaren has got in the British press over the last two seasons he has spent at FC Twente (except for at 90minutesonline). It seemed McClaren was still being punished for his failures in the England job.

Blanket coverage came only once his team clinched it's first ever Eredivisie title at the beginning of May. A deserved amount of praise was now bestowed, but ask football fans and the sporting press in the Netherlands and especially Enschede where Twente are based, and they'll reiterate that McClaren was a popular success and a 'gentleman' almost from the get-go.

During McClaren's tenure at FC Twente his team lost 16 matches in all competitions, out of 101 played. Add to that an impressive 63.37% winning ratio and it's little wonder that the club are very grateful but sad as they see him go.

Next season will be a new chapter and challenge as he has since been appointed manager of Wolfsburg, the recently deposed Bundesliga holders. Time will tell if he continues to emulate the late, great Sir Bobby Robson- as far as club football goes anyway.

Next, there is the continuing re-emergence of Lois van Gaal as one of the world's leading club managers. Last season he began by securing the Eredivisie with AZ Alkmaar, like McClaren it was a much-heralded success with a team that had not previously scaled such heights.

This led to him being offered the Bayern Munich post last summer. The season did not start well though, the first three Bundesliga matches yielded two draws and a loss. The pressure immediately and rather ridiculously started to mount already, not helped by a Bayer Leverkusen side that surprisingly held the top spot for much of the first half of the season.

Observers should have noticed that the Eredivisie title win with AZ had also started with two defeats in the opening two fixtures. Clearly van Gaal's teams start slow before blossoming. With Bayern it has been exactly the same case, the team consequently went on a 13 match winning streak from November to February. The sequence firmly re-established them domestically and in the Champions League, where there had been a danger of a group stage exit.

From that date on there have been four more losses to this point. The Bundesliga was comfortably wrapped up by five points and last weekend Bayern added the DFB Pokal (German cup) to their bounty, after a comprehensive 4-0 dismissal of the preceding holders Werder Bremen.

This Saturday Bayern Munich will line up for the Champions League final, this is perhaps van Gaal's most impressive achievement with Bayern, making the German powerhouse a European force once again. José Mourinho and Inter Milan will stand in their way and will be intent on stopping them and achieving their own piece of history. Either way one of these clubs will match Manchester United's treble-winning feat of 1999.

Finally, we turn to Ligue 1 and the triumphant campaign of Olympique de Marseille under the stewardship of Didier Deschamps. The newly crowned French champions secured their first league title in 18 years, and a first since the match-fixing scandal that saw them stripped of the 1992/93 championship.

Last season's title winners Bordeaux found the going a lot tougher this season and eventually faded to a sixth place finish. Thus opening the door for their coach Laurent Blanc to be made the strongly rumoured France manager in waiting, for after the impending World Cup.

Bordeaux did manage to reach the final of the Coupe de la Ligue (French cup) however, but like a changing of the guard they were also to be defeated by Marseille. Their clinical 3-1 victory represents the club's first French cup in its current format, as it has been since 1994.

The managerial journey of Didier Deschamps has perhaps been the most perplexing, his CV contains no real failure. After starting at Monaco in 2001 he went on to lead the club to their own Coupe de la Ligue success in the 2002/03 season. The next campaign he famously took the club all the way to the Champions League final after dispatching Chelsea in the semi-finals, only to lose to Mourinho and Porto.

Little did Deschamps realise at the time that his semi-final win and final loss precipitated the managerial manoeuvrings of Chelsea later that summer. Such is the managerial merry-go-round, as Claudio Ranieri was moved out of Stamford Bridge in order for the start of the Chelsea/ Mourinho era.

The World Cup winning French captain then took on the unenviable task of guiding Juventus back to Serie A in the 2006/07 season, following the match-fixing scandals and enforced relegation suffered by 'The Old Lady'. He ultimately achieved his remit but resigned at the end of the campaign after citing clashes with the board.

Yet despite Deschamps notable track record as a manager, he was left out of work until the opportunity as Marseille raised it's head last summer. After the immense achievement of a domestic double in his first campaign, you could wonder if the French FA are picking the wrong talented young manager to take over from the buffoon-like Raymond Domenech.

Serie A almost saw a managerial Lazarus of their own during 2009/10. The aforementioned Claudio Ranieri has often been portrayed as the managerial equivalent of a neutral’s favourite, and maintaining the merry-go-round he succeeded Deschamps at Juventus in 2007.

After two seasons at the helm Ranieri ultimately lost his job at the end of last season for failing to overturn Mourinho's Inter Milan, despite finishing second. The wait for a new position was answered relatively swiftly when he was moved into Roma early last September, as a replacement for Luciano Spalletti.

Since then Roma have had a dramatic rise in their fortunes, the club have lost only four league games under 'the Tinkerman' and made a thrilling push to snatch the Serie A title from under Inter Milan's noses. In the end it wasn't quite to be as they finished runners-up by just two points.

Further heartache came in the Coppa Italia (Italian cup), with Roma losing the final again to Inter Milan 1-0. For Ranieri this past season has been a case of so very near and yet so far. On the plus side he has proven, just like Roy Hodgson with Fulham, that reputation and success is not always about the winning but about how you get there.

In the meantime, until we roll on to the World Cup and the starts of the next domestic seasons, football managers can take some heart. As long as you're good enough, you can never keep a good man down!

Norwich embrace Pirates parade but spoil Rovers' day

2010-05-02T00:48:00.014+01:00

On Saturday I accepted a late invitation to watch Bristol Rovers host the already anointed champions of League One- Norwich City. Adding to the end of season party atmosphere were numerous fans dressed as pirates..

Bristol Rovers are more often known as 'the Gas', a reference to the days when their original ground in the Eastville area was overshadowed by a gasworks. The Pirates is their other major nickname and it turned out that there was some attempt afoot to break the record for the most people dressed as pirates gathered together in one place!

Whoever the organiser was would have been a little disappointed, there were several 'pirates' scattered throughout the Memorial ground but it appeared that the away fans were far more enthusiastic. A number of jovial luminous green and yellow spandex versions could be sighted amongst the Canaries faithful.

For Norwich the contrast to there opening game of the season could scarcely be greater. At that time our erstwhile reporter 'the Romeboy' gleefully took up the story of how then manager Bryan Gunn had led them to a 7-1 home loss to Colchester.

Norwich swiftly reacted by boldly snatching Colchester's manager Paul Lambert as their replacement for Gunn. From that point on they have been the most consistent team in League One and in the end have romped to the title and an immediate Championship return.

With the title decided with two league games left to play and Bristol Rovers out of the race for the play-offs, the match could accurately be described as a dead rubber. However, as far as Bristol Rovers are concerned, I can be fairly sure that at least the manager Paul Trollope will be happy with the overall campaign.

Realistically Rovers have long been out of the competition for snatching a play-off spot, although it remained a mathematical possibility until the last few matches. Instead they have consistently hovered between 6th and 12th ever since an encouraging start had them sitting pretty in the top four.

Back in late August I interviewed Paul Trollope, and judging by what he hoped to get out of this season he cannot be called a failure. He was reserved over his ambitions but also clear that the club should be seen to be progressing.

Last season saw 'the Gas' finish 11th, and after Saturday they were left in 10th with a final kick-off to come next weekend at Elland Road. There the odds will be against them as Leeds will need a win to guarantee a last-gasp automatic promotion spot, finally ending their exile in England's third tier of the league structure.

Nonetheless, fans of Bristol Rovers are far from gushing in their general praise for the efforts of Trollope. Too often a complaint heard from parts of their fan-base concerns the quality of football they see. There has also been some growing resentment at the lack of a replacement for their former star striker Rickie Lambert, who was sold to Southampton at the start of the season.

Meanwhile it could be said that after getting the club promoted from League 2 three seasons ago, the fans should be more grateful. After all, Bristol Rovers have quickly established themselves in League One and if they can improve their away form, they should be aiming for the play-offs in 2010-11. Interestingly there have been rumours that the MK Dons see Trollope as a successor for the soon to depart Paul Ince.

Rovers home form has been fairly good, winning 13 of 23 games and losing 7, especially when considering that two of those losses have come in their final three home games. One of these was my visit this weekend as Norwich proved why they have been a class apart since Lambert's appointment.

The first half was reasonably tepid and even, but Norwich were clearly getting joy from attacking the right flank of the home side. It was from another foray down this side that led to the champions opening goal, when Chris Martin cut inside the box and expertly finished with a low shot after making the defence look foolish.

Things continued in the same vein until half-time and the second minute of stoppage time. At this point I felt that the home side would be happy as long as they didn't concede another before the break, and like clockwork they did just that. Substitute Oli Johnson had replaced Stephen Elliot a minute earlier, and with what must have been his first touch he made it 2-0 from the edge of the area.

A player possibly worth keeping an eye on in next season's Championship will be Norwich's Anthony McNamee. As the Canaries targeted Rover's right side he was constantly involved and provided several decent crosses and through balls, using his extra pace and low sense of gravity to great benefit. Inevitably he was the player who played in Johnson for his goal.

The second half saw Bristol Rovers respond to their half-time team talk. From the outset they were far better organised and created a number of half-chances to get back into the game, so much so that it was easy to feel that a certain Ricky Lambert would have duly obliged. Unfortunately, try as they might the home side could not convert any of their good build up work into a proper shot on target.

Norwich appeared relatively happy to sit on their 2-0 lead and to soak up pressure, but in the 68th minute Rovers were again architects to their own undoing. Panic in their penalty box and too many missed tackles led to Stephen Hughes striking a low shot to the bottom right hand corner of the goal. A ricochet or two ended with the ball dribbling over the goal line for what amounted to a slightly harsh 3-0 scoreline.

This was greeted by some derision from the home crowd, who seemed resigned to such an outcome. In response Rovers finally crafted a proper effort on goal from another decent cross into the Norwich box, which found Darryl Duffy who smashed a header against the crossbar. The provider was Ben Swallow, who's probing throughout the afternoon was in a similar vein to Anthony McNamee.

Alas Bristol Rovers could not quite grab a consolation and so ended their quota of home matches for 2009-10. Credit must go to the home fans, or at least those in the terraces of the Blackthorn End, who were all the more vocal even after going 3-0 down.

If Paul Trollope can unearth a finisher with the qualities of the aforementioned Rickie Lambert, they should be confident of making a promotion bid next season. As a home fan said to me, League One has had several high profile clubs with bigger resources dominating it this year. If Leeds and Charlton join Norwich in the Championship, Rovers should be looking to fill the gaps they leave behind.

As for Norwich, they have a style that is quite easy on the eye and a manager that has them well drilled. All in all they should comfortably survive the step back up to the Championship, just as long as Delia provides the resources.

Roy Hodgson: The next England manager?!

2010-04-29T14:51:00.000+01:00

Far be it for me to put any dampeners on England's campaign for the impending World Cup in South Africa, but the manager merry-go-round is never far from the sporting pages.

In fact, rather than this being a pre-emptive indictment of how England will perform come June's spectacle, I merely speculate as a way of praising the low-key management style of Fulham's man in charge. Since his appointment at the very end of 2007, Fulham have developed into one of the Premier League's most industrious clubs and have shown a stark upturn in fortune.

Previously Hodgson had won numerous titles in Sweden and Denmark, with Malmö and F.C. Copenhagen respectively. He re-invigorated Inter Milan in the mid-nineties and achieved international recognition with Switzerland (guiding them to Euro'96) and recently Finland (narrowly missing Euro 2008).

His appointment may have been one of initial surprise, but despite not making an immediate impact on results Hodgson was able to inspire his team to 12 points from the remaining 5 games of the 2007-08 campaign. The resulting last-day heroics in avoiding relegation can now be seen as a landmark in the history of the club.

What followed last season was certainly unexpected as far as the bookmakers were concerned, they had Fulham as one of their pre-season relegation favourites. What transpired was a highly successful campaign ending in a seventh place finish in the Premier League, Fulham's highest finish in their history.

Fulham proved to be very difficult to beat at Craven Cottage and claimed some notable scalps. The visit of Manchester United resulted in the visitors and eventual champions being soundly overwhelmed and frustrated 2-0, and perhaps tellingly the last example to date of Wayne Rooney losing his cool and being sent off.

The seventh place of last season earned Hodgson's team a place in the qualifying stage of the Europa League. This ultimately means that their season started at the end of July, with barely a two month break after the 2008/09 season!

Despite this and their small squad Fulham navigated their way through the long competition and have transformed from an established Premier League club into one that has developed a reputation in European football.

This evening they are set to play Hamburg at Craven Cottage in the second leg of the Europa League semi-final. After securing a 0-0 away draw last week Fulham should be quietly confident. Especially so after Hamburg sacked their manager Bruno Labbadia last weekend, following a heavy 5-1 loss to TSG Hoffenheim.

Even if they fail in their quest, Hodgson has managed to completely change the perspective and reputation of Fulham this season. Their achievement in reaching the semi-finals has been monumental and the quality of the scalps they have taken enhances it further.

The holders FC Shakhtar Donetsk were overcome in the last 32. They were followed by Juventus in the last sixteen. Fulham overturned a 3-1 deficit from Turin into a stunning 4-1 home win that shocked everyone, especially after at one point being 4-1 behind on aggregate.

The Bundesliga champions Wolfsburg were confidently beaten home and away in the quarter-finals. Now as things stand after the first leg of the semi-final, Fulham's European results would so far suggest a team with plentiful experience and several campaigns behind them.

The truth is that this is only the second time Fulham have entered European competition in their history. The first came through the path of the Inter-Toto cup in the 2002/03 campaign.

The Uefa cup was then in it's old total knockout guise and the club reached the third round before a narrow aggregate loss to Hertha Berlin. (A club who were seeing far better days than they currently are; rooted to the foot of the Bundesliga and seemingly doomed to relegation)

Doubts remain until the last moment about Bobby Zamora's condition and fitness. The striker has scored crucial goals throughout the competition, scoring 8 in all and 19 overall. However if he is missing Fulham are still very capable of scoring goals from other sources such as Duff, Murphy and Dempsey, to name a few.

The clamour has also grown for Capello to give him a try-out in the final England friendlies before South Africa. It is fair that he deserves some consideration. Without Rooney, England's strike force relies on Jermaine Defoe's fitness and 'the Crouch affect'. The extra security of a fourth goal scorer could out-weigh the positives of Emile Heskey.

Under the guidance of Roy Hodgson, Zamora has become the embodiment of his effect on the club as a whole. The confidence has grown as has the quality of football, and the European adventures have added that extra necessity of experience.

Though the efforts in Europe have had an affect on their league form, Fulham have been relatively comfortable and never in threat of being sucked into a relegation scrap. If they could manage a couple more wins they may still finish as high as ninth.

Tonight however they sit on the cusp of potential sporting greatness, the tantalising prospect remains for a Europa League final versus Liverpool and all their history. For Roy Hodgson it would probably be his greatest footnote in a long and distinguished career, one that may only be capped if one day England were to come a calling.

Stamford Bridge and an end to Spurs derby hoodoo

2010-04-15T19:50:00.004+01:00

So on Tuesday it came to pass that your editor accepted an offer to sample the surroundings of Stamford Bridge as Chelsea hosted Bolton Wanderers. The difficulty in this was completely to do with my own allegiances to north London rivals Arsenal, meaning that the occasion felt a little like an extra-marital affair.

Not to worry I thought, "you never know, they may well drop points and you'll have to sit here pretending to look upset, keeping your smug glee hidden well within!" An extremely optimistic hope, but one that was to be tantalisingly close.

A few pre-match ales at a local pub 'The George' went down very nicely before it was time to get our game-face on and head back towards the ground. All the while our former ed. promised me a performance of champions, although it was a little tongue in cheek I think..?

With Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal being separated by a mere 3 points prior to kick-off (United's extra game played withstanding), the home fans certainly new the importance of maintaining their winning streak. After only 15 minutes the first smatterings of nerves and frustration began to emanate from the Matthew Harding stand, betraying the usual confidence.

The game was tentative as Chelsea probed at Bolton who were living up to their more assured defensive showings since Owen Coyle was made manager. The best efforts they had to show for the first half hour amounted to two uninspiring free-kicks from Didier Drogba.

Bolton started to come into the match a little more when Kevin Davies almost got through on goal, but the context was to change two minutes before half-time. Yuri Zhirkov had just recovered from several attempts to patch up a gash in his head, caused by a Kevin Davies challenge which left him receiving some choice words from the home fans.

The Chelsea left-back responded by going on a surging run down his flank, the ball dropped to Drogba who swept the ball across the Bolton goal face. The opportunity was too good to miss for Nicholas Anelka, who guided the ball in from close range.

The second half started with more purpose for Chelsea, forcing saves from Jaaskelainen via Kalou and Zhirkov. The rest of the game saw a case of what-ifs for both sides, but Bolton were ultimately unable to force an equaliser.

My first visit to Stamford Bridge was certainly enjoyable, even if the class of football wasn't up to my friend's prediction. The atmosphere was good and regular and it looks likely that they will re-claim the title this season.

This was made all the more likely by the unfolding of the following game on Wednesday evening. The north London derby is always fairly frenetic but on this occasion the stakes were quite high for both of the rivals. Arsenal have managed to stay in the title race far longer than expected in pre-season, and Tottenham remain in the thick of the hunt for fourth place.

The game started with Arsenal on the front foot and seemed to be making inroads towards the Tottenham goal. This all changed in the eighth minute when Almunia's punch from a corner fell to debutant Danny Rose, 30 yards out. He hit an outstanding volley as sweetly as they come and it flew back past everyone and the goalkeeper.

Not to put any pressure on the 19 year old, but it is worth noting that he is a left-sided English midfielder. A position that has not been England's strong point over the years. Arsenal were naturally a little stunned but quickly set about gaining parity.

As much as the away side dominated possession they could not create a clear opportunity, Tottenham's defense was strong and assured. Arsenal were then hit by the loss of Thomas Vermaelen, who is now confirmed as missing the rest of the season because of his calf.

Within a minute of the second half starting the home side had doubled their advantage. The Arsenal defense looked remarkably unsteady when Defoe sent a split pass through the centre of the penalty area ahead of Mikael Silvestre. The ball found Gareth Bale perfectly and he side footed in to make it 2-0.

Arsenal showed no signs of a crucial break-through as Tottenham's defense held more than their own. Only the introduction of Robin Van Persie, for the first time since November, spurred Wenger's team into action. The Dutchman made an impressive contribution and highlighted how much he has been missed this campaign.

In a two minute period Van Persie forced Heurelho Gomes into two quality saves, first from an over the shoulder volley and perhaps even better from a free-kick to his top right hand corner. Sol Campbell, performing well on his derby return, was then denied by a reflex Gomes save from his deflected header on to the bar.

Arsenal finally scored when Theo Walcotts's cross was bundled in by Nicholas Bendtner, four minutes of added time then made for a scene from the Alamo. Try as they might there was to be no heroic comeback and Tottenham could celebrate bragging rights in a league game for the first time in 11 years.

The title race now looks like being Chelsea's to lose, stranger things have happened but it would take a bizarre turn of events for Manchester United or especially Arsenal to overturn their deficits. Still, it has been the most competitive and unusual season for many years and starting this weekend there are some very big games left for this stage..

Premier League: Arsenal reach the summit, Bassong loses his shorts and Rooney destroys Hull

2010-01-24T20:38:00.001Z

Apologies once again for our hiatus, but we should be back with our usual regularity now! Football may not have a winter break in the UK, but here at 90minutesonline circumstances led us to follow in the footsteps of some of Europe's other top leagues.

Time to catch up on some of the latest action from the Premier League. Snow may have affected a number of matches during the first fortnight of the new year, but barring any more blizzards the fixture list is getting back on track. Wednesday night saw two previously postponed games finally kicking off: Liverpool versus Tottenham and Arsenal versus Bolton.

As fate would have it Arsenal and Bolton were playing for the second time in just three days, following on from the Gunner's 2-0 win at the Reebok stadium on Sunday afternoon. Under the new management of Owen Coyle Bolton were praised by many critics for their football last weekend, and at the Emirates the fans that had hounded Gary Megson's tenure had further cause for optimism.

Considering that a two-goal victory would give them at least a short-term stay at the top of the Premier League, Arsenal started particularly sluggish. Defensive insecurity led to Bolton scoring the opener. It was understandable that Gaël Clichy would be a little rusty after being out since early November, but Arsenal should have been sharper and Gary Cahill took advantage to volley in.

With Arsenal pressing for an equaliser things got even worse for the home side after 28 minutes. Bolton were awarded a clear penalty thanks to a sloppy foul courtesy of Denilson, and Matthew Taylor confidently put Bolton 2-0 ahead. Arsenal then started to show some character and crucially halved the deficit before the half-time whistle. Good work by Fabregas released Tomas Rosicky who then finished with aplomb inside the near post.

The 52nd minute became the key talking point of the match, Mark Davies and William Gallas both going for a 50-50 ball which resulted in Gallas finding Davies' ankle instead. Play continued and whilst Bolton dithered slightly, Arsenal exchanged passes until Fabregas expertly scored from an acute angle.

Whilst it was harsh on Bolton they would do well to remember that you should always play to the whistle. The tackle was bad but there was never any guarantee that the referee or Arsenal players would realise enough to stop play themselves.

From then on Arsenal were in the ascendancy, Bolton continued to show signs of attacking prowess but the momentum had clearly shifted. With 25 minutes to go Arsenal won a corner that was eventually nodded on by Diaby and found Thomas Vermaelen. The Belgian defender provided further evidence that he might be an emergency striker in the making, skilfully volleying the ball in after it had moved across his body.

The scoring was rounded off by Andrey Arshavin, the fan favourite was quick with his feet in creating space and stroked in the fourth goal with 5 minutes to go. Thus Arsenal finally had the two-goal win they had craved to lead the Premier League, although only after enduring a difficult evening.

Meanwhile Liverpool and Tottenham were playing at Anfield, with both trying to get one over on the other in the race for fourth place in the league. Spurs fans had good reason for a sense of foreboding about their trip to Liverpool, shockingly Tottenham have failed to win away against the traditional top-four in 65 matches since 1994.

The way Wednesday night started did little to suggest that Tottenham were on the way to breaking that duck either. After a mere 6 minutes Liverpool took the lead, Alberto Aquilani with a rare start created an opening on the edge of the area and Dirk Kuyt found the left corner past Gomes.

Liverpool were in overall control throughout the first half and had opportunities to extend their lead but it stayed 1-0 at half time. Soon after the re-start however Tottenham had every right to feel aggrieved when they had an equaliser ruled out from Defoe. Kyrgiakos and Reina got into a confused mix-up after the Tottenham striker had wandered back onside when he initially hadn't been.

After Defoe had then rolled the ball into the empty net the linesman belatedly raised his flag for the earlier offside decision. The question remains as to what point a player who was offside then becomes legally active in the play again? A matter the FA should try and clarify for sanity's sake.

The reprieve for Liverpool enabled to them focus and they went on to create a host of chances. Riera hit the crossbar with a header and Kuyt failed on more than one occasion to double his tally. Tottenham's manager thought to substitute on Sebastien Bassong with 15 minutes to go but found that the Frenchman wasn't wearing any shorts!

It isn't clear if Bassong eventually entered the game with his own shorts or not, but he did finally appear 5 minutes later than intended. In the dying minutes it was clear that Bassong should have simply stayed in for the day. Ngog had broken through the penalty area and the defender had tumbled him over from behind.

Kuyt scored with his first attempt but was ordered to retake it after encroachment into the area by both sides. With his second he rolled it past Gomes and gladly wrapped up the win for Liverpool that now sees them a point adrift of Tottenham.

Finally, Manchester United and Hull was oddly the only Premier League fixture on Saturday. The game itself was a proverbial cakewalk as United dominated possession and racked up goal-scoring chances. In an unusual combination Rooney was paired up front with Michael Owen.

The partnership certainly worked out better for England's current primary striker, Owen meanwhile was unable to capitalise on his build-up play as chances went astray. The home side took the lead in the eighth minute after Rooney gobbled up a Myhill parry, but despite their superiority and chances it stayed 1-0 until the final 10 minutes.

By this point Berbatov had replaced Owen, but on this occasion the plaudits were all going to be for Rooney who literally leads by example in his current form. In the 82nd,86th and 93rd minutes he plundered three more goals all from within the penalty area to compound a miserable yet predictably bad day at the office for Hull and Phil Brown.

The relegation candidates will certainly be looking ahead for more winnable games, the rest of the season looks like a long grind. The title race ploughs on however, with the top three all looking to catch the initiative there are plenty more twists and turns to come.

World Cup: Six months to whip yourself into a frenzy

2009-12-06T16:48:00.001Z

The draw for next year's World Cup in South Africa took place on Friday evening amid an expected amount of pomp and hype. There was endless build-up to the coverage, followed by the actual coverage of the draw itself on Sky Sports News. The broadcaster is never one to miss an opportunity to milk an event.

Personally I ended up plumping for watching it live on BBC 2. Not that I'm a big fan of Jonathan Pearce's commentary, but I could at least bare the clichéd platitudes of Lineker's motley crew.

The draw was given that added glamour of having Hollywood's most famous South African, Charlize Theron as a co-host. She was joined by the unintentionally humorous Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke, who spoke with an accent akin to Inspector Clouseau, but jollier.

The two of them spent far too long relaying to the crowd and the live feed, what the dynamics of the draw was and why. This was mostly conveyed by utilising Charlize's acting prowess, by which she played a not atypical women who was feigning interest in the sport.

An assembly of famous sportsmen and women were then presented on stage for the honour of picking out the balls that would determine which countries will play which next summer. All were representatives of South Africa in football, rugby and cricket except for Haile Gebrselassie and finally David Beckham.

The former England captain, who is widely expected to make the England squad for a fourth World Cup, was clearly the star attraction of the whole event. His presence in Cape Town was not only for the purposes of the draw, but more importantly for the English FA's ongoing campaign to secure hosting rights for the 2018 World Cup.

If reports are to be believed, Beckham's general standing and superstar status is becoming increasingly integral to a campaign that has been a little under whelming thus far. This was again seen with England's own video presentation to support their 2018 bid. The mini feature was entirely animated and unlike virtually all the other perspective host nations for 2018 and 2022, there was no lauding of their own criteria such as stadiums, cities or footballers.

The draw itself, when we finally got there, lasted for a little over 25 minutes. The excitement growing throughout with each circulation of picks and as the groups for 2010 slowly unveiled themselves.

For every European Championships and World Cup, there is an obligatory 'group of death', and 2010 will be no different. In fact you could realistically argue that next summer will have two groups- D and G, perhaps Dolce&Gabbana should organise sponsorship..!

Should either Germany and Brazil fail to get out of those groups, it would still amount to a major, major shock, but there is certainly some intriguing matches worth waiting for. I have a feeling that the Ivory Coast may claim the World Cup's first major scalp by ousting Portugal from group G, whereas I have an inkling that Australia will emerge as Germany's closest challengers in Group D.

As for England, there is certainly a case of the luck of the draw. The biggest threat of Group C must surely be the USA, who famously ended Spain's long unbeaten run on their way to the Confederations Cup final in the summer. Matches against Algeria and Slovenia should be reasonably surmountable, put it another way and if England were to struggle against those countries they would be far from the second favourites that English betting claims them to be.

Now that the tournament is scheduled and raring to go, stadium and transport permitting, the 2010 World Cup is looking like it could live up to it's billing as the greatest one ever. If you were to swap the hosts with France amongst the top seeds, then they would represent the traditional top-billed international teams. As well as this, 2010 will have all previous World Cup winning nations competing once again- the potential for some mouth-watering line-ups in the knock-out stages beckons.

It is easy to forget that there are still the domestic seasons to be completed between now and then, 186 days and counting. There is no fear of getting football burnout though, fans just like the players need to get themselves conditioned and trained for the world's biggest sporting event.

Planning the days around your work and trying to watch as many matches as possible, it is only every four years after all! It doesn't occur to yourself that you may be taking things to far when trying to convince your girlfriend the importance of you watching New Zealand taking on Slovakia, who knows- it could be a classic!

The good thing is that there is plenty of time to get yourself primed for the big kick-off on June 12th, so get your annual leave booked off (no need for a holiday!) and your excuses ready..

A tale of three derbies

2009-11-30T23:10:00.001Z

Most neutrals gearing up for last weekend's football action would have found it difficult not to be bombarded by the fevered anticipation of three particular matches, especially if you reside in the UK.

I'm not referring to the clash of Portugal's titan's, Sporting Lisbon and Benfica (0-0 by the way!). No, rather the Merseyside derby that was followed by Arsenal's clash with Chelsea and finally Barcelona and Real Madrid in El Clasico.

It seems that the broadcaster's so-called 'Super Sundays' happen a lot more often than they used to. Not so much a reaction to an increase in the number of great football matches that are on, but rather a part of Sky's 'occasionally' unwarranted over-hyping of their schedule.

Anyway, that aside it is time to pick over the remains of the 'key' results of the weekend, at least as far as the Premier League and La Liga is concerned. So we start with Sunday's early kick-off, as Everton hosted Liverpool in a Merseyside derby that was surrounded in the mist of both club's recent poor form.

The over-riding lasting impression from the game was of how Everton failed to exert even more pressure onto the beleaguered Rafa Benitez. The 'Toffees' may have been suffering from a chronic injury list and last week's defeat to Hull City, but they certainly imposed themselves on Liverpool for long periods.

With games as tight as these there is always the danger of one team rueing their luck, and unfortunately for David Moyes that moment came after only 12 minutes. The dogmatic Javier Mascherano struck a hopeful shot that ricocheted off of Joseph Yobo, leaving Tim Howard as a stranded spectator.

This had a galvanising effect on the home team, and they responded with some neat passing and interplay. Before half-time had been reached Everton and their striker Jo had had two goals ruled out for off-side, and had failed to capitalise on their possession.

The second-half delivered more of the same, Liverpool with the intermittent threat and Everton continuing to push the agenda. The inevitable gilt-edged chance for Everton came with 20 minutes left. Firstly Tim Cahill's typical header was pawed away by Reina, only for Fellaini's close-range follow up to be equally smothered by the Spaniard.

The opportunity missed, Liverpool capitalised in the common cruel fashion. Only 10 minutes before the final whistle and Riera tested Tim Howard at full-stretch, the save was good but Dirk Kuyt was quickest to react and pounced for a Gary Linekar type poacher's goal. Everton will recover if they play with the same determination, but Liverpool are far from guaranteed their craved top-four finish on the evidence of Sunday.

The day's second big match concerned the Premier League's league leaders and title pretenders. Until last weekend Arsenal had been on a steady and impressive run of form that had taken them into 2nd place and given credence to their ambitions. Despite the away loss to Sunderland, optimism was still high that the Gunners could overturn Chelsea's new stoical consistency.

Things started steadily at the Emirates and Arsenal quickly settled into holding possession and building attacks, the problem which came back to haunt them was a lack of a killer final pass. Instead Chelsea demonstrated that they are building their title challenge on the back of a strong defence, and for all Arsenal's endeavour there was little goal-mouth action.

As the game moved towards what was appearing to be a closely fought half-time stalemate, Chelsea manufactured their first shot on the home side's goal. Fate would have it that Ashley Cole was the architect, as the home crowd's boos failed to have the desired affect. With 41 minutes on the clock he whipped in a low cross from the left which found the onrushing Didier Drogba, whos touch somehow guided the ball into the top right corner of the net.

Crucially the second goal arrived seconds before the half-time whistle. In an odd case of déjà vu, a similar Ashley Cole cross deflected off of an unlucky Thomas Vermaelen into exactly the same spot of the Arsenal goal. Suddenly 2-0 down and the Gunner's were feeling rather dejected.

The second half saw an expected response from Arsenal, and an injection of pace from Theo Walcott as a substitute. The England international threatened several times down the right flank, but as with a lot of the team's play it simply lacked a Robin van Persie like figure.

Even so, Arsenal did score soon after the break through Andrey Arshavin, only to be thwarted by the referee. The official blew his whistle for a foul by Eduardo on Petr Cech, but replays showed the decision to be harsh. The Chelsea 'keeper had not gained a full grasp of the ball before the Croatian kicked it out of his hands and on to Arshavin, one may wish to re-open the debate that goalkeepers are now afforded too much protection.

Alas, whilst football has many what-ifs, they have to be overcome if you want to succeed and Arsenal got no closer to getting back into the match. The final blow came as the contest looked to be petering out, with 4 minutes to go Drogba converted an impressive free-kick from about 25 yards.

The inquests have begun and Arsenal go from being title-challengers two weeks ago to being also-rans today. Realistically it is still too early to make such sweeping statements, but Wenger will hope that his stubborn words about Arsenal's title chances can inspire them to a long unbeaten run. Either way Chelsea need to drop points, how they cope with squad absences (especially Drogba) during the African Nations will be the key.

Finally we come to El Clasico, always a battle that is watched by a massive global audience every season. What has heightened the expectancy this time around is the relative competitiveness of both Barcelona and Real Madrid's squads. After the way that Florentino Pérez had courted the press and some of the world's greatest players over the summer, there was a genuine excitement about seeing such an eclectic assembly of stars on one pitch.

More importantly for the money-men, Cristiano Ronaldo was declared fit for his first such 'derby', after missing most of the previous six weeks through injury. The match itself was predictably frantic and keenly fought, as Barcelona held onto the ball and looked for openings and Real' looked to the counter with their pace.

The first real chance fell to the visitors after 20 minutes and came at the feet of Ronaldo when he was put through on goal by Kaka, but Víctor Valdés demonstrated his worth with a fine block that flew over. Shortly after Marcelo was also thwarted, in similar fashion by Carlos Puyol who was inspired throughout.

The Barcelona captain repeated his heroics on Marcelo not long after the break, the champions defence was certainly living up to its reputation as being the stronger of the two teams. The home team then continued the theme of the day by taking advantage of their opponent's wasted efforts and taking the lead themselves.

Pep Guardiola had only just substituted Thierry Henry with Zlatan Ibrahimović when the Swede made an instant impact. With virtually his first touch of the ball he confidently volleyed in Dani Alves' cross for the pivotal moment of the match.

The tide turned again however when Sergio Busquets was sent-off for a needless second yellow card, and Real sensed an opening. The game itself naturally opened up due to Real pushing forwards and Barca picking holes with the counter-attack, the La Liga affair was becoming comfortably the best fixture of the day.

The best chances for an equaliser came to Karim Benzema, who at €35 million must be one of the most expensive subs of all time! Perhaps as a result the Frenchman was a little rusty and only managed to blunder his best effort and had his other denied by none other than Puyol.

At the death Lionel Messi contrived to miss a close finish, but who in fairness was thwarted by the usual quality of Iker Casillas. A final turn was performed by Lassana Diarra who got himself sent off with an act of petulance, and with that Barcelona had secured the bragging rights.

On the evidence of Sunday, it may not be a surprise if La Liga was to turn out to be a tighter race than the Premier League this season. Certainly the Premier League is more competitive this time around, but Chelsea are the only team not making mistakes at this moment in time, hence their lead. Roll on the knock-out stages of the Champions League, now that will be interesting.

Premier League round-up: New age treatments and Tottenham go goal-crazy

2009-11-22T20:02:00.001Z

After an extended international break over the last week, the Premier League was raring to get going again this weekend. However, the latest bout of international matches did not pass by without claiming some victims and certain clubs could be forgiven for wondering if fate wasn't conspiring against them.

The most notable casualties concerned the top 2 in the Premier League, as they were on Saturday morning. League leaders Chelsea were made to do without the influential Frank Lampard, whereas Arsenal had to face up to losing the fulcrum during their recent good form- Robin van Persie.

Bizarrely and interestingly enough, van Persie has since been reported to have placed faith in another in the long line of weird and wonderful emerging treatments. The remedy in question 'simply' involves massaging the fluid form a horse's placenta into the area of injury, in this case the Dutchman's ankle ligaments.

The practice is performed by the Serbian doctor Marijana Kovacevic, and it has emerged that van Persie is not the first Premier League footballer to have visited her in Serbia. Former happy customers have included Liverpool's Yossi Benayoun, Glen Johnson and Albert Riera, as well as Manchester City's Vincent Kompany and Pablo Zabaleta.

Since Lampard suffered his own injury on England duty he too has also flown out to Serbia. Although it is not believed that he is investing in Kovacevic's horse techniques, but rather her general expertise in muscular injuries.

When asked about the form of therapy that van Persie is undergoing, Arsène Wenger sounded far from convinced, but he did concede that part of the treatment may be psychologically beneficial. Either way it remains to be seen if you'll soon be able to buy it over the counter from Boots, if it does then your local gym may soon wreak of the essence of placenta- mmm!

As for how the absences of both Lampard and van Persie affected their respective teams, the answer ended up being good for Chelsea but bad for Arsenal. The Premier League's top team wasted little effort over the visit of Wolves, confidently brushing them aside with slick demonstrations of passing and moving in their 4-0 win.

The cause of Mick McCarthy's team wasn't helped by their horrendous opening quarter of the match, after only 21 minutes they had already conceded 3 times. The re-emergence of Joe Cole has come at exactly the right time for Chelsea and England for that matter, and against Wolves he showed the extra dynamic that he can provide.

The opening burst of goals for Chelsea came courtesy of Florent Malouda and a brace from Michael Essien, Cole polished off his own display by grabbing the fourth. Ominously the result also saw Chelsea equal the club record of consecutive home clean-sheets, originally set back in 1927.

Whilst Ancelotti and his side are deservedly the current title favourites, the chasing pack of Manchester United, Arsenal and those behind them can maintain some optimism. The African Nations is on the horizon and Chelsea stand to lose the most from it's impact on their squad. The manager maintains that there will be no signings during the January transfer window, but what is certain is that Chelsea will have to quickly adapt to losing key players such as Didier Drogba, Essien, Salomon Kalou and John Obi Mikel if they want to re-gain the Premier League crown.

Meanwhile, the growing talk of Arsenal's own quest to once again be Premier League champions were literally 'Bent' on Saturday. The loss of Robin van Persie had caused concern amongst the Gunners fans, the Dutchman has been an instrumental part of the club's recent surge towards the Premiership summit, scoring 7 league goals thus far and setting up many others.

Even so, Arsenal have players capable of stepping into the breach, namely Eduardo and the increasingly important Andrey Arshavin. On top of this, other players who have spent long periods injured are now beginning to return. With Theo Walcott and Tomas Rosicky there should be ample resources to cover for Arsenal's leading goal-scorer.

Despite such reassurances, Arsenal headed to the Stadium of Light knowing that they would have to see-off a Sunderland team that has looked more and more robust this season. Having already defeated Liverpool with a beach ball and been very unlucky not to defeat Manchester United at Old Trafford, yesterday's match looked more and more like a potential banana skin.

The match started with Arsenal making their obligatory frantic forays at the opposition, after which it settled down into an affair with few clear-cut chances. With time running out and Arsenal under pressure to match Chelsea's 3 points, there was an inevitability about Sunderland grabbing the only goal when 20 minutes remained.

England hopeful Darren Bent bundled in a corner at the second attempt and with it dealt Arsenal's aspirations a sudden blow. Despite the result Arsenal are still viable title challengers, but the importance of beating Chelsea at the Emirates on 29th November is of even greater consequence now. As Wenger said, "It is a massive setback because you need consistency to win a title. And today we were not capable of doing that and it raises question marks." Snuffing out Chelsea can be the only riposte.

Elsewhere Manchester United rallied themselves to a comfortable 3-0 win over Everton; Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick and Valencia the goal-scorers. In truth Everton never looked capable of upsetting the odds, and only threatened once they had both Saha and Yakuba up front in the 2nd half. The tactical change brought only brief respite though, before Utd promptly grabbed their 2nd and 3rd goals to leave David Moyes in a rather forlorn mood.

As for the other half of Merseyside, Liverpool hosted Manchester City in the early Saturday kick-off and both Rafa Benitez and Mark Hughes must have been 'delighted' after a 2-2 draw that did little to help either side back towards the top four. The match itself was widely panned as unbecoming of the score-line and all the goals came after a lacklustre first half.

The two clubs are not short of competition for the coveted Champions League spots and if they continue to drop points as they currently are, there may be some difficult decisions ahead for both boards. It is hard to imagine that either manager won't have until the end of the season, but the same confidence cannot be said for the beginning of next season.

What must count as a relegation six-pointer between Hull City and West Ham, produced a game befitting of the occasion- a humdinger that ultimately ended in a 3-3 draw. The chances of survival for Hull are strongly linked with Jimmy Bullard and Kamil Zayatte, each scored for their club and were once again responsible for driving the home team forward.

For Gianfranco Zola, his concerns will centre round West Ham's porous defence and a worrying new habit of dropping 2 goal leads. Despite establishing a 2 goal cushion after only 11 minutes, they were unable to put Hull to bed and instead found themselves 3-2 behind at the interval. Da Costa salvaged a point with 20 minutes left, but Zola will hope that come the end of the season they won't be regretting their recent results.

Finally attention must turn to today's three o'clock kick-off between Tottenham and Wigan, recent form suggested a home win was most likely but Roberto Martinez will surely suffer a nervous twitch when hearing the words Jermain Defoe in future. The England striker became only the third player to score 5 goals in a Premier League game as Tottenham went on a 9-1 rampage.

Wigan will look back and wish that they could have settled for the 1-0 deficit they had at half-time, unfortunately for them they conceded 8 second-half goals for their heaviest ever league defeat. Not only will Defoe have shown Fabio Capello his increasing worth, there was also an outstanding performance from Aaron Lennon who set-up 3 goals and scored one himself.

The BBC's live text feed of the match jokingly commented after the score reached 3-1 that Tottenham only needed another 12 goals to overturn Arsenal's goal difference advantage. Little did they know that Wigan would collapse in an appalling heap and that Spurs would cancel out half the quota!

If Harry Redknapp can one day get his team to perform against those above them, then who knows what they could achieve. Until then they can dine out on having greatly contributed to yet another high-scoring weekend in the Premier League.

France and Portugal play the pantomime villains

2009-11-18T00:00:00.000Z

When speaking to colleagues and friends who like their football it is not always easy to find agreement, but in the last few weeks there has been a general unison over one topic in particular. Unless you are French, Portuguese or dare I say a little too diplomatic, almost all football fans were supporting the Republic of Ireland and Bosnia-Herzegovina for last weekend's 1st leg World Cup play-offs.

The overly diplomatic of you will naturally say that the World Cup would be much poorer for the absences of Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Deco, Franck Ribéry, the list goes on. That is a fair point, but it's far from unusual for a World Cup to be missing the odd 'major' international side. Some country that is expected to participate always messes up their qualification.

At least the players I've listed have played in a World Cup, it will always be a great shame that George Best, Ryan Giggs or Alfredo di Stéfano never got such an opportunity. Add to that the fact that Eusébio only played in the 1966 finals and you could say that the French and Portuguese have been quite fortunate in recent times!

More to the point, a lot of football fans will see the absence of the 2 nations as a major bonus for the prospects of their own national teams. With both of them out of the equation before a ball has been kicked in South Africa next summer, any sane supporter will mischievously be thankful.

On top of that is the not so secret revelation that Cristian Ronaldo is far from the most popular player in the World. Aside from those that follow him for Real Madrid and Portugal, it can't be said that Ronaldo has ever really enamoured himself with rival supporters.

Any player who can be so dangerous on the pitch is bound to be greeted with some hostility at away grounds, but Ronaldo has courted the occasional controversy. It was after he got over the habit of being soft on his feet that he developed into the person who is the current FIFA World Player of the Year and Ballon d'Or holder.

His move away from Manchester United to Real Madrid may have been pre-ordained but it still caused some resentment. The Spanish club is infamous for the way that it often uses the media to manufacture transfers of the high-profile players it wants. Whilst Ronaldo may not be the first footballer to make contradictory declarations of loyalty, there have been some sportsmanship that caused widespread anger.

The obvious example came at the last World Cup and Ronaldo's part in the sending-off of Wayne Rooney during England's quarter-final with Portugal. The Englishman, like others before him, had not helped himself in the slightest with his actions, but Ronaldo's wink filled the criteria of distasteful motivation.

It's the sort of thing that rightly draws ire from football fans, much like the horrendous dive of Rivaldo in the 2002 World Cup. If you don't remember it then just look for it on YouTube. What is most telling is that for all of the skill that Rivaldo has displayed in his ongoing career, when searching for his name on the Internet- that dive comes fourth in the results listing. That perhaps says something for how such incidents can mar or besmirch a player’s career.

Still, this isn't all about the personalities of certain players who play for France or Portugal, it more simply comes down to the competitive edge. The rest of the World had a chuckle when England failed to reach either the '74, '78 or 1994 World Cups, although we really weren't to be that feared!

Plus it's always more fun to be cheering the underdog, although again that has too often been the millstone of an England fan when reaching a tournaments latter stages. The World Cup seems that much more positively bizarre now that we know next summer will see North Korea, Honduras and New Zealand in it, amongst the usual suspects.

You certainly can't begrudge Honduras having their day in the sun, goodness knows the population could do with something to take their minds off a turbulent history. The country has had more than it's fair share of upheavals when you consider hurricanes, floods and political instabilities. I hope that they can match their resolute 'success' of their only previous appearance in 1982, when 2 draws and a 1-0 loss to former Yugoslavia ended their progress beyond the group stage.

Alas after France and Portugal came away with 1-0 1st leg wins, the optimism that 1 or both of them will not make the World Cup is looking flimsy. As fantastic a manager as Giovanni Trapattoni is, France rarely lose at home and the chance of the Republic of Ireland doing so isn't great. Nonetheless it has been done, Scotland demonstrated it at the Parc des Princes during the Euro 2008 qualifiers, and look at them now.

The more likely upset remains to be Portugal. In some respects (like France) they were lucky to secure the 1-0 victory, Bosnia-Herzegovina managed to hit the Portuguese woodwork an extraordinary 3 times as they pressed for the all-important away goal. The return leg will be far from easy to negotiate, Bosnia-Herzegovina are far from shy at scoring at home, their 5 home qualifiers thus far have yielded 16 goals.

Either way these return legs are the final point of no return, the last chance saloon as it were. Let's hope that we see some matches that demonstrate that mentality and generate at a thunderous pace. Most of the World will watch the 2010 World Cup and what it has to offer, but there will be some nations next summer where it will feel strangely quiet, choose your destinations wisely!

Eredivisie: FC Twente show Ajax who's top.

2009-11-12T00:34:00.001Z

Another weekend passes in the Netherlands and still the top 2 teams refuse to be beaten, is it possible that the Eredivisie will have it's own alternative to the Arsenal 'Invincibles' this season?

With 21 more fixtures until the end of the campaign it may just be a little optimistic to consider such a possibility, but judging by the dominant form of FC Twente and PSV Eindhoven so far it may not be at all fanciful. This last weekend saw probably the biggest league game of 2009-10 to date, with leaders FC Twente facing off to Martin Jol's free-scoring Ajax who are in third place.

Since Ajax linked up with Martin Jol in the summer, there have been high expectations for the Amsterdam team to reclaim their place at the top of the Eredivisie. They have certainly been entertaining their fans, up until last Sunday they had scored 40 goals in 12 league games- a quite phenomenal record that owes credit to the Uruguayan Luis Suárez, who has 16 goals already!

However things did not continue in that vein for Ajax when they visited FC Twente's ground, De Grolsch Veste. The last and only occasion that Ajax had failed to score in this year's Eredivisie was back on August 23rd, at home to Sparta Rotterdam. By late Sunday afternoon the tally had been doubled and cost Ajax their second defeat of the term as they went down 1-0.

The goal for FC Twente came courtesy of Bryan Ruiz. Something which should not be a surprise seeing as the Costa Rican has been outstanding since Steve McClaren purchased him in the summer for the tidy sum of €5m. A Theo Janssen free-kick from the right of the Ajax penalty area was gobbled up by Ruiz, who firmly headed in the set-piece virtually un-marked, giving him 9 league goals thus far.

With the way that Ajax have been winning games recently, it was of little surprise that FC Twente didn't have everything there own way. In fact they started the game strongly and actually hit the cross bar through the aforementioned Suárez during the first half. The most pleasing aspect for Steve McClaren however will be how his team controlled the game and protected their lead after Ruiz's strike.

What with FC Twente securing an 8th consecutive league victory, it was only apt that their nearest rivals PSV should respond in kind with their biggest win of the season. They visited ADO Den Haag, who are currently mimicking last season's fraternisation with relegation, when they were newly re-promoted to the Eredivisie.

As mentioned in previous reports on the league, PSV are now managed by McClaren's predecessor at FC Twente, Fred Rutten. As if the Eredivisie couldn't be scripted any better, Rutten's team are on a run of their own as they chase top of the table, with 10 wins from their last 11 league fixtures. The 5-1 win they racked up on Sunday means that they still trail Twente by 2 points but now lead Ajax by 4.

Special mention has to be made for the Swede Ola Toivonen, who scored 4 of PSV's goals, with the hat-trick all in the first half. The attacking midfielder is a summer signing who has acquited himself well and is now tallying a goal every other game.

Fourth placed Feyenoord continued their recent poor turn of form that has seen them drop points and get separated from the top 3. This time around they faced reigning champions AZ Alkmaar at their DSB Stadion, and the final result of 1-1 greatly reflected the old adage that the contest had been a game of 2 halves.

Whilst neither team were to be ashamed of the outcome, anything short of 3 points is a failure when considering the way that FC Twente and PSV are currently finishing matches. Feyenoord are now 11 points adrift of the summit, whereas AZ are a massive 16 and their defence is as good as over already.

Elsewhere, NAC Breda were the weekend's big movers. They took advantage of all the teams closest to them going victory-less, and with a dominant 4-0 home win over Willem II they jumped up to 6th place in the table.

The 'The Rats' have been inconsistent so far this term but in the form of a sequence of results, rather than individual ones. Their latest win means they haven't lost in 4 league games, if they can keep their heads then they could secure another Europa League spot to go with this season's.

A final thought for the Eredivisie's bottom club- RKC Waalwijk. The former top-flight stalwarts who returned this season after a 2 year wait in the Eerste Divisie (2nd division), have had very little to cheer since their come-back. Until last Saturday they had lost 11 of their first 12 matches.

Recent form has been enhanced though (of sorts), instead of losing heavily their 3 prior fixtures to Saturday had ended in 1-0 reverses. So it came to pass that RKC Waalwijk cemented a 2nd vital win of the league season and their first away from home. Their opponents were NEC, who more significantly lay a single spot above them in the relegation zone.

Only 13 games into the campaign and already we have seen what may prove to be a massive 'six-pointer', for the bottom of the table anyway. Serious doubts understandably remain over whether or not RKC Waalwijk can realistically escape their pre-ordained fate, but at least they're improving.

The improvements at FC Twente are no longer being dismissed either. The way that the Eredivisie is developing the challenge is now set for one of the Netherlands traditional big 3 teams to get in the way of Twente claiming their first title since 1926, and from halting McClaren's transformation from villain to hero..

Bundesliga: Leverkusen gearing up and Bayern haunted

2009-11-04T00:53:00.001Z

Last season's Bundesliga turned out to be one of the most competitive title races ever witnessed anywhere and this time around things are shaping up to be just the same. However, the Bundesliga table as it currently stands is another surprise, the top 2 spots are held by the teams that finished 9th and 10th respectively in 2008-09.

On 23 points, and the only team left unbeaten after the first 11 games, is Bayer 04 Leverkusen. They are swiftly followed by Werder Bremen who are a single point behind them. The top 8 teams are only separated by a mere 5 points and Bayern Münich are down in 6th place, 4 points off the pace.

Last summer Wolfsburg famously kept their nerve to become champions for the first time in their history. If Leverkusen were able to maintain their current form and position to the end of the season, Germany will have the unusual statistic of first time winners of the championship back to back.

The major concern for Leverkusen is that they should be even further ahead of the chasing pack, their last 3 league fixtures have ended in draws. In fairness both away games were against Hamburger SV and Schalke 04, with the home draw versus Borussia Dortmund. All 3 sides finished above Leverkusen last season, which goes to show how much they have since improved.

Possibly their most impressive result thus far was the frantic 3-2 away win over Wolfsburg. The home team had to endure their goalkeeper Diego Benaglio being sent off after only half an hour, and then being taken apart by Leverkusen. They established a 3-0 lead despite also having Erin Derdiyok sent off. Some pride was salvaged by Wolfsburg netting 2 goals in the last 15 minutes, but Leverkusen were deserving victors.

A brace in that game by Simon Rolfes contributed to his tally so far of 4 goals in 9 games, already surpassing his total of last term. The German international midfielder has so far encapsulated the overall change around Leverkusen.

Defence has been the solid foundation, with only 8 goals conceded in the 11 games. Whereas goals are easier to come by, Stefan Kießling having provided 7 so far is in the most prolific form of his career. The big question is whether or not they will actually be able to keep themselves at the summit of the Bundesliga and stave off the challenges of the traditional big teams.

Bayern Münich should be faring better than they currently are, particularly with Louis van Gaal freshly appointed as manager. Last season's runners-up were not in the best of health before he arrived and the Dutchman should be given a couple of seasons to work his magic and make things to his liking. You only need to look at the eventual rewards of AZ Alkmaar last season to realise that van Gaal could make Bayern a European threat again.

Even so the hierarchy at Bayern may be just a little perturbed at how well things have turned out for Jupp Heynckes. The sixty-four year old journeyman coach was parachuted in as the club's caretaker manager after the sacking of Jürgen Klinsmann. He had previously retired in early 2007, leaving the top job at Borussia Mönchengladbach. On June 5th he was revealed at Bayer Leverkusen.

Clearly the experience at Bayern has whetted the appetite of the man who has coached Real Madrid and Benfica amongst others in his time. The scenario could lead to an ironic twist if he was to be responsible for Bayern failing to win the title back, and it would bring back painful memories of similar events last season.

Wolfsburg were helmed by a certain Felix Magath during their title triumph. The former Bayern manager was sacked in 2007 and left Münich to take up the reigns at the unheralded Wolfsburg. He had secured 2 Bundesliga titles whilst at Bayern but it must be assumed that the 2008-09 season is his greatest personal accolade to date. A real bolt from the blue and one that showed Bayern what they had spurned.

Nothing can be taken for granted at this stage though. Bayern are still clearly a threat and could come good as the season unfolds, they have held on to Franck Ribéry and if his mood improves he will be influential. Perhaps even more significant will be the return of Luca Toni from injury, he has continued to score freely in Germany and is a big miss for them.

The other main contender’s for now are Hamburger SV, who lay third by virtue of goal-difference. They are now managed by Bruno Labbadia, who as it happens left the same position he had held at Leverkusen in the summer- the fates have a habit of conspiring in the Bundesliga!

Finally a mention for the team in 4th place. Schalke 04 were big under-achievers last season, former FC Twente manager Fred Rutten lasted a scant 11 months before being sacked last March. They finally finished down in 8th place and the club meanwhile made an audacious and successful move for Felix Magath.

The speculation and confirmation that Magath would leave Wolfsburg before the end of their title-chasing campaign, did lead to some resentment and concern that the club may blow their chances. It turned out to be unfounded when they won their final 3 league games with a 13-1 aggregate score.

More to the point, Magath has started his new position at a canter and Schalke 04 are just 2 points off of Leverkusen. If the Bundesliga continues to carry on as it is, Bayern's board may yet face more sleepless nights over the managers they let get away...

La Liga: Barcelona versus the new Galácticos

2009-10-29T19:27:00.001Z

After the summer that Real Madrid had it is little wonder that they have been touted as the team to beat for this season's La Liga. Naturally they are always considered amongst the favourites for any competition, history and reputation dictates it, but even by their own standards the summer of 2009 was a bold and expensive one.

For approximately £215m Real Madrid purchased four high-profile players; Kaká, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Xabi Alonso. The most lavish spending spree in football history has put Real Madrid on a pedestal once again.

Many have argued that whilst it's not unusual for big clubs to spend vast amounts of money, for Real to have splurged such figures in the space of one transfer window and during a global recession is verging on tasteless. That may be so, but it doesn't stop the majority of fans in awe of the team that they have built, and it doesn't necessarily guarantee success.

What is certain is that Real's new manager Manuel Pellegrini is in a pressure cooker situation. This isn't unusual when you consider how even winning La Liga hasn't saved the job for previous incumbents such as Vincente del Bosque and Fabio Capello. The only difference this time is that Pellegrini has even less time to lose to secure trophies (if that's possible).

This is inevitably where Barcelona come into play. The historical rivalry between the Catalan club and Real Madrid is all the more fierce when considering the political implications of old. Realistically it will be up to Josep Guardiola and co. in order to stop 'Los Blancos' from re-claiming La Liga from them.

As things currently stand not too much has changed from last season, 8 games into the new season and Barcelona are top of the pile with Real Madrid chasing them from second spot. The Champions League holders have negotiated the league without suffering a defeat and have dropped points just the once, after a 0-0 draw away at Valencia on October 17th.

Real meanwhile have flattered to deceive. They are only three points behind Barcelona due to their 2-1 away loss to Sevilla at the beginning of the month, but they haven't steamrollered opponents. They did start the season with 7 straight victories in the league and Europe, but since their reverse at Sevilla the club's form has taken a nose-dive.

They failed to get a result when AC Milan came to the Santiago Bernabéu in the Champions League recently. The 3-2 defeat was justified on the balance of play, and it may well have given Leonardo some breathing space as he gets to grips with management.

For Pellegrini though, things have contrived to get worse for him. That result was followed by a laboured 0-0 against Sporting Gijón, this put them at the top of La Liga but only for a mere 24 hours before Barcelona destroyed Real Zaragoza 6-1 last Sunday.

The new signings have been working for Real though. Ronaldo became the first player ever to score in his first 4 league games for the club, Kaká has shone in patches and Benzema has also scored 3 times in La Liga. It appears that Real's problems lie in the fact that they are still sometimes slack in defence, they may have bought the World's best rated players but their hero is ultimately Iker Casillas.

For Pellegrini's sake it must be hoped that Real reached the nadir of their season on Tuesday evening. They faced Agrupación Deportiva Alcorcón (to give them their full name!) in the 4th round of the Copa del Rey and were embarrassed 4-0. The tie may be over 2 legs with the return at the Bernabéu, but the damage has been done by the Segunda B side (third division).

Since the result, Pellegrini has been lambasted by the Spanish press. The sports daily 'Marca' stated that the Chilean coach should "Leave Now", whilst the paper 'AS' described the defeat as the "ridicule of the century". When it comes to football the Spanish press can be like the Sun at it's shallow best, only with at least some wit and humour included.

Barcelona may have been cruising through the league so far, but they are not without their problems either. Josep Guardiola may have delivered an emphatic riposte to his critics when he secured the league and Champions League double last season, but unbelievably there are still some doubters around.

Their last Champions League outing ended in their only defeat so far this season, a 2-1 loss at the Nou Camp to the Russian champions Rubin Kazan. In the grand scheme of things there is little to worry about for Barcelona. However they have a proud record at home and when the visitors took the lead with 17 minutes to go, the least that would have been expected was a grandstand finish and an equaliser.

As for the other threats to the big 2? Sevilla proved with their defeat of Real that they are a contender, at least as far as matching them on a given day. Their league form has seen them suffer 2 defeats and they lie in third, 3 points off of Real Madrid. Both came away from home to Valencia and Deportivo de La Coruña, who are 4th and 5th respectively.

Speaking of Valencia, they have been defeated just the once up to this point and it seems that any financial worries surrounding the club are not being detrimental to the team's performances. More significant is the fact that they have held on to David Villa who has been outstanding as usual, scoring 7 times in as many La Liga appearances. If they want to challenge though then they must hold off suitors for Villa all over again come January, Mr Ferguson you have been warned...

Premier League makes attack the key to success.

2009-10-23T00:39:00.004+01:00

It has been argued for the last ten years that the Premier League is the best domestic league in Europe and therefore the World. There are strong arguments for it, although it could be said that it's mostly an English mantra. At the same time many foreign players have also endorsed the view, namely those that have played in it.

Meanwhile La Liga is usually the other domestic league to be named as a potential rival to this crown. Judgements are based upon the wealth of each league as well as other factors such as attendances and of course the stature of the players the clubs own. We know that as far as attendances, the Premier League wins hands down.

This season so far, La Liga and the Premier League have both been producing attractive football, at least in terms of goals and results. The overall goal average across the Premier League has shifted upwards, this may very well lower as the season progresses, but it is significant.

Since the Premier League's inaugural season in 1992-93, the eventual champions have often been the team with the highest goal average per game at the seasons end. The first two Premier League seasons did buck this trend, Manchester United won both titles whilst Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United topped the averages respectively.

What has been consistent is the fact that only one team per season usually averages two or more goals per game. The statistics show that the first time the Premier League had a team that broke this barrier, it was the 1996-97 season and the eventual champions Manchester United.

Only on one occasion has there been two teams to finish the season with a goal average of 2+ a game, back in 2001-02. The champions Arsenal and Manchester United took those honours, but interestingly Liverpool were actually the runners-up that year and were fifth in the goal averages column.

Clearly it takes more than just goals to win the title, although it's a massive step. The statistics prove that a strong defence is where a title challenge begins, and then you have to back it up with goals. This was achieved with a menacing aplomb by Manchester United in the early years of the Premier League.

However you need only look at the 1998-99 season to see the cost of not scoring enough when having a mean defence. Arsenal's defence of their title won the previous year should have been cemented when they incredibly conceded only 17 goals in their 38 matches. Unfortunately they only scored 59 to Manchester United's 80 and the title travelled back up North.

Looking at the present season, after the opening 9 fixtures there are 6 teams that are currently averaging more than 2 goals a game. With Arsenal going so far as to be averaging 3.38! Such rampant goal scoring surely can't continue all season long. Then again it has to be noted that whilst generally the top six are scoring more, their defences are also more porous.

It all points to the Premier League possibly moving towards an even more open style of play, where attack is being emphasised by the goals that are being conceded. We need only look at Liverpool and the current mire that they are in.

The Merseyside club has actually out-scored all other teams in the Premier League bar Arsenal. And yet they have conspired to win 5 and lose 4 of their opening 9 matches, partly down to the 13 goals they have shipped. Then again their goal difference is almost identical to Tottenham, who's start has been all the more rosy.

When studying the statistics it quickly becomes clear that there is a fine and difficult balance between a team's attack and defence. Very rarely will it be argued that a team who finishes as champions are not the most deserving of the accolade, but sometimes you can look back and wonder where things went so wrong.

This comes to mind if you consider the team that currently holds the highest ever goal-scoring average of the Premier League era. It came in José Mourinho's first season with Chelsea (2004-05), when he triumphantly secured the title at the first attempt.

That season Chelsea were only defensively breached on 15 occasions, a remarkable backbone that paved the way to their success. The runners-up Arsenal meanwhile scored 87 times at an average of 2.29 goals per game, their reward was to finish 12 points adrift!

It therefore goes to show that we cannot make too many predictions based upon the season thus far. It must simply be noted that the Premier League heavyweights are scoring more and conceding more that we have seen before. This has coincided with the financial rise of Manchester City and the continued positive developments at Tottenham and Aston Villa.

It could be argued that if we were to focus on La Liga, they can now lay claim to hosting the World's best 3 players at this time. It is fair to say that Lionel Messi, Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo are massive attractions and a coup for La Liga. Not only that, Barcelona are the current holders of the Champions League after dispatching Manchester United last May.

Ultimately a comparison between the Premier League and La Liga should come down to the quality of football that is played rather than money etc. Do higher scoring games prove quality, or should we crave an Italian defensive style. The Italian influence of Capello on England certainly hasn't meant clean sheets all the time.

The progress of Real Madrid's Galactico's mark II will be crucial, will they dazzle La Liga and Europe or will they wilt as they did against AC Milan the other evening? For now the likes of Deportivo La Coruña and Sevilla are aiming to show that La Liga won't just be a two-horse race, and competitiveness links to popularity.

So far so good for the neutrals then. There is a real chance that the traditional English top-four of recent times is facing a substantial challenge at long last. The question is if the Premier League was the best league in the World before, what is it now that it's getting more competitive, or will La Liga outmuscle it?

El Diego and the World Cup: A ratings winner!

2009-10-16T23:04:00.000+01:00

Crunch time came and went on Wednesday night for several nations hoping to qualify for next summer's World Cup. A lot of the group winners for the European qualifying section had been decided before it's final matches. Instead most fans imagination came to rest on the fate of Argentina, who were dicing with missing their first tournament since 1970.

Of course the South American power- house is perennially mentioned as a possible favourite for each and every World Cup. They are a nation who's past achievements seem to fore go any need to worry about form and players, as with Brazil and Germany (amongst others) there is a fear and an aura when it comes to facing them.

Even so, the past year has not been a harmonious journey for Argentina and their manager, the mercurial Diego Maradona. From the outset of his tenure there have been occasional moments of amusement and bemusement, in varying guises.

His first match in charge was against Scotland on its own territory. A repeat, as fate would have it, of the same venue (Hampden Park) and opposition where he scored his first international goal in 1979.

The most entertaining part of the whole spectacle was not Argentina's goal in the 1-0 win, but rather Maradona's pre-match press conference. He had caused the assembled journalists to chuckle and laugh when he asked them who Terry Butcher was in an exceptionally deadpanned manner, before cracking into a fiendishly playful grin.

Scotland's assistant manager had previously stirred up the 'hand of God' incident when recalling his own experience as part of that England team, admitting that he couldn't forgive the Argentine's actions.

Nevertheless, this exchange via the press goes some way to encapsulating Maradona. On the one hand he has always been close to stirring up controversy and willing to cross a line, but then on the other his charisma and passion could consume and drive all those around him.

Being an unpredictable genius of a loose cannon is something that draws you to Maradona time and time again. His autobiography 'El Diego', is a compelling read and throughout it there are candid retelling of his verbal jousts with players, managers and chairmen.

A recurring theme is his strong will and how he won't hold back from a perceived injustice. He doesn't skirt the controversies either, as he admits to the heavy use of cocaine in Italy and explains the 'hand of God'. And yet despite his misdemeanours, there is always a charm and something strangely admirable about how he conducted himself and handled his career.

His talent and skill on the football field can never be denied, but his occasional madness off of it combines to make him probably the most colourful player to have ever graced the game. Connoisseurs often lean towards Pelé as being the greatest ever player, but for me it really has to be Diego Maradona.

Their statistics and achievements have been mulled over endlessly, and FIFA memorably changed the goalposts in their poll to find the 'Player of the Century'. The Argentine collected 53% of votes, which prompted FIFA to appoint a panel who subsequently chose Pelé, finally they chose on awarding both players the accolade.

Where Maradona differs from Pelé is in terms of his infectious character and it's influence upon others. History shows how he stomped his authority all over the 1986 Mexico World Cup. The English perspective is understandably always tarnished, but Maradona not only contributed 5 assists and 5 goals, he also inspired the rest of his national team to raise the bar.

This feat was repeated in his incredible period with Napoli, during which time the club won it's only 2 Serie A titles in history along with the Uefa Cup. He is still third in the club's all-time list of league goal scorers.

The 1990 World Cup in Italy paid testament to Maradona's determination to always get one up on his adversaries. A relatively average Argentinean side still grounded their way to another final, with Maradona still a fulcrum of it.

Whatever you may conclude to think of El Diego, be it a 'coke-fuelled cheat' or one of the other negative remarks thrown his way over the years, I cannot consider ending my awe of him. I prefer to embrace all the characteristics that contributed to making him the mesmerising player that he was and the fascinating personality that he is.

So now, bar those in various play-offs for the remaining World Cup places, there is time to wait and look ahead to what may come in South Africa. Whilst clearly I'll be gnawing away my fingernails over England, I will be keeping a close eye on all proceedings and especially Argentina's.

Although I doubt that Maradona will match Franz Beckenbauer in winning the competition as a player and coach, less obvious things have happened. Either way I'm sure the ride will be an incredibly entertaining one and all the better for El Diego's revolutionary antagonism.

In fact he has already started. A range of derogatory insults to assembled journalists after Argentina’s qualify-clinching win over Uruguay, has landed him in trouble with FIFA. He may face a 5 match touchline ban for his tirade, which makes you wonder what he'd come up with if he did get his hands back on the World Cup next summer..?!

Eredivisie: McClaren on top of the Netherlands

2009-10-06T19:46:00.001+01:00

Nine games in and things continue to look good for FC Twente, who finally claimed the top of the table all for themselves this last weekend. McClaren's team continued their unbeaten domestic season with another win, this time 3-1 away at mid-table Heracles. Meanwhile nearest rivals PSV fell 2 points behind the Eredivisie table-toppers, after being held 0-0 at Utrecht.

Things didn't initially start too well for FC Twente on Sunday. In the ninth minute the visitors conceded an unnecessary, if slightly dubious looking freekick. Everton curled in the set-piece with his right foot and it managed to allude everyone and bounced in past the goalkeeper.

A single goal was never likely to be enough for Heracles though, as McClaren has assembled a formidable attacking line-up. The equaliser came through the Costa Rican summer signing from Gent- Bryan Ruiz González. In the 31st minute he latched onto a deflected Jannsen cross and buried it with his left foot, for his fifth goal in nine Eredivisie games.

In the second half the visitors slowly cranked up the pressure and eventually delivered 2 killer blows within 2 minutes of each other. Firstly the prolific veteran Blaise NKufo cut into the area from the right by-line and hit a low finish past the keeper.

This was the 34 year olds 5th league goal of the campaign, and it appears that those critics who had written him off prior to this season were foolish to do so. The Swiss international has top-scored in each of his 6 seasons with the club and currently has 106 in 198 appearances!

The best was inevitably saved for last, with virtually their next attack FC Twente struck again. This time the impressive Theo Jannsen, who was signed by McClaren last season, connected with a defensive header and sent a stunning 20 yard volley into the top left corner.

Barring the stoppage-time elimination to Sporting Lisbon from the Champions League, McClaren's team have so far had a perfect start to the new campaign. They are already going strong in the Europa League, where they secured an away win in the harsh arena of Fenerbache. All in all then, FC Twente are looking like a team determined to go one better than last season's runners-up spot.

So to PSV Eindhoven, who have been on an upward trend this term under the stewardship of McClaren's predecessor, Fred Rutten. On Sunday however they were lagging a little and were lucky not to be defeated by the team in fifth place.

On several occasions in the first half Utrecht had PSV scrambling for posession as they linked up play and threatened PSV's goal. From set pieces and the wings they were especially dangerous, but they were thwarted each time by Andreas Isaksson (formerly of Manchester City).

The gloriously named Ricky van Wolfswinkel was unlucky more than once. In the first half the ball broke to him in PSV's box only for Isaksson to charge down his low drive. Soon after his snapshot finally beat the Swede but smacked off the post and flew across the goal face.

PSV were guilty of giving away the ball far too many times and would have been glad to enter half-time at stalemate. Still, Rutten's team came very close to stealing a victory when they too hit the post in the 65th minute. A great 20 yard strike by Otman Bakkal leaving the keeper stranded.

With time running out Utrecht created more openings that were spurned, before Balazs Dzsudzsak was sent off for PSV. The Hungarian received a tad harsh second yellow card and was ushered from the field after placing his hands on the referee.

At this rate Utrecht look like a decent team who may well push on and attain a Europa League space this season. Whereas PSV will hope that this was just a blip. They will have to assert themselves better if they want to challenge for the Eredivisie.

Elsewhere, Ajax were held to a 2-2 draw away at Roda JC's. The hosts though down in 14th place were ultimately an equal match to Martin Jol's side, but they faced lots of early pressure. Ajax had 3 good opportunities to open the scoring and hit the post via Miralem Sulejmani in only the fifth minute.

The breakthorugh came in the 22nd minute when Ajax were awarded a penalty for Davy de Fauw's handling of a cross. This was emphatically converted by Luis Suárez for an incredible 11th goal in 9 league games, but the setback spurred Roda JC to get into the game and compete.

A mere minute later and the home side were on equal terms, much to Jol's chagrin. Anouar Hadouir put in some determined work near the corner flag when closely marked by 2 Ajax defenders. He then threaded a pass between them for Arnaud Sutchuin, who worked his way into the area and saw his low drive deflected over the keeper for 1-1.

Ajax started the second half as they had the first, going close with a couple of efforts, but they were soon to find themselves 2-1 behind. Willem Jannsen cut back the ball from the left wing and found Boldizsár Bodor, whose first touch placed the ball low into the Ajax goal from inside the edge of the area.

Whilst Roda searched for ways to extend their lead there was alawys the danger of Ajax breaking on the counter-attack. Such an attack led to Roda conceding a free-kick on the edge of their area in the 66th minute, the insatiable Suárez curled a sweet shot into the top left corner for the equaliser. There were no further goals but time remained for Ajax's Urby Emanuelson to be sent off when he should really have had a yellow card instead.

As for the rest of the league, Feyenoord maintained their decent start to the season with another win that puts them in fourth place behind Ajax on goal difference. This time around they defeated RKC Waalwijk 3-0. Not a very surprising result against the Eredivisie's minnows, but they had managed to destroy Roda JC 4-1 the previous weekend.

Unfortunately for RKC Waalwijk that result is a mirage compared to every other game so far, all of which they have lost. The goals came in the 28th, 73rd and stoppage time minutes, thanks to Andwele Slory, a Tony Varela OG and Georgino Wijnaldum. For now, Mario Been's team must also be considered as viable title-challengers. Whilst RKC Waalwijk will hope that they can perform like they did against Roda more than once this season, however unlikely it seems.

Finally, reigning champions AZ Alkmaar also won, this time a 1-0 home victory versus NAC Breda through Jeremain Lens' third goal of the campaign. Try as they might Ronald Koeman's team cannot string together any consistency, thus far they have won 5league games and lost 4.

This season is already looking like one of transition for AZ and they could find themselves having to settle for fifth place come the end. Meaning realistically the Eredivisie is lining up to be a 4 team race....I wonder where I've seen that before?

The rest:

Vitesse 2-0 Sparta Rotterdam

ADO den Haag 1-1 Groningen

Willem II 1-1 NEC

Heerenveen 1-1 VVV Venlo

Champions League minnows bigger than you think.

2009-10-01T20:18:00.000+01:00

Just two games into this season's Champions League group stage, and it is becoming apparent that the dynamics of European club football is reflecting more that of international football. It has been a common soundbite in recent years that there are no easy international matches anymore, and likewise judging by some of the results, the same could now be said for the highest level of club football.

If you only take a fleeting look at the scorelines of this weeks round of Champions League matches, you could be forgiven for thinking that there were some mistakes in the reporting. The stand-out results involved both of Milan's clubs. Firstly Jose Mourinho's Inter only managed a 1-1 draw in Russia against Rubin Kazan, and then on Wednesday AC Milan fell to a 1-0 home defeat to Swiss champions FC Zürich.

Whilst it is true that Rubin Kazan are the current holders of the Russian Premier League, this season is their debut in the Champions League. Their own domestic campaign is also yet to get underway. Yet despite any supposed lack of match fitness, the hosts were ambitious and determined against Mourinho's team, taking the lead after only 11 minutes through the Argentine Alejandro Domínguez.

Inter then rode their luck and narrowly avoided going further behind, before the Serie A champions realised that the 'Special One' might be a little bit livid and hit back. After Samuel Eto'o was spectacularly denied, Inter eventually equalised through Stanković and his header at the far post from Maicon's deep cross.

The second half saw Inter go down to ten men when Balotelli rather harshly received a second yellow card in the sixtieth minute. From then on in the visitors were on a damage limitation exercise that almost came unstuck when Semak hit the post with 10 minutes remaining.

At the San Siro on Wednesday, things ended up far worse for Leonardo and AC Milan. After just 10 minutes the hosts were behind, courtesy of Hannu Tihinen who deftly back-heeled Milan Gajić's corner into the goal.

This spurred AC into a period that saw them close to an equaliser on several occasions, with Clarence Seedorf heavily involved. Try as they might though, no breakthrough could be found, and FC Zürich continued to threaten on the counter.

The second half introduced Ronaldhinho, fresh from denying claims of an impending retirement, and AC began to turn the screw. The veteran Filippo Inzaghi was especially unlucky as he was denied by two excellent saves from Zürich's goalkeeper Leoni.

As the match wore on, the home side launched more and more attacks for a desperate equaliser but to no avail. They instead very nearly ended up 2-0 down when Margairaz failed to convert a one to one against AC's goalkeeper Storari. In the frantic last moments Gianluca Zambrotta hit the post, but rather than wilting FC Zürich hung on for a famous victory.

Elsewhere, the 2nd round of Champions League group games produced more evidence of a leveling of the playing field. Germany's VfB Stuttgart travelled to Romania to face the domestic champions Unirea Urziceni, and had the perfect start. After a mere five minutes Serdar Tasci took advantage of an opportunity, racing past the defender to place the ball past the goalkeeper.

The home team reacted positively though and displayed enough craft to suggest something better to come. In the opening period of the second half they achieved parity, the ball ping-ponged around the six yard box and found Varga on the right. He took it inside and curled a sweet shot inside the post with his left foot.

The first goal in Champions League football for Unirea Urziceni resulted in joyous celebration from their manager, a certain Dan Petrescu. The former Chelsea stalwart is a hero in the area after leading them to their first ever domestic league title last season. After securing their first ever Champions League point he will be all the more revered.

Other results that may have been expected to be more one-sided, included Chelsea's visit to Apoel Nicosia in Cyprus. Although Ancelotti's new charges came away with a 1-0 away win, the result could have gone pear-shaped for them.

They led through Nicolas Anelka's quality first touch strike in the 18th minute, but as the contest progressed the Cypriat team almost crafted an equaliser. Savvas Poursaetides came the closest when Cech saved his deflected goal-bound effort with his legs.

Overall the general consensus on the result was that Chelsea had become too complacent and that they nearly came unstuck. Either way, the result is the most important thing after all, and Carlo Ancelotti is still on course for his primary objective.

Finally, there was a similar struggle at home for Laurent Blanc and his Ligue 1 champions Bordeaux, who came through 1-0 against Maccabi Haifa FC from Isreal. Victory was only secured with 7 minutes left on the clock, Michaël Ciani the hero with a header.

The match had been a finely poised affair and there were plenty of goal attempts for two sides that like to play attractive attacking football. Even David Bellion was getting in on the act, although the former Manchester United striker should have at least hit the target with one of two great openings.

The rest of the fixtures from around the Champions League yielded more predictable outcomes (see below). The attacking powers that be with Real Madrid and Barcelona confirmed comfortable victories, whereas Arsenal and Manchester Utd came through tests of patience to also win.

Group A had Bayern Munich and Juventus play out an entertaining 0-0 in Munich, whilst Liverpool came back from Florence with Rafa's ranting in their ears, following a tame 2-0 loss to Fiorentina.

So far so good then for Michel Platini. As it was his vision to slightly alter the automatic qualifying for the Champions League based upon coefficients. This effort does appear to have made the competition more representative of the continent as a whole, rather than it being dominated by the financially lucrative leagues of Western Europe.

Of course it will still be a surprise if the latter stages of the competition were not to be predominantly tied to clubs from the Premiership and La Liga. Judging by some of the results so far however, we may be on the cusp of a new wave, where more scorelines upset the established order..

Sol Campbell joins an exclusive 'club'.

2009-09-23T19:02:00.001+01:00

Today’s announcement that Sol Campbell has parted company with Notts County means that he will be labeled with one of football's less glamorous legacies. The former England defender only made his debut for the League Two club last weekend, when they succumbed to a 2-1 loss away to Morecombe.

Campbell's performance was a little laboured, understandable considering how much pre-season he has missed, but you have to wonder if it was during these 90 minutes that he made up his mind to leave. Meanwhile for the fans of Notts County it must feel like a slap in the face, especially after all the shock and excitement that greeted Campbell's unveiling at Meadow Lane on August 25th.

I hope that more details will be forthcoming from the player in the next few days and weeks, but I doubt it. He has had a stellar career up until this point, particularly during his five years with Arsenal, but he has also had his well-publicised moments of controversy.

The most obvious of which involved his Bosman transfer from Tottenham to Arsenal in 2001, although of course it only mattered to the fans of Spurs! In the February prior to leaving Arsenal he infamously left the ground after being substituted at half-time of a 3-2 home loss to West Ham. There followed further confusion when Campbell cut himself off from the club for five days before he returned to training.

Despite this, Sol Campbell has always been a consummate professional and an excellent defender. It is to his credit that he achieved further success after Arsenal with Portsmouth, being the club captain in their FA Cup triumph of 2008. His about turn at Notts County though will leave a distasteful flavour in the mouth of many fans.

There are rumours already circulating for the reason that Campbell decided to rip up his £40,000 per week five-year deal. These say that it is down to an ambition to regain a place in the England squad for next summer's World Cup. This is all well and good, but if it is true and not just conjecture, then why did he not realise this before he decided to sign for a club in England's fourth tier!?

More importantly it would appear that Campbell's change of heart won’t lead to South Africa anyway. He will need to produce compelling evidence as to why he left, for the FA to sanction another move for him before the January transfer window. Either way, he will have little time to prove his worth to Fabio Capello, who didn't see fit to pick him when he was still in the Premier League.

On top of that his behaviour towards Notts County won't exactly leave him open to offers, it is highly likely that some managers will be put off by not knowing the extent of Campbell's commitment. Even so, I expect that he will get another move elsewhere and probably back to the Premier League. He may even manufacture a move abroad or to the Championship, but I can guarantee he will have a spare summer come the end of the season.

What is surprising is that Campbell's stay with Notts County is far from the shortest transfer in the history of English football, after all he did at least play a match for them before wondering where he was. Here for your viewing pleasure is a brief run-down on a few of the most short-lived unions in our fair game:

The first such transfer that usually gets mentioned is that of Clive Allen in 1980. At the time he was a highly promising and prolific young goal-scorer for QPR, so it was a massive story when Arsenal made a £1.25m swoop for him that summer. He would never play a competitive game for the Gunners, instead being sold on to Crystal Palace only nine weeks after arriving. Unconfirmed rumours to this day suggest that Arsenal had acted as a go-between for two clubs unwilling to do direct business with each other.

In the summer of 1994, Harry Redknapp's wheeler dealing saw him plump for the talents of Oxford United's Joey Beauchamp. The then West Ham manager splashed out £1.2m on a player who would never play competitively for them. A combination of home-sickness and the commute prompted Beauchamp to ask for a transfer and he ended up at Swindon Town 58 days later. Redknapp had lost the club £400,000 and some of his pride.

One of the shortest and more amusing examples of a transfer gone wrong, is one that could be claimed to have gone right according to Sam Allardyce. In summer 2006 Dietmar Hamann was winding up his Liverpool contract and open to negotiations with a new club. He held talks with Allardyce's Bolton and actually signed a pre-contract agreement with them on June 30th.

There followed an amazingly swift realisation that he would be forced to play in a physical team bereft of style, and he declared that he wanted to move to Manchester City instead. This resulted in Allardyce stubbornly refusing the request, and the deal only went ahead 11 days later when City offered £400,000 in compensation. Big Sam put up a good front, stating that it was "the best transfer deal of my life", getting £400,000 for nothing."

Finally, and so that we can finish on a positive-ish note, there is the case of Mauricio Taricco. The Argentine player had had a fairly successful career in England with Ipswich Town and Tottenham by the time that he was bought by Alan Pardew for West Ham in 2004. Unfortunately Taricco would never have the opportunity to win over his new fans on the pitch, although he would do so by his actions off of it.

His debut came in a Championship game with rivals Millwall, with only 27 minutes of the contest gone, Taricco tore his hamstring and was set for a sustained period on the injury list. As an alternative Taricco offered to tear up his contract with the club and to announce his retirement, thus saving West Ham paying his wages whilst he sat on the sidelines. An act of goodwill that Pardew described as being "one of the most honourable acts I have experienced."

There is no precedent with Sol Campbell then, but he does join one of football's more unusual lists in the bargain. What will be interesting is the reception he gets wherever he decides to take his career next. Let's just hope for Notts County's sake that Sven and their investors are a bit more committed to 'the long-term plan' than their showcase signing has ended up being.

Football Troubles

2009-09-21T22:47:00.000+01:00

When West Ham and Millwall met in the League Cup on August 25th, the violence that erupted in and around Upton Park was like a reminder of a bygone era. In the modern game such incidents are few and far between, at least in the UK, where the reaction was unanimous in condemning those involved.

It wasn't all that long ago things were a lot different, at least with English football. The 1970's was a strange period for English football in general. Whilst the national team toiled and failed to reach both the 1974 and 1978 World Cup, the country's club sides eventually built up a contrasting dominance of the European Cup.

Whilst English clubs have reached the last 5 Champions League Finals, it still has nothing to compare with the incredible streak that started in the 1976-77 season. That term, Liverpool became the first English club and second British club (after Celtic) to claim the biggest honour in club football. This started a sequence that would see the European Cup stay on English soil for the next 6 seasons, until Hamburg won it in 1982-83.

Despite this success at club level, the image of football fans was somewhat more in keeping with the depressing nature of the national team and the economic downturn in Britain. Bins not being collected for weeks seemed to be reflected by the upturn in violence that occurred amongst rival fans on a Saturday afternoon. In short, football hooliganism was almost viewed as an extension of the wider problem with society.

These issues did not start in the 1970's of course, whenever there has been football there has always been some minority element who were there to find trouble. What the 1970's brought was an increasingly organised militia associated with many clubs, more often or not known as firms. Famous ones include the Headhunters of Chelsea and the Leeds Service Crew.

It was in the midst of this in 1973, that crowd segregation and fencing was introduced at some grounds. The frequency of football related violence was on the rise and as a result the sport had become something almost exclusively watched live by young males. The Thatcher government that dealt with the exacerbating problem, predictably reacted with promises of stiff measures, such as an ill-fated ID card scheme for all football fans.

It couldn't last though, English football was heading towards it's public relations nadir. Of all the places to occur it was to be at yet another English club's European Cup final appearance, on 29th May 1985. The Heysel Disaster at the dilapidated Heysel Stadium in Brussels featured Liverpool and Juventus. The blame for the tragedy that claimed 39 lives was solely aimed at a section of Liverpool fans, who shortly before kick-off stampeded what were mostly Juventus fans in a neutral area of the ground.

This ended in the Juventus fans retreating to the end of the stand and putting pressure on the infrastructure, which resulted in the collapse of the wall on top of them. There were other mitigating circumstances which therefore contributed, but nothing that could excuse the actions of those involved. Uefa saw things the same way and handed out an indefinite ban to English clubs in European competition, which was eventually lifted for the 1990-91 season (except for Liverpool who served an extra year).

It is somewhat ironic then that after all of this, as well as the other odd death in English grounds, that the British government did not take greater action until after the Hillsborough Disaster in 1989 (http://www.90minutesonline.com/component/content/article/335-hillsborough-twenty-years-on-but-still-no-closure.html). This is down to the fact that the 96 eventual deaths were initially blamed upon other fans and their behaviour. This was in fact a horrible distortion of the truth, when the whole episode was really to do with poor organisation and leadership on the part of the Yorkshire police force that fateful day.

Nevertheless, legislation in the form of the Football Spectators Act (1989) swiftly followed and put in place measures that would start the process towards making visits to football grounds a lot safer. Fans now had to be properly identified in order to join a membership scheme for away matches, this was aimed at monitoring the spectator numbers and curtailing the risk of over-crowding.

Even more significant was the Taylor Report that came out in January 1990. The Lord Justice Taylor made strong recommendations with regards to stadium design and the requirements of crash barriers. Since it's release, nearly all newly built stadiums throughout the Premier and Football Leagues have been all-seater.

Even those stadiums that have still got terracing are significantly more safe than they were pre-Hillsborough, better policing and the Football Spectators Act have yielded results. The improvement in safety at football grounds has coincided with hooliganism being far less of an issue now than it ever was in the 1970's and 80's. The measures in safety obviously contribute to this, although in previous times the government's attitude had not helped either.

Far too often all football fans were tarred with the same hooligan brush and made out to be as guilty as each other. This was a ludicrous misconception that failed to deal with the root elements at hand, and reared it's ugly head with the infamous portrayal of Liverpool fans by the Sun newspaper after Hillsborough.

Some fans from that era will comment that football spectators in general were packed into terraces and treated as cattle, especially when remembering the high fences. It was almost as if society had fallen out of love with football and that anyone who went to see a match was asking for trouble. Once the politicians and authorities finally reacted, the cloud was lifted and within four years English football was enjoying it's renaissance under the Premiership banner.

Whilst football today is infinitely more hospitable, safer and financially better off, everywhere and not just in the UK, we have to accept that it has also slightly moved away from that entrenched sense of community. That's not to say that a return to the dark days of football hooliganism is something to ever accept, but like the terraces it harks back to a time when football was purer and followed by fans who felt strongly affiliated with their club.

Ideally we would have that sense of strong camaraderie that is associated with travelling to a football match with your mates at 3 o'clock on a Saturday, and in fairness you still can all over the country. The difference now is that football's saviour is also it’s dictator, fixtures can be re-arranged at short notice in order to please the TV schedule.

That aside football is in pretty good health, and I suppose it is a bit much to want it all without some compromise. The clashes that occurred between West Ham and Millwall are thankfully a real rarity in the modern era, and when you look at the fixture it was not a massive surprise. I certainly don't ever foresee a return of such incidents to the mainstream.

But if that's really your idea of going to watch the football, then you're probably best left with films in the ilk of The Football Factory or The Firm. Fascinating stuff but I'd rather watch the game and get my programme. Whereas you could always stay at home and get some sort of fix without threatening the rest of us.

Eredivisie: The big clubs get in formation.

2009-09-13T18:24:00.002+01:00

The new season may only be six fixtures old, but the 2009-10 Eredivisie is already taking shape and is promising to produce a highly competitive campaign. Judging by how the season has gone so far, last season's champions and runners-up (AZ Alkmaar and FC Twente) will face sterner opposition this time around, and not just from Ajax. Both Feyenoord and PSV have had flying starts and the early signs are that both clubs have the potential to reclaim past glories.

Feyenoord, although classed as one of the big three teams in the Netherlands, are now in their 11th season since they last claimed the title. Recent years have been blighted by financial worries and the selling-off of their star players, as well as being disciplined by Uefa over hooliganism.

Mario Been was officially installed as the new manager during the summer, coming full circle after having spent the majority of his playing career at the club. So far he has had a positive effect, especially when compared with last season when Feyenoord finished a lowly 7th in the table. Feyenoord are unbeaten after the first 6 games and veteran players are a strong characteristic of the squad.

The presence of the prolific Roy Makaay is crucial, but so far this campaign has all been about Jon Dahl Tomasson and Jonathan de Guzmán, both are scoring goals regularly. Today was no different as Feyenoord negotiated a 3-2 away win over Willem II, with Tomasson grabbing a brace and de Guzmán the winner. Meanwhile Willem II have 1 win and 5 defeats to show from the opening 6 league matches.

PSV Eindhoven are also unbeaten up to this point, since drawing their opening 2 Eredivisie fixtures they have gone on to win their next four in a row. Culminating in yesterday's comprehensive home defeat of Roda JC, 3-0. Just as with Feyenoord it seems that PSV have been galvanised by the presence of a new manager.

Fred Rutten is the new man at the helm and like PSV he too is looking to re-establish himself after a setback last season. Rutten was Steve McClaren's predecessor at FC Twente and his success there had led to him being appointed as FC Schalke 04's manager last term. Things did not turn out well for him though and he was eventually sacked before completing his first campaign.

Back in Eindhoven the magic is returning for Rutten, although they have been blessed with a fixture list that has lined up a selection of the league's weaker teams to start with. The biggest test they have faced so far was travelling away to FC Twente about a month ago, with Rutten taking a team back to face his former employers for the first time, a tight affair was reflected by the 1-1 outcome.

Which brings us to FC Twente and McClaren, his team are third in the Eredivisie and like Feyenoord and PSV they remain unbeaten. The start to his second season in the Netherlands has been very similar to his first, his team have played confidently and more importantly have a knack for securing results. Say it quietly, but FC Twente are fashionable favourites for the Eredivisie this time around.

The initial scepticism that greeted his appointment a little over a year ago has melted away and been replaced with the fans chanting his name and optimism at a new level. As mentioned they have already faced PSV and drawn, just before the international break they travelled to Feyenoord and were denied a victory by an equaliser from Roy Makaay deep into stoppage time.

Those results have helped to fuel the expectation that FC Twente are well matched to the traditional big clubs in the Netherlands. Yesterday they dispatched FC Utrecht 3-2, and not for the first time they snatched a result with time running out. The impressive summer signing Bryan Ruiz González secured the win in the 91st minute, smashing in a left-footed volley for his third goal in six games.

Ajax on the other hand are fourth in the Eredivisie; and have also taken the route to supposed success by appointing a new manager during the summer. Martin Jol may have found the ideal job, after he was hounded out of Tottenham he turned up at Hamburg last season and flirted with winning the Bundesliga. His consistent over-achievement at previous clubs clearly appealed to Ajax, who have been without a league title since the 2003-04 season.

The club from Amsterdam have started the season brightly, with the only difference being the fact that they have lost a game. The defeat came at the hands of PSV in mid-August, with the final result a 4-3 away loss. The game tossed and turned as Ajax led 1-0 and 2-1, but they were slowly worn down by their opponents and ended up with half their team on yellow cards.

Aside from that, Ajax supporters will still be enthused by their new beginning under Jol. It is clear that the team are playing with much more confidence and belief than they ever did during the tenure of Marco van Basten, where it was not unusual for Ajax to suffer heavy defeats. This season Ajax are scoring goals at will and have managed 18 in their opening 6 matches!

On Sunday afternoon they laid down a marker by romping to a 6-0 home victory over NAC Breda. All the more impressive when you consider that NAC have started the season quite well and are still eighth despite such a thrashing. It may be a little early to speculate but Ajax look ominously strong, though that will count for nothing if they lose the big games.

Further down the table and to last year’s dominant champions, AZ Alkmaar. Like everyone of the top five teams bar FC Twente, AZ have got a new manager in place in the guise of Ronald Koeman. The defence of their title has got off to a reasonable if not an excellent start, with 4 wins and 2 losses.

Of concern is that the 2 defeats AZ have fallen to, have been to unheralded opponents. Firstly Heracles shocked the title-holders on the opening weekend of the season (3-2), and yesterday they were outplayed by ADO Den Haag and lost 2-1.

Most worrying for Koeman would have been the shambles in defence that contributed to both of ADO Den Haag's goals, Simon Poulsen was particularly sluggish in reacting to the through ball that made it 1-0. Koeman has a lot to live up to following on from Louis van Gaal, and the legacy that peaked with their march to the Eredivisie title last season. On the evidence so far AZ will not be celebrating consecutive championships, but more likely will finish in the top five instead.

Looking at the wrong end of the table, RKC Waalwijk look hopelessly out of their depth having won promotion last season. They have begun with 6 defeats out of 6, although they have only been humiliated by Ajax and AZ. But they do seem to lack the necessary firepower to earn them enough wins over the season's duration.

The Eredivisie then has kicked-off in good style, and whilst it may lack some of the glamour and big name players from Europe's more popular leagues, it is certainly awash with goals and subplots. Also intriguing is the return to form of Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven, along with Ajax and FC Twente they are the genuine title-challengers for 2009-10. We shall see if Steve McClaren can possibly emulate the late, great Sir Bobby Robson and win the Eredivisie- going Dutch looks like excellent rehab!

World Cup line-up becoming ever clearer.

2009-09-06T21:47:00.002+01:00

Most of the domestic leagues around the World may be taking a break but that only means that international football has taken centre stage. Yesterday produced a round of international friendly fixtures and much more significantly, World Cup qualifiers to whet the appetite.

Several nations have already secured their spot in South Africa next summer. The nature of World Cup qualifying in Asia, where there are two groups of five competing for four automatic spots with relatively weaker nations, produces the first guranteed countries at each World Cup. Aside from the host nation of course, who have the benefit of foregoing the stress of qualifying.

This time around Japan, Australia and South Korea all took the honour of being the first nations to know that they can safely make their travel arrangements for 276 days time. They were swiftly followed by the Netherlands, who for the time being remain the only European nation to have cemented a World Cup space.

The last automatic qualifier from the Asia section has since been confirmed as North Korea. Which will no doubt add some political spice to the proceedings- particularly if they were to be matched with the USA, who are on course for their sixth successive appearance in the competition.

Which brings us up to yesterday, and the confirmation that Brazil will once again be at the World Cup, and once again will be considered as a strong favourite to win it. Not too surprising when you consider that Brazil are the only nation to have featured at every World Cup tournament since it's inception in 1930. Most pleasing for Brazil's coach Dunga will be the manner in which qualification was secured, with a 3-1 victory over their fierce rivals Argentina.

As for Argentina, they are continuing to make their participation at the 2010 World Cup a struggle. They have of course been under the management of Diego Maradona since November of last year. A unison that was viewed as both inevitable and popular, considering how much he is revered. Although others doubted his capabilities in transferring his footballing genius as a player to that required as a manager.

As is stands, Maradona has led Argentina to 6 wins and 3 losses during his tenure, with notable victories over France and Russia. The problem is that both of those were friendlies whilst the three losses have crucially been World Cup qualifiers. Remarkably their loss to Brazil on Saturday was only the second time Argentina have lost a home qualifying match for the tournament, and they now face a trip to Paraguay on Wednesday where they will hope to reinvigorate their campaign.

Most important for Maradona will be a positive performance as well as the result, in order for him to maintain that Argentina are heading in the right direction under his guidance. They are fourth in their qualifying group which is still good enough to take them to South Africa. Even failing that fifth place would pitch them in a play-off against the nation that finishes fourth in the North, Central America and Caribbean group (most likely Costa Rica).

Looking at the North, Central America and Caribbean group, there is little doubt that the World Cup will definitely see three nations out of Honduras, USA, Mexico and Costa Rica. All four are seperated by a solitary point, with Mexico turning around their fortunes after the failure of Sven-Goran Erikssons time in charge. This represents Argentina's worse nightmare, if they were to face a play-off with Mexico for a ticket to the World Cup.

Meanwhile closer to home, European nations are lining up for South Africa in a reasonably predictable formation. Spain and England are practically guaranteed for the summer party, the only thing that can put the icing on the cake for Fabio Capello and England is if they manage to defeat Croatia at Wembley on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, Germany and Russia are tussling for top spot in their Group 4, whichever loses out looks odds-on for a coveted play-off shoot out when the groups are finalised. Italy are likewise battling out their group with the Republic of Ireland, who in a nice twist are managed by former Italy manager Giovanni Trapponi.

Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia and Serbia are all sitting atop their respective groups and are threatening the status quo. The likes of France and Poland have more work to do just to gain a play-off space. Whereas former power-houses Portugal and the Czech Republic look like they will definitely not be at the World Cup. Bearing in mind England's recent misfortunes at the hands of Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo I can't say that I will miss them very much!

The other home nations of the United Kingdom are still in the hunt for World Cup qualification, with Scotland and Northern Ireland occupying second in their groups with lots to play for. Both nations extended their chances yesterday, Scotland secured a 2-0 win over FYR Macedonia, and Northern Ireland narrowly failed to defeat Poland away (1-1).

Wales, who continue to be a work in progress for the long-suffering John Toshack, will once again fail to reach a major tournament. On the plus side, Wales have several promising youngsters coming through the ranks and genuinely look like they have a bright future, this campaign is simply too early for them.

Moving on to the African continent, the Ivory Coast and Ghana both look set to reach consecutive World Cups. Whereas Cameroon and Nigeria have still got some work to do if they wish to replicate past glories in the tournament, currently both are playing catch-up to Gabon and Tunisia respectively. The final African group has Egypt and Algeria deadlocked on points, and I must admit that I am personally rooting for the Egyptians after their impressive performances at this summer's Confederations Cup.

Finally we come to the least glamorous of all the regionalised World Cup qualifying groups, the Oceania region. For some inexplicable reasoning, Australia are no longer a part of the Oceania region and for this campaign participated with the Asia section- having already qualified as mention earlier.

This has left New Zealand to pick up the reigns as the region's heavyweight, and they have duly complied by dispatching Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu! There reward is to sit back and await a play-off for what is traditionally the final World Cup place to be decided. They will face the winners of the Asia zone play-off between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which has yet to be decided.

This coming Wednesday will clear things up even more as the final few rounds of qualifying begin, and as you can see there are still plenty of tangents available for those nations still in the hunt.

England on the other hand will most likely be toasting the confirmation of their own participation in next summer's extravaganza. Something that should only be mildly celebrated, after all it is potentially just the beginning of what we hope will be a long journey. Still it does kind of make you want to wish away the season and get on with it all, I can't wait!

Transfer deadline day- do we care?

2009-09-01T18:00:00.000+01:00

Thankfully by around 5pm this evening the circus will be over with, and by that I mean the constant speculation and counter speculation that permeates the modern day transfer window. I realise that to some fans the whole day represents a reason to get excited about potential last minute transfer deals. On the other hand there is usually as much substance to it all as there is in a plate of chilli without any chilli or spices.

The fanfare that has built up around it has become a ridiculous sideshow, and often a source of conversation in the media outlets when there is nothing at all to talk about. Sky Sports News is the worst criminal, every half an hour they reveal a ticking digital clock and yes, it really is counting down to the end of the transfer window- just in case you needed a reminder!

The BBC have similarly got in on the act in recent seasons, resorting to the same text updates that they have for their coverage of live matches. As if the irony isn't lost on them, the updates also incorporate mentions of the fact that 'not much is going on at the moment, but there is surely plenty that will unfold'- in a few hours time though.

Some people will point to the 'amusing' sightings that there are of certain players or managers up and down the country. There is always plenty of endlessly 'funny' conjecture that is used to fill in the mind-numbing gaps between any actual and real transfer activity. It would be no surprise to hear that Sven-Goran Eriksson has convinced Zinedine Zidane to come out of retirement at Notts County. Oh hang on... it's just come up on the BBC update, only swap Zidane for Henrik Larsson- amazing(!)

I don't mean to rain on anyone’s parade, if you really get that excited about transfer deadline day and all the hoo-ha that accompanies it, then great- I wish you well. On the other hand I'm sure that there are others out there that agree with me. The frustration comes down to there not actually being any proper reporting being done, ultimately it is lazy journalism and this is when football gossip is at it's worst.

I remember the last January transfer window only too well. The anticipation of Arsenal signing Andrei Arshavin became excruciating, the information pointed to the transfer being a done deal. And yet even those employed at the BBC ended up commentating on what a drawn-out and shambled process it had become, when it had still not been announced come the last tick of the Sky clock.

All of this doesn't necessarily mean that I disagree with the whole transfer window process. In some ways it makes perfect sense. It does quell the incessant transfer talk during the majority of the two halves of the season, coming either side of the January window. As well as this, it does put some structure in place that limits the richer clubs from signing players and destabilising another club, at least until January.

The alternative is to give carte blanche to all clubs and to scrap the transfer windows. Some may argue that this would then give particularly smaller clubs a hard time. They would have no way of protecting their assets and thus if a player emerges, they could be instantly snapped up by a 'bigger' club.

This may be true, but almost all deals of this nature are relatively unavoidable. Players may occasionally remain loyal and turn down offers, but usually the endless courting of a player does lead to a result. Only with clubs of a similar stature is there likely to be offers turned down, and even then the recent Joleon Lescott heave-ho has shown the strength that players can have on their own destiny.

If there was an open-season on transfer activity then it would simply be allowing the inevitable to happen sooner. It would also allow the clubs that lose players, the opportunity to go out and sign their own replacements. One of the problems of the current structure is that with a deal that comes near the end of the transfer window, there is little chance of the selling club being able to re-invest the recouped transfer fee.

At least with an open window throughout, all clubs would have a chance to buy and sell. I am doubtful of how much it would negatively change things for clubs either. It is notoriously more difficult for big deals to be done in the January transfer window and I think this would be replicated if the window was always open. However big or small clubs are, they are less willing to chop and change once the season is underway.

Going back to how I started, the major positive would be that we would not have to put up with what is mostly a non-event. Yes, the transfer window will lead to the odd exciting last-minute deal, but is it really worth all the effort and attention?

Football is the World's greatest sport, but on occasion it gets close to over-saturating itself. This is not always the fault of FIFA, Uefa or indeed our own FA. The media outlets are desperate to cover every last morsel that is served up, even if it is a rumour from the third cousin once removed of Chelsea's media secretary, for example!

This kind of conjecture though, is mostly confined to the scrambling of information when transfer deadline day comes. If opening up the market means that I don't have to put up with Sky Sports News countdown clock any longer, then it may well be a good day for football after all...

Bristol Rovers: The Paul Trollope Interview

2009-08-28T00:05:00.001+01:00

Over at 90minutesonline I am proud to present the first exclusive interview, the focus of which is the First-team coach of League One’s Bristol Rovers- Mr Paul Trollope.

Bristol Rovers have seen steady progress over almost four years since Trollope phased out his playing career and became caretaker manager in 2005. He was soon appointed on a permanent basis as the First-team coach with the aid of Lennie Lawrence in a Director of football capacity.

Their inaugural season cemented a 12th place finish in League Two. This was followed in the 2006-07 season with a successful promotion campaign, which culminated in a 3-1 play-off triumph over Shrewsbury Town.

The same season also produced a run to the final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, including a memorable semi-final triumph over their near rivals Bristol City. Unfortunately the final resulted in a narrow 3-2 loss to Doncaster Rovers after extra-time.

The last two campaigns have seen Bristol Rovers secure and then improve their League One status, with final positions of 16th and 11th in 2007-08 and 2008-09 respectively. So far this season they have secured three league wins out of their opening four and are sitting pretty in League One’s fourth spot.

I caught up with Paul Trollope for a general chat and to discuss some of his views…

DD. How do you feel about your start to the season?

PT. Obviously I’m pleased with how we have started. Although the Leyton Orient result on the opening day was disappointing, and along with Ricky Lambert’s departure soon after there was a feeling of anti-climax. We looked at last season and saw how a slow start had cost us, and we were determined to improve our training and fitness schedules to avoid a repeat.

DD. You mention Ricky Lambert, why was the decision taken to sell him on and do you plan to spend some of the transfer fee recouped?

PT. Ricky was a good servant to the club during his three years with us and would have stayed on if no clubs had come in for him. Southampton came in with what the club felt was a good offer and inevitably his head was turned slightly by the higher wages on offer.
As for replacements, we are looking to strengthen in three or four areas, not just up front. We will look at higher divisions down to non-league, but it is important that whoever we get fits in with the team. Something may happen before the (transfer) window closes or in the couple of days after, such as a loan signing.

DD. So what are your aims and ambitions for the season?

PT. We are looking to progress again, as we have in the last two seasons, the aim is definitely to finish in the top-half of League One. If by March or April we are in and around the play-offs then clearly we would like to push on.

DD. As for your rivals in the division, it seems to be getting more and more competitive each year. Last season for example there were three teams relegated from the Championship that had been in the Premier League in the last 5-10 years.

PT. Yes, the Football League has definitely got stronger since my own playing career ended. Not only has there been a trickle down effect with Premier League clubs but also with players. I think with more foreign players in the top tier, that some young British players of that standard have had to drop down into the Championship and League One even.

DD. How is the progress with the plans to redevelop the Memorial Stadium?

PT. We remain positive that it will happen and I feel that it does need to happen.

DD. And what about the 2018 World Cup bid that is linked with your rivals Bristol City, can I ask you about that?

PT. I’m afraid that we cannot say anything about that at this time, perhaps if you come back to me in a couple of months..

DD. Ok, well finally I would like to ask you about your own playing career and what you feel the highlights of it were?

PT. I would say that gaining promotion to the Premier League with Derby County in 1996 and then helping the team to stay in the division in ’97.
Following that I had a couple of promotions at Fulham under the management of Kevin Keegan and Jean Tigana. Those experiences have helped me to analyse the game and it’s methods and I am very grateful for the opportunity that has been given to me here at Bristol Rovers. Finally I would also like to mention my 9 caps with Wales, as well as my involvement with other squads.

DD. Thanks for your time and for speaking with us Paul. Best of luck for the rest of the season and we look forward to interviewing you again.

From my experience with their First-team coach, I would say that Bristol Rovers are in a good position to continue their programme of steady progression. Although Trollope was keen not to place too much pressure on his team, it will be fascinating to keep tabs on their progress as the new season unfolds.

Another point of interest is the reaction to the World Cup bid query. I shouldn’t speculate too much, but the lack of an answer does raise a question as to what is on the horizon.

There will clearly be dips in form and several twists and turns in League One, and as mentioned the competition this season is even more fierce than before. The likes of Leeds, Norwich, Charlton, Southampton and the MK Dons to name a few, will have to be overcome. Come next summer though, there is every possibility that Bristol Rovers could be looking forward to a Championship derby with their City rivals…

The Bundesliga remains ultra-competitive for clubs and managers!

2009-08-24T21:03:00.003+01:00

The 2009-10 Bundesliga season is three fixtures old, and so far it shows no signs of being any more predictable than last season's tumultuous battle. Those who take only a cursory look at the Bundesliga may be surprised to know that Bayern Munich are currently as low as 14th in the table.

Bayern had a turbulent last campaign, the great hope that came in the guise of the former German coach Jürgen Klinsmann did not work out as planned. Instead Bayern hovered around the top four and suffered from inconsistency which ultimately led to the club's board sacking the mercurial coach, even if it was a little hasty.

His replacement has come in the form of Louis van Gaal. Fresh from his impressive transformation of AZ Alkmaar from Dutch also-rans to dominant Eredivisie champions last term. The expectancy is that he will re-establish Germany's premier club, but their start to the Bundesliga has been far from a blitzkrieg.

They drew their opening league fixture 1-1, with last season's surprise package TSG Hoffenheim. There is no disgrace in an away draw with last year's "Herbstmeister", but this result was followed by another 1-1 with Werder Bremen. A team that did fantastically well in the cups last season, winning the DFB-Pokal (German Cup) and losing the last Uefa Cup final, but whilst finishing a lowly 10th in the league.

Last weekend Bayern followed up their opening draws with a shock first defeat of the season, away to the newly promoted FSV Mainz 05. The new Bundesliga arrivals stunned Bayern by going 2-0 up within the first 35 minutes of the game, the goals coming from Andreas Ivanschitz and Aristide Bancé. The home team did concede an own goal after the break, but van Gaal's team were unable to force an equaliser and have suffered their worst start to a season in 43 years.

The Bundesliga champions Wolfsburg have meanwhile made a fairly decent start to their title defence. After they had lost Felix Magath, the manager who had led them to their first ever Bundesliga, there were understandable fears that it would precipitate a collapse in the club's fortunes.

The man brought in to take the helm of Die Wölfe is Armin Veh, who lost his job at VfB Stuttgart last November. Despite that ignominious end to his tenure, Veh has got a good record and has already won the Bundesliga title when in charge of Stuttgart in the 2006-07 season.

The start of this campaign saw Wolfsburg defeat Veh's old club Stuttgart 2-0 at home. This was followed by an equally impressive 3-1 away victory over FC Köln, who have been understandably buoyed by the return of their favourite son Lukas Podolski. The second win of the season also produced a debut goal for the club from Obafemi Martins, a player that Newcastle United will rue not getting more out of.

The last round of fixtures saw Wolfsburg's good start come to an abrupt end despite another Martins goal, after slumping to a 4-2 home loss to Hamburger SV. Their cause wasn't helped by disastrous defending which saw Veh's team 2-0 down inside the first ten minutes. Wolfsburg rallied in part thanks to Martins and restored parity to 2-2, before they lost concentration again and conceded two more in the last fifteen minutes.

With that result Hamburger SV have also shown that they may well build on the lone season's potential that Martin Jol established last time around. When you look at it the Bundesliga does appear to be a good league to regain work or swap jobs. Jol's replacement at Hamburger is Bruno Labbadia, who until the summer was in charge of Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

As for Leverkusen, they have promptly regrouped and are the team that sits atop the Bundesliga after the opening three matches. Their last match saw them destroy reigning Bundesliga 2 champions SC Frieburg 5-0 away. This followed a solid 1-0 victory over TSG Hoffenheim the previous weekend.

Who may you ask is their new manager? He is the vastly experienced Jupp Heynckes, who has managed Real Madrid and Benfica amongst others, but who spent the tail end of last season filling in for Klinsmaan after his sacking from Bayern.

So where did Felix Magath go after securing a footnote in the history of Wolfsburg? Rather than go to a new and exciting challenge in another domestic league he instead decided to take the helm at FC Schalke 04. The team from Gelsenkirchen were looking to recover their momentum after the failure of Fred Rutten in his inaugural season in charge. To have snared Magath from the current Bundesliga champions shows their intent and so far things are going well for them.

They lie in third place in the table and are equal on points with Hamburger SV and Bayer Leverkusen. In their opening two fixtures they secured relatively routine victories against FC Nürnberg and VfL Bochum. Although it should be noted that Nürnberg were promoted via the Bundesliga 2 play-offs, and that Bochum finished 14th last season.

In their most recent fixture Schalke drew 0-0 with TSG Hoffenheim, and so after only three fixtures there are no 100% records left in the division. This is a telling statistic which contributes to the belief that the 2009-10 Bundesliga is set up to be as competitive and as compelling as it's predecessor.

Not only are Bayern Munich currently languishing in 14th place, but they are closely surrounded by Borussia Dortmund and Herha Berlin. This doesn't even take into consideration the likes of Stuttgart and Hoffenheim who are more than capable of challenging the other teams if they get their acts together.

There is much uncertainty about who will win the Bundesliga this time around and how many teams will challenge, but a repeat of last May could very well happen. With only three fixtures left of the 2008-09 season there was as many as five genuine title-chasers. Why so many teams are now so similarly matched is unclear, but aside from Bayern Munich there are no teams significantly richer than any other. The result appears to be a levelling out the playing field.

At the other end of the table things are not looking as positively ambiguous. Play-off winners FC Nürnberg are third-bottom but have at least only suffered narrow defeats. Whereas Bundesliga 2 holders SC Freiburg are bottom and have already been at the hands of a couple of comprehensive defeats. Both teams have still gained a point from the first three games though and there is obviously a long way to go yet.

It has been reported in the past that ticket prices for Bundesliga matches are very reasonable indeed when compared to the rest of Europe, it certainly makes for a tempting long weekend away. Otherwise, if this season carries out its threat to be as entertaining as the last, it alone may be worth the subscription fee for ESPN- regardless of its Premier League delights...

Premier League- here we go again!

2009-08-15T15:24:00.002+01:00

There's been plenty of football on offer in the last couple of weeks for those of you who are impatient for the summer transition to the new season. It started with the Eredivisie and then last weekend saw the kick-off to the English Football Leagues, as well as the new Bundesliga and Ligue 1 campaigns (more of which next week).

Today though is the big one, the quickest, most physical and most commercial of the world's domestic leagues- the Premier League is due to get underway. Millions of fans will go through the turnstiles this season and many more will watch on TV, ideally it would be the other way round, but that's another story.

There will be plenty of excitement, news and turning points over the next 9 months, and what adds to the spice of this season is the fact that a World Cup looms at the end of it. Not only do we get the normal season, once every four years there is no respite at the end of it either. A festival of football, the real greatest show on Earth no matter what the Olympics may claim.

What will this season behold then? It is always a lose-lose situation to make predictions, you're either correct or you leave yourself open to ridicule. Despite that I'll be brave, after all it wouldn't be right to laud the beginning of the new season without suggesting what I think will happen.

It's probably easier to start with the Premier League new boys, those that made the leap up from the Championship at the end of last season. Wolverhampton Wanderers earned themselves the Championship title under the tutelage of Mick McCarthy, and they look to have a large and solid squad. The likes of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, who has scored more than a goal every two games for Wolves, gives the team a pacier option which is critical in the top division.

New acquisitions Kevin Doyle and Marcus Hahnemann from Reading, both have much-needed Premier League experience. Record signing Doyle proved that he could cope well with the elite when Reading had their two seasons in the sun. Also the signing of Michael Mancienne on a season-long loan from Chelsea, appears to be shrewd business.

Despite Mick McCarthy's disastrous time with Sunderland in the 2005-06 Premier League season, I fancy the former Republic of Ireland manager to do a lot better this time around. Famous last words, but I expect Wolves will extend their top-flight stay to this time next year.

Birmingham FC, who finished 2nd in the Championship, will be a difficult team to predict. Alex McLeish failed to secure Birmingham's Premier League survival after he took over in November 2007, but last season he fulfilled his remit and guided the club straight back up.

Like Wolves they have a lot of Premier League experience, although a more aged squad. The still going strong Kevin Phillips has been prolific in the Championship for the last three seasons, but when last in the top flight with Aston Villa he failed to shine.

Other notable players include Lee Carsley, Barry Ferguson, James McFadden, Stephen Carr and dare I say Lee Bowyer. So, lots of potential and with Joe Hart in goal, they could well survive relegation. Something about them though tells me that they won't, just.

Finally Burnley, the play-off victors. Usually such a promotion makes you the automatic favourite to go straight back down, but with Burnley there is some expectation. Most of this stems from the way in which they marched their way to the League Cup semi-final last season. During their run they defeated Fulham, Chelsea and Arsenal, with impressive displays too.

They were in fact just two minutes away from defeating Tottenham over the two-legged semi as well, and if their run proved anything it was that Burnley are very difficult to play at their Turf Moor ground. Still, they have not made many summer signings and a lot will rely on the capabilities of set-piece specialist Robbie Blake and their captain Steven Caldwell.

I think Burnley will certainly have some memorable results and that they will battle relegation until the very last moment, but I suspect that they will run out of luck when it comes to the crunch. Expect Burnley to have a season similar to what Hull did last time around, but most likely without the happy ending.

With all that in mind I guess I should be bold and predict who will be relegated! I feel sure that Phil Brown will fail to keep Hull up for another season, the signing of Stephen Hunt is a very good one but it is a rarity for them. For the other two slots I can't see past Birmingham and Burnley, although I hope to see Burnley confound me.

As for the rest of the Premier League, here are some general predictions for which I can be strung up with come the season's end! The top four will remain the top four once again, but the title race will be a closer-run thing this time around, I'm certain. All four Champions League clubs have failed to spectacularly strengthen, particularly Manchester United and Chelsea who are arguably weaker.

Ferguson can argue as much as he likes, but the losses of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez make his team look decidedly less threatening. I feel that Michael Owen is possibly one of the signings of the summer and will be on the plane to South Africa with England, but other than that the Scot has little to phone home about.

Chelsea meanwhile have put their lot in with a manager who is clearly designed to win them the Champions League. The former AC Milan manager has a fine record in Europe, but Ancelotti only managed to secure the Serie A title once in 8 seasons- not very convincing. On top of this Chelsea have spent relatively little and are left with an impressive but ageing team that could be vulnerable to injuries.

Liverpool will be under pressure to mount an even more convincing title challenge after their near miss last season. The selling on of Xabi Alonso may end up being a massive regret, but Rafa Benitez has at least gone out with intent and bought a like-for-like replacement in Roma's Alberto Aquilani. They will come close again this season, but I'm not convinced that Anfield's eighteen-year wait for the title will end.

As for Arsenal, well where do I begin? As I've said in the past, the selling on of Emmanuel Adebayor has been immensely popular, the worry's that the revenue is yet to be outlaid at all. Arsenal's one signing of note has been the defender Thomas Vermaelen from Ajax, he is well regarded and should be a decent replacement for Kolo Touré. The manager Arsène Wenger has a devoted following amongst the fans, and likewise he has the same for his squad.

For the Gunner's to realistically challenge they must spend on strengthening their depth. Players such as Eduardo and Tomáš Rosický (when he gets back from his latest injury), will feel like new signings due to their long absences, and Arsenal do have the potential to win trophies. The Premier League is a long path of conquest though, and that is where they may run out of puff like they did the season before last.

With regards to the rest of the league, more of the same will come form Everton and David Moyes. They are now an established top six team and will be there or thereabouts again this time, but they face challenges from not only Aston Villa but also Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.

Of those three, Aston Villa are the most in danger. They have signed few players, most memorably Stewart Downing who looks likely to miss half the season, and Fabian Delph who has no top-flight experience. They do have a great manager in Martin O'Neill, but I can see them slipping down from their finish in the last campaign.

Obviously Manchester City have taken up most of the summer's back pages, but despite their outlandish spending I think it is too early for them to snatch a top four spot. Much more likely will be that they will creep into the top six as a platform for next season.

Tottenham cannot be discounted either, they have one of the shrewdest managers in the business. Their fans have pointed to how well the team turned itself around once Harry Redknapp was appointed following the Juande Ramos debacle. They will at least match their top eight finish from last term.

So, expect a season that will be just as exciting as the last and full of twists and turns, but on the other hand do not expect a tearing up of the established order. Although Manchester City, and possibly Roy Hodgson's Fulham have it in them. One thing that is for sure, 90minutesonline will be here to guide you through all the talking points and we can't wait to get started!

Football Prejudices.

2009-08-12T19:53:00.002+01:00

Tonight England will take on the Netherlands in an international friendly at Ajax's Amsterdam Arena, the fixture has been widely criticised and re-opened the club versus country debate. While I sympathise with the Premier League managers who have taken issue with such a match being scheduled only three days before the start of the new season, I still feel that tonight's game is of some value.

The England manager Fabio Capello will no doubt learn something from what unfolds in the Amsterdam Arena, even if it is more obvious to him than it is to the rest of us. More importantly, the game will at least give the younger members of the England squad greater international experience for the future.

If you cast your mind back to when England played Spain at the Bernabeu in 2004, you should remember the racist chanting that the Spanish crowd aimed at England's black players. The reaction to the abuse that Shaun Wright-Phillips, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Jermain Defoe and Jermaine Jenas all suffered was positively negative.

The vast majority of modern society realise that bigotry should no longer be tolerated, but unfortunately Spain's punishment from FIFA was not as harsh as it should have been. A fine was handed to the tune of €56,000, and this came on the back of Luis Aragonés training field conversation. When the then Spanish manager told Jose Antonio Reyes that he was "better than that black shit"- his then Arsenal team-mate Thierry Henry!

Still, on the whole the issue of racism in football has greatly improved. In the UK there is a real rarity that you would hear a racist remark, let alone a chant from any crowd in professional football. Football crowds today are far removed from the dark days of the mid 1980's, when the likes of John Barnes were subjected to despicable monkey chants and bananas being thrown onto the pitch.

Unfortunately football is still far from being all-encompassing in the modern era. When it comes to the question of sexuality, homophobia is fairly frequent at stadiums up and down the country. Homophobic remarks from the odd fan is far from uncommon, but football has never really done much to challenge that perception.

Perhaps it's because homophobia is born out of prejudices that have come to the fore in the last 50 years, it's a prejudice of more recent history. Despite that, it would be fair to say that in wider society homophobia is not so frequent any more either. The western world is reasonably liberal these days, it seems that it is in the sporting world that there lies a problem.

The late Justin Fashanu is always referred to when the topic of homosexual footballers come up, mostly because he is still the only major player to have come out during his career. The fact that this happened in 1990 and that there have been no other openly homosexual footballers since, suggests that there is still a taboo about being gay in football.

The world of sport is perceived to be about machoism, and to a certain extent this is true, but it would be foolish to assume that there are not many non-heterosexual professional footballers. Statistically this is highly unlikely, although it is fair to surmise that some good footballers who were homosexual may have been put off pursuing the sport for fear of ridicule.

Remember Robbie Fowler taunting Graeme Le Saux in a Premiership match in 1999, the striker waved his behind in the direction of Le Saux. The defender had apparently become a figure of fun due partly to having a higher level of education than usually associated with footballers. Fowler may well have thought he was 'just having a laugh', but the action was only the ignorant alter-ego to if he had waved a banana at a black player.

The study that prompts the debate was produced by a gay rights group called Stonewall. Their findings suggested from a poll of 2,005 people, that in the past five years 70% had heard homophobic abuse. I have to say that I'm not surprised, I have certainly heard it in the past couple of years and I know that it often goes without comment.

In a way the issue is a like a relative that is hidden from view at a wedding, for fear of causing embarrassment. The reactions from the FA and the Premiership and Football League's spokespersons reflected this to an extent. All re-emphasised their reassurances that they tackle not only homophobia but all kinds of descriminatory acts.

This sounds fine, and it is just a minority of offenders, but it doesn't disguise that there is still much work to be done before it becomes as reviled as racism. The police action taken when Sol Cambell became a homophobic and racist target for Tottenham fans in 2008, was certainly a positive step. Teaching those sections of support that such behaviour is deplorable is the only way to tackle the issue, much like the Kick It Out campaign has done for racist actions.

The fact that there is not one openly gay footballer in the top four divisions of English football, alludes to there being a rooted fear of being outed as one. Only when there are will there be more uniform acceptance, educating people can do only so much.

In that event the few that do have a prejudice should soon learn that it makes no difference in the end. All that matters is if the player is any good and if he can do a job for your team- we are all equal. Without prejudice football has swearing which is fine really, after all, has there ever been a union better made for each other?!

The Eredivisie starts the European season

2009-08-04T18:56:00.003+01:00

The summer may still technically be here but already the new season has kicked-off in the Netherlands. The Eredivisie is the first major domestic league to have started in Europe, the next to follow will be Ligue 1 in France this coming Saturday. The Dutch league campaign began last weekend and so finally there is some real competitive football to report on.

There has been some upheaval in the Eredivisie since the end of last season, most of which occurred not long after AZ Alkmaar were crowned champions for only the second time in their history. The major news centred around AZ's manager Louis van Gaal deciding to leave the club. After securing the Eredivisie title it was confirmed that he was leaving to take up the manager's mantle at Bayern Munich, disappointing as this may have been to the AZ fans it is difficult to begrudge van Gaal moving on after securing a major footnote in the club's history.

The man chosen to lead AZ into their title defence and the Champions League, is Ronald Koeman. The Barcelona legend had been out of work for over a year since he was sacked by Valencia in April 2008. Unfortunately for Koeman his AZ tenure failed to start with a win in the opening Eredivisie fixture last Saturday. The defending champions fell to a 3-2 loss away at un-fancied Heracles. Worse still AZ were 3-0 down before rallying with two goals in the final fifteen minutes, only to then lose Gill Swerts and Pelle to red cards.

The only positive for Koeman to take is that AZ Alkmaar suffered a similar start to last season's Eredivisie campaign. This time last year the club lost their first two league matches, it was not expected that they would then remain undefeated for the majority of the rest of the season. It was another 28 matches until they lost again in the league and consequently they dominated, on the other hand the jury is very much out on if Koeman is as capable a manager as Louis van Gaal.

Meanwhile the last campaign's runners-up FC Twente were reassuringly consistent with their opening fixture this time around, defeating Sparta Rotterdam away 2-0. Steve McClaren went a long way to resurrecting his career with his achievements as FC Twente manager last season, as well as finishing 2nd in the Eredivisie his team were knocked out of the first knockout stage of the now defunct Uefa Cup by Marseille on penalties. They also reached the final of the KNVB Cup but again suffered the agony of losing on penalties to Heerenveen after a 2-2 draw.

As for last Saturday, it appears that McClaren has done very well in retaining the vast majority of his compact squad, particularly the young prodigy Marko Arnautovic. FC Twente's goals were scored by the veteran Blaise NKufo, who has top scored at the club for the last six seasons, and new signing Bryan Ruiz. It was predicted in some quarters that McClaren could not do much better than his debut season in charge and that his squad would be difficult to keep together, but on the small evidence so far it seems that McClaren has strengthened and that FC Twente should be one of the favourites for the Eredivisie crown.

McClaren and his team also look likely to be participating in this season's Champions League proper. Last term they were dumped out by Arsenal in the third qualifying round but this time they have the easier prospect of Portugal's Sporting Lisbon. The first leg was held last Friday in Lisbon and finished 0-0, the second leg will be held tonight and the former England boss should be confident of trying his hand at the Champions League for the first time as a manager.

Ajax last season were a bit of a shambles as they lurched from one good result to several catastrophic ones under the guidance of the great Marco van Basten. The Dutchman then decided to resign his position with one fixture left, citing the fact that he did not feel capable of guiding Ajax to the greater heights that they deserve.

Ajax promptly turned to Martin Jol as the man they feel will guide them to those heights. The former Tottenham manager had spent last season reminding the Spurs board of their mistake in letting him go. He had taken over the reigns at Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga and after flirting with a title challenge his team eventually finished in a respectable 5th place. Despite making a good transition from the Premier League, Jol clearly couldn't resist the lure of the Netherlands's premier club.

On Sunday Ajax won their opening fixture away at FC Groningen, who had finished in an impressive 6th place last season. The match finished 2-0 with former Charlton Athletic player Dennis Rommedahl getting the second goal. With Martin Jol's record Ajax must also be considered amongst the strong favourites for the Eredivisie this term along with FC Twente.

As for the rest of the main pretenders, PSV Eindhoven were unable to dispatch newly promoted VVV-Venlo at home. The entertaining game finished 3-3, and on this evidence the club from Eindhoven still has some work to do if it is to regain the Eredivisie crown it lost to AZ last season. Although there is another intriguing sub-plot which again involves the Bundesliga. PSV will be managed this season by McClaren's predecessor at FC Twente- Fred Rutten, who failed to see out his first season at FC Schalke and was sacked back in March.

Finally, Feyenoord started their new campaign with a 2-0 win as well, defeating NEC Nijmegen at home. Feyenoord also have a new manager of their own in Mario Been, who until the summer had been in charge at NEC Nijmegan. He will have to work a near miracle though if he is to secure the club it's first Eredivisie in ten years.

All in all the new season is set up tantalisingly with many new managers and circumstances. What lies in McClaren's favour is the fact that he will have continuity on his side coupled with the progress his club made last season, his main challenger will appear to be Martin Jol's Ajax but the Eredivisie is competitive and there will be several clubs vying for the top spot. Let the games begin...

Wenger must strike while the money's hot.

2009-07-30T14:10:00.001+01:00

Arsenal have been reasonably active in this summer's transfer window, but rather than appeasing the fans who increasingly cry out for reinforcements, Arsène Wenger has been selling off assets. With the departure confirmed yesterday of Kolo Touré to Manchester City for £15million, Arsenal have brought in roughly £40million worth of revenue. At least in terms of finance- Arsenal are on the rise again!

The moving on of Touré is quite an ambiguous transfer, he is still respected and valued by the majority of Arsenal fans, and I feel that he was still good enough to remain at the Emirates. Despite any personal differences between Touré and Gallas, they had forged an impressive central defensive partnership recently. The Ivory Coast international was also the last regular player left at the club from the 2003-04 'Invincibles' title-winning team. As a result his passing on to Manchester City comes as a sentimental water-shed for Arsenal and it's fans. In one respect it may be a good thing, because Arsenal now need to focus on future conquests rather than past glories.

Arsenal are endlessly reminded about how it has been just over four years since their last genuine trophy ware. Whilst this is true, the intervening seasons since the 2005 FA Cup victory have not been a case of being the also-runs. In 2006 the club were ten minutes away from being the first London team to win the Champions League, only the inspired intervention of Henrik Larsson snatched away the trophy for Barcelona. As well as that there has been the loss in the 2007 League Cup final to Chelsea, on that occasion Theo Walcott scored his first Arsenal goal before the young team ran out of puff.

The 2007-08 season appeared to be a new changing of the guard, Arsenal were ominously impressive throughout the first two-thirds of the season and led the Premiership in February. Unfortunately the team again failed to last the course and faded from the challenge, although they still only lost three league games all season and finished just four points behind the champions Manchester United. Finally the last campaign saw Arsenal's roles reversed, the title challenge realistically faded before the New Year, but the club reached the semi-finals in both the FA Cup and Champions League. More disappointment then followed and Wenger began to face real dissidents amongst the fans for the first time.

For my part those Arsenal fans that have been quick to criticise Wenger are suffering from very short memory banks and a lack of real knowledge. Wenger is one of the clubs most successful managers in Arsenal's history. Better on the whole than George Graham- despite him triumphing in Europe (Cup Winners Cup 1994) and Wenger's Arsenal having 'only' lost the Uefa and Champions League finals. The 'Professor' only slightly lags behind Herbert Chapman in the standings, who secured a hat-trick of league titles in the 1930's.

Where some of the current nervousness and hostility surrounding Arsenal has come from is stemmed in the apparent lack of willing to spend funds by the manager. Wenger is not adverse to the idea of spending significant money though, he has twice broken the club's transfer record when enticing first José Antonio Reyes and then last season Andrei Arshavin.

Some of the frustration from Arsenal fans has ironically been emphasised by the signing of Arshavin, because the Russian turned out to be a near instant success on the field it has fuelled the feeling that Arsenal must spend similar funds to realistically compete again. This is true to only a certain extent, Wenger has proven in the past with the likes of Nicolas Anelka and Thierry Henry that he can pluck up players and mould them into being the world's best, capable of winning trophies for the Gunners.

As far as things stand, Wenger has outlaid £10million from his transfer kitty this summer, and that was on Thomas Vermaelen from Ajax. The Belgian defender is young and skilful with international pedigree, and should be a fine signing. Now that Kolo Touré will be plying his trade at the monolithic Manchester City, the signing of Vermaelen has taken on even more significance. Still, I do support the long-standing notion that Arsenal must invest in a combative central midfielder. Someone along the lines of say Gilberto Silva or Mathieu Flamini perhaps!

Joking aside, this area does remain Arsène Wenger's one major Achilles heal from his tenure at Arsenal. It is difficult to understand how we let such effective players leave the club, and how two years later the debate is still raging over there not being sufficient replacements. I am a fan of Abou Diaby and Alexander Song, but they are yet to fully learn their trade. The mystery for now is why Wenger seems reluctant to splash out on a central midfielder like he did for Arshavin, where the proof has been in the pudding.

The answer might be that he is instead looking for a stop-gap which can help the club along until Diaby and Song are absolutely ready to step up, and hence avoid spending money for the sake of it. If the latest wild rumours are to believed then Arsenal may be on the verge of welcoming back their one time captain and legend Patrick Viera. The French international may be 33 years old, and he may not have had the most convincing stay in Serie A, but the idea may not be that ludicrous. If Wenger could rekindle just some of the old magic from Viera, then the player could bolster the team for a season or two until the proper reinforcements have been groomed.

As for up front, the old adage that 'Wenger knows' may be as true as ever. Arsenal still have the potentially superb combination of Eduardo and Robin van Persie; with Walcott and Arshavin waiting in/on the wings- things really aren't that bad at all. Nicklas Bendtner may still be as unpopular as a certain Emmanuel Adebayor was, but he does at least appear to try for that extra yard. Couple this with the fact that the forgotten Czech genius Tomáš Rosický is back after 18 months injured, and the case for Arsenal's attacking options isn't bad by comparison at all.

My hope for Arsenal is that Wenger is tempted to dip his hand into his transfer kitty at least once in the next two-three weeks. He shouldn't have to do it to appease the fans, but he should do it to appease himself. Whichever way it is dressed up, if Arsenal continue to sell their established players and then pocket the money, it sends out a signal to the other major clubs that the Gunners can be bullied in the transfer market.

Who he should therefore buy is up for endless debate, but I am a fan of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. The Dutchman may well be pushed out of Real Madrid, who have after all been spending like bank chairman! The striker is the type of player that would adapt well to Arsenal's playing style, and more importantly he has an impressive strike-rate, something that Arsenal have been lacking since Thierry Henry left.

Whatever happens between now and the beginning of the season, there is sure to be endless speculation and some critics who will write-off Arsenal's chances and Wenger's philosophy in building a young team. I believe that the Arsenal trophy drought will be brought to an end though, most likely in one of the cups but I wouldn't entirely underestimate them in the Premiership either. For now Wenger still knows, but this season looks likely to define the rest of his legacy one way or another...

Are Manchester City the new Real Madrid?

2009-07-30T12:16:00.001+01:00

The start of the football season is fast creeping up on us once again, although in all honesty you've probably been looking forward to the kick-off in August ever since the end of last season. There have of course been some major transfer coups over the summer, punctuated by some unexpected moves- most of which have involved Manchester City in some way.

I'm sure there will be one or two surprise signings or big transfers to come between now and the start of the new Premier League season on August 15th. It's not just all about the Premier League though, of course the other major player in the summer transfer window has been the egotistical establishment of Real Madrid. That's not to quell their ambition, which is clearly to consume every possible competition in their path- whatever the cost to their board and President Florentino Pérez.

Unfortunately for Pérez, the Galáctico experiment spectacularly failed to shine for the most part. Instead it was book-ended with scant success. After the initial purchases of Figo and Zidane, the club did secure La Liga in 2000-01 followed by the Champions League the next year, and La Liga again in 2002-03. The sacking of Vincente del Bosque swiftly after securing the second league title in his tenure saw a sudden downturn in Real's prospects. Whilst Figo and Zidane clearly contributed on the pitch, the four-year drought that ensued after del Bosque's departure made it clear that a great manager is more important than having only great players.

This summer Real Madrid have decided to cut out time as the middle man, with Florentino Pérez back in his third term as club President, Real' have spent nearly £190million on four players. There has been much said about how football has lost it's self-control and how the spiralling wages are affecting the game. Uefa President Michel Platini is an outspoken critic of clubs having bad finances and amassing borrowed debt. Usually this criticism has been levelled at English clubs like Chelsea and Manchester United, so it remains to be seen how damning he will be about the Galácticos mark II.

Taking a look at Manchester City this summer then, you may not find it too difficult to see some comparisons between their recent spending frenzy and that of Real Madrid. Both clubs have made their overwhelming priority to be the signing of attractive attacking players and big name players. Obviously Real Madrid have come out on top with their combined capture of Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo, but City's snaring of Carlos Tevez was equally daring. The best other business by Mark Hughes so far this summer was luring Gareth Barry, at least it means that Hughes isn't willing to follow the first Galáctico era by foregoing an defensive midfielder (Claude Makélélé in Real's case).

I have already made light of Adebayor's transfer, most critics seem to agree that Arsenal will be happier in the long run. Although they should invest the £25million from the deal, otherwise it becomes more of a pointless venture if the Toga's sale isn't used for the bettering of the squad.Both Real Madrid and Manchester City have neglected to concentrate so much on their defencive issues. Los Blancos have to their credit signed Raúl Albiol from financially crippled Valencia, he is more of a utility player but he can certainly defend well. At Manchester City meanwhile, there seems to be no end to the love affair with Richard Dunne.

With no real disrespect meant to the Republic of Ireland international, it does seem quite amazing that Dunne has remained a mainstay of the Manchester City first team since the club has become so financially well off. Pablo Zabaleta and Wayne Bridge have come in to bolster the defence, but Dunne's place continues to be secure enough that he is still captain of the team and has in fact won it's player of the year award in four of the last five seasons.

Nevertheless there still lies a concern that Manchester City are only one or two injuries away from having a very ordinary and makeshift back line. It doesn't stretch the imagination to wonder if Real Madrid are making mistakes that they have previously paid for, and that Manchester City are following their mentality. Football is after all a team sport, and there has been plenty of evidence over the years to support the theory that the best form of attack is defence. Manchester United and Arsenal have shown in the past how to pass the ball from defence in a devastating counter-attack move.

Manchester City are certainly on the rise, but how far their strike force will take them is difficult to predict although they certainly have plenty of cover in that area. For this season I predict a top-six position as they may usurp Aston Villa, who have only strengthened with Stewart Downing who's injured until December. Real Madrid will push Barcelona close in an effort to regain La Liga though, my fear for the Catalan team is that they have made a grave error over Samuel Eto'o. To use him as part exchange along with €4omillion to gain Ibrahimović seems like madness, regardless of how the Swede performs.

Either way the season ahead promises to be exciting in La Liga and the Premier League, and there is little doubt that both of these lavish spending clubs will have some say in how the titles are decided. Both fans just have to be wary of another 'big' club who attempted to outscore their opponents into submission namely Newcastle United, but it would take something spectacular for either to ever lose 6-1 to Leyton Orient!

Championship Chase and Folly for Newcastle.

2009-07-17T14:48:00.005+01:00

With only three weeks to go until the football league season begins afresh, time is of the essence for clubs to make their final tweaks and preparations. Relatively speaking the beginning of a new season acts as a clean slate for each and every club, regardless of if they have suffered relegation, promotion or mid-table mediocrity in their previous season.

In that way football, and all sports are an endless cycle of trying to achieve. Of course those teams that win trophies, or individuals that set personal records will be noted down in the sands of time of sporting history. With sport, though there are the peaks and pinnacles the difficulty lies more in trying to match and repeat such feats, rather than getting there in the first place. For those for who have this positive 'problem' the only inevitable worry is that there will be a time when being the best is no longer a certainty. Instead there is the unavoidable decline that comes with competing in professional sports.

Unfortunately for Newcastle United they are yet to reach a winning pinnacle in the last thirty+ years. After their relegation from the Premiership last May and despite the shambles that the club were in, it was expected that Newcastle would promptly confirm Alan Shearer in the manager's post and would then set about in earnest for planning a promotion run in this coming Championship season.

Instead the Geordie faithful have had their patience and loyalty further tested during the summer break. It has been well documented how Newcastle Utd's wage bill had expanded to an alarming size, only matched by some of the shirt-less fans of the club who were often depicted on screen during their last Premiership matches. In fact Michael Owen's departure on a free transfer to Manchester United represents Newcastle's one major cut in their draining wages.

The lack of transfer movement either in or out of the club can be partly excused by the fact that there is still no permanent manager in charge to make the crucial decisions over personnel. This calamity is ultimately down to the owner Mike Ashley, who has failed to make a positive decision when appointing the long-term successor to Kevin Keegan. After all that has happened at the club it's easy to forget that Newcastle haven't actually had a manager installed with a permanent mandate since the 'messiah' walked out last September, this is simply ridiculous.

The stop-gap appointments of Joe Kinnear, Chris Hughton and finally Shearer have only helped to contribute to the aura of a club that seems to be making it all up as it goes along. Clearly bold manager replacements can sometimes pay off, but with Newcastle it appeared only to add to the lack of stability and sense of confusion that has often surrounded St James' Park since Sir Bobby Robson was sacked.

The logic surrounding Mike Ashley's dithering and the fact that Shearer has not been cemented as manager yet, is based on both parties wanting there to be clarification on the club's ownership before moving forward. This is down to Ashley having been looking to sell the club that has drained his finances, almost since Keegan was forced out and he had to face the supporter’s wrath.

The whole situation adds up to being a near farcical equation. Mike Ashley has failed to sell the club in nine months worth of trying and Newcastle's relegation has clearly dented his efforts to do so further still. What Ashley should be aiming to do is to reinvigorate the club and get it back into the Premiership, surely then he would have a much more likely chance of ridding himself of an acquisition that could be argued to be back on the up and worth investing in.

Shearer obviously has no guarantee of achieving this and it would most probably cost Ashley even more money to attain promotion, but with Shearer on board Newcastle inevitably become a more marketable proposition. On the other hand as it stands Ashley is trying to flog a football club with no manager, a huge wage bill and mounting debts to boot.

His lack of firm offers so far is proof that he needs to be decisive now, by getting behind Newcastle so that they may get back to being a worthy prospect for a budding entrepreneur. If Ashley otherwise continues on his current path of naivety, someone should point out to him that even Southampton have managed a buyer this summer. If a club with a ten-point deficit in League One is more attractive than St James's Park, then something is seriously awry!

As for the on-field troubles, whilst the club has kept together most of it's Premiership squad this still represents a kind of failure. For a start some of the players should have been sold to help alleviate the overall debts, this would help more in the long-term rather than risking keeping hold of them and seeing their stock value dramatically drop. Newcastle technically made this decision easier on themselves although they have failed to act on it. The gamble of keeping their 'star' players is undermined by the poor foresight of not having any contract clauses, which would have lowered their wages in the event of relegation.

The failure to move players out of the club has clearly knocked on to affect their ability to bring in any new players, and crucially ones that may be better suited to getting them out of the Championship melee. It appears that Newcastle are still operating in a day dream and have not grasped the fact that a bounce-back promotion is far from certain. The Championship has become more and more difficult over the years, and this was further demonstrated by three recent Premiership clubs being relegated to League One last season.

In fact the Championship as it will line up for 2009/10 has twenty-four teams, of these, fifteen have been in the Premiership since it's inception. This is quite a staggering statistic and clearly it lends weight to how difficult a challenge it is to make it back up. It is perfectly fair to argue that the likes of West Brom, Middlesbrough and even Reading are far more comfortably placed for a crack at the Championship than Newcastle currently are. With only three weeks until they kick-off their season at the Hawthorns, the Tyneside club may soon be regretting their lack of impetus...

No love lost for Adebayor, but do Manchester City know the score?

2009-07-14T10:31:00.003+01:00

Rumours have persisted over the weekend and yesterday that Adebayor will be the latest 'big-money' acquisition for Manchester City. It now seems more and more likely that such a deal will be going ahead, and if rumours are to be correct the money changing hands will be in the region of £20 million. If Manchester City do eventually sign Emmanuel Adebayor it will represent and confirm a shift in their potential transfer dealings of late.

Manchester City should confirm their purchase of Carlos Tevez today and along with Adebayor both players demonstrate new ground being broken in the clubs potential market. Obviously the purchases of Robinho, Gareth Barry and Shay Given amongst others have shown a statement of intent and purchase power by the Citizens up to now. They are all good signings, but for the players the move was either a step-up club wise, or a step-up wage wise.

What is different with Tevez and probably Adebayor is how Manchester City have now been able to flex their muscles and tempt players from the top-four clubs. Most significantly these players were not surplus to requirements like Shaun Wright-Phillips at Chelsea, instead 'City are now tempting big players away from life with the Champions League clubs. For the first time it appears that 'City can genuinely claim that they are competing with big clubs when signing the best in the transfer market.

Even so they have still failed miserably in any attempts to sign Kaka, and despite some convincing courting of Samuel Eto'o that deal also fell through. Although the club have made it clear that they 'dumped' Eto'o rather than the other way round! What heights Manchester City's transfer dealings will guide them to next season is still up for debate though. Obviously they have been making great strides to buy their way into the top-four membership, and just a glance at their potential attacking line-up for the coming season is enough to spread concern amongst all rivals.

Be that as it may I am still not swayed that they will break into the Champions League places as soon as 2009/10. I have gone so far as to lay a wager with my fellow correspondent Mr Rome(boy), his belief when the infamous Thaksin Shinawatra takeover went ahead was that the club would finish in the top-four within three seasons. With this being the third season in question soon to start, the wager could be said to be on a knife-edge.

Whilst I concur that Manchester City will inevitably achieve their aim if they carry on with their Abramovich-inspired shopping sprees, I still think that it is too soon for them to do so in the next year. Though it may be a cliché, it will take time for Manchester City to get their squad playing as a team, the failed first era of Galácticos shows that there is more to building a successful team than throwing lots of fantasy football players at it. More importantly I remain to be convinced by the staying-power of the manager Mark Hughes.

Obviously there is conjecture in this, but it is widely thought that Hughes could ill afford another season finishing in tenth position in the Premier League. If 'City do not start the season on a flyer then there will be inevitable growing pressure on Hughes, it may not be strictly fair but it will happen and there has to be concern for just how patient the board will be with the former Wales manager.

As for Adebayor, well clearly as an Arsenal fan I should be concerned if the club were to sell him to Manchester City without any decent money then being outlaid on the squad, dare I say even the ongoing defensive midfielder debate. What is important to get across about Adebayor is that even though he may be missed by Arsene Wenger, he will clearly not be missed by the Arsenal fans, myself included.

For those of you who have not seen it, take a look at http://www.oleole.com/blogs/arseblog/posts/exclusive-adebayor039s-michael-owen-style-brochure. The mock brochure appeared on the arseblog and is an attempt by Arsenal fans to sell-off the Togan striker. It may be considered a bit ungrateful by some, but on the whole I have to agree with the funny concept. After all Adebayor has only genuinely had one great season out of his four at Arsenal, and whilst he is a threat and will score goals there has been a growing resentment towards the player.

Some of this has been based on the numerous times that he has missed chances in important matches, and how he seemed to adopt the lackadaisical approach of Dimitar Berbatov for most of last season. More annoying has been his constant about-turns in the press, where every few months he would talk up a potential move to AC Milan or Barcelona only to re-iterate his loyalty to the Gunners soon afterwards.

Quite frankly Arsenal fans are sure that Adebayor can be replaced by someone better, he is not revered amongst the support like Robin van Persie or Fabregas and clearly the mock brochure suggests that the club will be wise to take the money from Manchester City and run. Even a close friend who follows the Citizens has expressed dismay at how his club appear to be on the verge of signing a player that he has spent three years mocking.

That's not to say that Adebayor won't score 'some' goals at Manchester City, of course he will, but is he really worth £20-25 million? Even in the current inflated market I have to say not at all. In all honesty I would have been overjoyed for Wenger to have snuck in for Michael Owen to replace an expensive striker, like Ferguson has done at Manchester United for Tevez. It may have been a shock move, but Sir Alex may have pulled off the signing of the summer despite the doubters.

Just as he will at Manchester United, Michael Owen could have been re-invigorated at Arsenal. Ultimately a player like Owen feeds off of good service, no matter what negative press has been thrown at him during his Newcastle nightmare. At Arsenal he would have been given ample chances to score, and Wenger would have had a player who would score goals once he had a sight of it, rather than passing the ball again. Alas I will have to rue an opportunity lost.

Manchester City meanwhile will do much better with their signing of Carlos Tevez, he is a player of exceptional skill combined with a good work ethic and desire. It will be the Argentinian rather than Adebayor who will push 'City closer to their aims, and when it comes to future transfer policy they will do well to remember that 'you can't always get what you want, but you might just find you get what you need!'

Goodbye from Setanta and hello from ESPN.

2009-07-09T00:49:00.001+01:00

The penultimate confirmation of Setanta Sports death knell was rung on Monday June 22nd with the announcement that ESPN had bought the rights from the English Premier League for the 46 live games that Setanta originally had for next season. Today they also added the rights to show the same matches in the Republic of Ireland for 2009/10, these had also been under the prior ownership of Setanta before the Irish company went into administration on the 23rd of June.

The American company announced on Tuesday that they will be launching their own UK based sports channel on the 3rd of August. It is in this medium that they will broadcast the 46 matches that they have acquired from the Premier League, most of which will consist of the Saturday early evening kick-offs. As it stands the new channel will be available for subscription through Sky, but there are apparent negotiations ongoing in order to make it available through Virgin and BT service providers.

It now at least means that there will be another broadcaster other than Sky who owns the rights to Premier League fixtures. This is necessary because of the EU law implemented a couple of years ago which stated that no individual broadcaster would be allowed to have exclusive coverage rights of such a sport, hence ending any potential monopolies.

Of course there will be many who argue that they don't really mind, after all Sky have been a part of the Premier League since it's conception for the 1992/93 season, and they have always done it reasonably well. Although that may not be a good enough excuse for the people I know who dislike Andy Gray and see him fit only for parodying. On the other hand Jeff Stelling is now synonymous with watching the results come in on the weekend- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

For all the flack and humour that Setanta Sports might have taken over the last couple of seasons though, I have to admit that I didn't mind too much for their coverage. It was a strange experience to be part of a minute percentage of the population in England who could watch an England World Cup qualifier on their TV. It meant that I could be enthralled and terrified at the same time by the site of Terry Venables' perma-tanned and snazzy-suited punditry. Despite that 'triumph' I think that England matches should be available for the majority of the populace to watch on terrestrial TV, they should in that regard be like the FA Cup final for all to see.

As for Setanta's other 'selling-points', I would be shocked and mostly appalled if anyone was to tell me that Steve McManaman is not Jamie Redknapp's superior. Clearly he was on the football field, for all of Redknapps' early endeavours in his career, but that continues today with the media work too. McManaman has often been honest and fairly critical with his analysis when covering matches for Setanta.

Jamie meanwhile is frequently referred to as the (censored!) one who sits on Sky most Saturdays wearing the same suit that he has for the last three seasons. More unfortunate is his insistence on sitting with his knees as far apart as possible, sometimes I worry that he will fall off the seat altogether whilst insisting that he is 'smart-casual' in his cockney accent.

What will lie ahead with ESPN is therefore anyone's guess. I had a very brief nightmare that they would go ahead with disinterested presenters from the USA, but this was quickly followed by a hope that they would, even if it would just be ironically funny the first time, possibly! Ideally they will do what Setanta teased us with but failed to deliver, and that's a full-time Des Lynam.

I would welcome his return because however nice Gary Linekar may be, he's never really touched the heights of the great 'tache. The glory days of seeing Martin O'Neill teasingly argue with Alan Hansen during the BBC's World Cup '98 coverage is probably the pinnacle of punditry viewed on TV. All that really matters most of all is that we never ever (ever!) again be subjected to Andy Townsend going over tactics in a trailer. To think they wouldn't even let him into the studio..!

What a Mestalla to make!

2009-07-01T21:13:00.003+01:00

One of the expected big transfer stories of the summer is that of David Villa from Valencia CF, but as things stand it also appears that it will be one of the most protracted as well, if it does actually come to fruition. The Spanish hot-shot has increasingly become a focus in recent months for Europe's other major clubs, both Real Madrid and Chelsea have been consistently linked in the way that usually invokes an air of inevitability.

This is easily understandable when considering his strong part in Spain's triumph at Euro 2008 and his incredible strike rate in La Liga. For Valencia alone he has scored 87 goals in just 129 appearances in the domestic league, take all competitions into account and it reads that Villa has scored 101 goals for Los Che in a mere 167 appearances. Wherever he may end up, his statistics are the type that would justify trepidation amongst any opposition fans in any major domestic league.

So why on earth are Valencia even considering to sell their prize asset?! Well, as of June 24th Valencia reiterated that 'the club wants to insist that we are not negotiating the transfer of David Villa with any team, nor Spanish nor from abroad'. That seems quite clear then you might think, but alas this is typically far from the whole story as Valencia have previously insinuated that they would listen to offers for Villa, particularly if they were of a 'scandalous nature'!

The reason for the changing perspective of the Valencia board lies in the financial tightrope that the club has been walking for the last few months. They clearly don't want to sell Villa, he is idolised by the fans and is their greatest hope in firing them back into the Champions League places come next season. At the same time, things have got so bad at the club, that a massive windfall from the sale of Villa would help ease the pressure that they are under- it could even stop them needing to take up offers from the vultures circling for the rest of the squad.

Back in 2004 the club debt was at $180 million, it may sound odd to say but this was a manageable deficit. In short, Valencia are now thought to be in debt to the tune of up to $725 million, an astronomical amount which has been blown out of proportion since the glory years and two La Liga titles enjoyed under the reign of Rafa Benitez.

What is breaking the bank on top of all this debt is the building of Valencia's new stadium. The Nou Mestalla will eventually replace the Estadio Mestalla, and the grand plan to help offset some of the debt was the selling of their current home for an estimated $300-400 million. On top of this the club hoped to earn even more collateral by selling it's training ground Paterna. Sound plans in theory but unfortunately the world economic crisis has seen these hit the buffers in a big way, the current state of the Spanish property market means that both the Estadio Mestalla and Paterna are still on the market and will be for the foreseeable future.

Vicente Soriano took over the club Presidency a year ago with the promise to sell both of the clubs major land assets. Since his failure to do so and the crisis at Valencia having actually expanded, he did the 'honourable' thing and jumped ship, tendering his resignation on June 4th.

I visited the Nou Mestalla and as you can see from my pictorial evidence, for now it is lying dormant, work is on hold because the construction companies are owed around $20 million. To add further calamity to the story, Valencia still don't fully own the land on which the new stadium is being built on, instead it still belongs to the Municipality of Valencia. So far Valencia have paid up €28 million on the €45 million piece of land, all things considered it seems that the Valencia board and it's recent predecessors have managed to write their own passage on how not to run a football club!

As if all that wasn't enough, there is also the small matter of roughly another $20 million outstanding to the playing staff- yes it's reached that worrying stage when even the star players are not cashing in their cheques! Then again, when you consider that Valencia rallied during the second half of last season to finish in 6th place and crucially at least a place in the Europa League, the players to their credit produced a tremendous effort on the field whilst it was all going up in smoke off of it.

The Nou Mestalla was originally due to be completed and ready for opening in time for next season (2009/10). Up until the last few months this was still very much on course, but now the optimists are saying that Valencia will be in position to move in time for the 2010/11 season. Until the outstanding costs are somewhat met there will naturally be some pessimism even over the new date.

Even so, whilst Valencia will have a summer of major worry and concern, things may be starting to look up. From today the club has some money available from new advertising deals it has signed with MediaPro and Kappa. Meanwhile Mrs Rita Barberá (the Mayor of Valencia) has expressed her obvious support and backing for the club to get back to where it was a few short years ago, whether or not this will extend to some financial input or not remains highly doubtful.

The major creditor of the club-Bancaja- recently put an austerity order in place over the club, in an effort to reclaim some of the $350 million that it is owed itself. Though this may not sound that positive, at least the club is now being forced within reason to emphasise budget cuts and ways to run a profit rather than spending further cash. As for David Villa, the man himself has stated that he is committed and settled with Los Che. Clearly his future will more likely be decided by the ability of the Valencia board to chop elsewhere, at the end of the day beggars can't be choosers however big you think you are...

Round Up: A messiah or two for the Saints and an Omen from North Korea

2009-06-19T13:11:00.001+01:00

Despite the fact that the domestic seasons have ended across Europe there has been no hold up in the number of stories going around, and the last few days has seen some interesting developments. Perhaps the story to make people sit up and take notice the most is the strong rumours that are emanating from Southampton FC. The club could really do with some sort of positive news, there relegation to League 1 in April and the ten point deduction that awaits them next season is a far cry from when Gordon Strachan managed the Saints to an FA Cup final just six years ago.

The information that has come out so far indicates that there is a strong likelihood that the club will be taken over today by the Pinnacle Group, which is fronted by former Southampton chairman Leon Crouch. The takeover is tantalising for the clubs fans as it promises the return of Matt Le Tissier in the capacity of chairman of the new board. On top of this there is an intriguing will he, won't he sub-plot that Kevin Keegan is also involved with the takeover.

At what level this may be is not clear though, after the way he left Newcastle it would be hypocritical if it was in a Director of Football capacity, although he has done the role before at Fulham. On the other hand, would he really make another managerial comeback in the third tier of English football- that would be a sensational coup? However people mocked Keegan's return to Newcastle, he still showed that he has an ability at that level and it is quite clear that Mike Ashley and co. would not be in their current predicament if he had stayed as manager last season.

Before any Saints fans get ahead of themselves though, there has been no formal confirmation of Keegan's involvement from either him or the Pinnacle group. Their hope remains that this kind of conjecture is usually quite close to the mark, and the wait should not extend beyond today's expected announcement. Keegan is almost as big a cult hero for Southampton as Le Tissier is, or Alan Ball was (at least as a player), he was prolific in his two seasons at the Dell, scoring 37 goals in just 68 games and pushing the team into the top six. If he does return then it will be fascinating to watch whatever happens, it could be a car crash but Keegan has a tremendous record in getting clubs promoted and it would be foolish to bet otherwise.

Now, for all of you who believe in omens, a good one for England came to fruition on Wednesday. It takes the unlikely form of North Korea who secured their qualification for next summer's World Cup after a 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia. The despot country secured one of the four automatic qualification spots alongside South Korea, Australia and Japan. As far as the omen is concerned, North Korea have only qualified for one previous World Cup finals and that was 1966 In England. They had a memorable tournament as well as some other nation did, defeating Italy on the way to the quarter-finals before blowing a 3-0 lead over Eusebio inspired Portugal!

We all know what happened in 1966, how can we forget, it is after all the perennial yard-stick that every England team since has been compared against. It doesn't really equate to much, but for those of you who like to cling on to every positive, it is certainly a nice statistic to keep ticking over until it all kicks-off next June. North Korea meanwhile will be ecstatic to be playing on the big stage again rather than being over shadowed by their rivals South Korea, who have routinely qualified for every tournament since Mexico 1986 and were famously led to the semi-finals under Guus Hiddink in 2002.

Turning back to the ongoing Confederations Cup, it has been a reasonable tournament so far, with the predictable fore-runners being Spain and Brazil in their respective groups, but perhaps the most entertaining team thus far has been Egypt. The African Nations champions pushed Brazil to the limit in their opening game of Group B, surprising everyone with their capacity to come back from a 3-1 deficit to equalise. The winning penalty that Howard Webb gave to Brazil was correct and fair, but it has been cast into doubt over the way that the referee came to his decision to give it.

It’s an unusual argument when both sides can honestly claim to have the upper hand, but in this case that is what’s happened. The penalty was just, but FIFA have reacted to Egypt’s complaint that Webb used the fourth official in his decision, by removing the monitors around the dugouts. In that way the fourth official will not be able to see television replays on contentious issues and so wipe away some of the doubt over his influence on the referee.

Moving on, Egypt last night managed to overcome their disappointment in the best possible way. They defeated the World Champions Italy 1-0 thanks to a superb headed goal from Homos, that came five minutes before half-time. Even more satisfying for the Egyptians was the fact that they were good value for their victory, they passed the ball well and haven't been intimidated by Brazil or Italy.

The Italians meanwhile have looked sluggish so far and in some respects were lucky to catch a break against the USA in their opening game, in the second half with Egypt they naturally pushed forward and came close to an equaliser but it wasn't necessarily deserved. Marcello Lippi and Italy will have it all to do against Brazil in their final group match if they're to qualify for the semi-finals.

Finally, talking of semi-finals, the England Under-21's made the last four stage of the Under-21's European Championships on Thursday evening. Stuart Pearce's team soundly defeated their Spanish counterparts 2-0 and so made it two wins out of two following on from their defeat of Finland in the first group game. Whilst the performance against Finland had been criticised nonetheless, the game with Spain saw a much more settled and confident England who were even able to afford a missed penalty from James Milner.

Luckily for Milner he was able to atone himself for the miss and scored England's second goal with a little over 15 minutes left, after another superb display of pace from surprise substitute Theo Walcott led to him pulling the ball back for the Aston Villa player. England's first had come five minutes previously thanks to Frazier Campbell who cut inside and finished with aplomb from all of 25 yards. It remains to be seen if Campbell will be joining Hull this summer or if he will attract interest from a more attractive club on the back of his England Under-21's involvement.

England will face Germany in their final group game in a fixture that is always keenly followed, whatever the level may be. It isn't quite a dead rubber as if England were to lose they would then qualify as group runners-up rather than winners, regardless of that the squad should be confident of improving on their semi-final in the last Under-21 Euro's. It may just be that Stuart Pearce has found his management calling for now, I just wonder where or when he will end up back in club management- ideally after lifting the World Cup next summer!? As for his predecessor at Manchester City, we shall soon know if football is due yet another comeback from 'King Kev'...

Confederates gather for World Cup warm-up.

2009-06-14T12:25:00.003+01:00

Today the Confederations Cup gets under way in South Africa, this relatively recent addition to the international schedule will go on for the next two weeks as it continues to establish itself as a credible competition. The basic premise is that the tournament is represented by the spectrum of international teams who are the reigning champions of the other international competitions under FIFA's mandate (the respective confederation championships).

You may be surprised but this does amount to seven nations, with South Africa filling the eighth spot as the host nation. For full clarity the seven title holders are as follows:
Italy- 2006 World Cup Winners
Spain- 2008 European Championship Winners
Brazil- 2007 Copa America Winners
Egypt- 2008 African Nation Winners
Iraq- 2007 AFC Asian Cup Winners
USA- 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup Winners
New Zealand- 2008 OFC Nation Cup Winners.

The line up is quite formidable, and even though some of the nations involved may be regarded as cannon fodder for the traditional power houses, it cannot be argued that they haven't earned their place in South Africa by right or that they couldn't spring a surprise or two. The opening match of the tournament will take place between South Africa and Iraq at 3pm today, in the Ellis stadium in Johannesburg. This stadium, as with the other three being used throughout the next two weeks, is one that will be used in a year's time for the 2010 World Cup.

The format has changed little since the Confederations Cup started out as the King Fahd Cup in 1992. Originally it comprised of just four title-holding nations and excluded the World Cup, European Championship and the OFC Nations Cup. This expanded in 1995 to include Denmark as winners of Euro '92, and Saudi Arabia as hosts- they had relinquished the Asian Cup to Japan in the 1992 final.

It was after this point that FIFA stepped in to assume control of the competition, and they
re-branded it as the Confederations Cup in time for 1997. It is since this time that the Confederations Cup settled into the eight nation format that it takes now. All that has notably changed in the intervening years is FIFA's decision to place another emphasis on the competition. Up until 2005 it had taken place every two years, but FIFA decided that from then on it should take place just every four years and that it should be hosted by the nation due to host the World Cup in the subsequent year.

This actually makes a lot of sense, something for which FIFA cannot be regularly credited for. Not only does it provide an opportunity for the would be World Cup hosts to stage a proper dress rehearsal, it also gives the host nation a much needed taste of competitive international football. The host nation traditionally does not have to qualify for the World Cup, but then this does leave a void where they are less active in the rough and tumble of meaningful fixtures- a crucial aspect of being prepared for the biggest international tournament in the World.

The history of the Confederations Cup is unsurprisingly intertwined with Brazil. They are after all regular winners of international competitions, and they have been a constant participant since 1997, winning it twice and losing another final- they are the current holders. They aren't the holders of the best tournament record though, because they are always involved their percentage success rate pales in comparison with Denmark and France. Both of these European nations have won the tournament each time they have been entered. A Michael Laudrup inspired Denmark beat Argentina in 1995, and France cleaned house in 2001 and 2003.

With regards to what 2009 will have to offer, the expectancy will be that either Spain or Brazil will come good. Spain emphatically threw off their tag as perennial under-achievers at Euro 2008 and are expected to be strong favourites for next summers World Cup. They also have the easier looking group in South Africa, their opponents will be the hosts, Iraq and New Zealand.

Brazil meanwhile are beginning to come good again after a rocky start under the legendary former captain and current manager Dunga. They have lost just one of their fourteen World Cup qualifying matches so far, and after their unexpected triumph over Argentina in the 2007 Copa America, confidence is once again as high as the expectancy. Italy are also obviously a threat and not to be underestimated, especially now that their World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi is back in charge after his sabbatical.

The smaller nations will have to be negotiated seriously and with respect though. Iraq secured a momentous victory in the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, defeating Australia and South Korea along the way before Saudi Arabia in the final. In the wake of the war and occupation of their country, Iraq's victory has to rank as one of the great sporting achievements of modern times. However they may fair in the Confederations Cup it will be a triumph, but the big teams will be wise to be wary of them as well as Egypt and New Zealand.

Either way the 2009 Confederations Cup should act as a welcome taster for the World Cup next year, not only will there be some good football on show it will show the World some of what can be expected in the summer of 2010. The Olympics may often be bandied around as being the greatest show on Earth, but we all know deep down that the World Cup will and always does trump it in every capacity, the countdown starts now...

England on the verge, but it's just the beginning!

2009-06-10T17:07:00.001+01:00

After England's 4-0 win away at Kazakhstan on Saturday and the draw that followed it later that evening between nearest group rivals Croatia and Ukraine, Capello and his men are now tantalisingly close to World Cup qualification and South Africa in 2010. The performance may not have been the most convincing, but professional was probably the most frequent and polite description of how England overcame the Kazakhstanis in Almaty.

In the extreme unlikelihood that the Ukraine will fail to defeat Kazakhstan tonight, England would be all but mathematically certain to win the group and be qualified, again withstanding any heroics by Belarus in it's remaining fixtures. So on that basis we can start to plan ahead for next summer already, my concern is that we will face an increasing frenzy of hype as the next domestic season continues.

This is natural, and though I hate to endorse excuses, I will do so anyway in this case. It has to be said that there is some truth in how the amount of pressure England players have been put under in the past, has contributed to their impotence in major national tournaments. This doesn't excuse some of the disappointments of recent history though. Indeed, I have mentioned before how England's mentality needs to match that of the Brazilians and Germans, to be able to handle pressure and to have an over-riding sense of self-belief. At the same time it is important for the England team to remain focused on their ambition and to not get too carried away with the hysteria that will go on around them.

It is worth noting how Capello himself refuses to be drawn into talking about our prospects in South Africa. He knows that to get the best out of England the players will need to respect all opposition, and as we saw on Saturday, to be patient and professional. Football is a world which is famed for its speaking in clichés, but Capello is one of the best managers in the game partly because of that.

Capello will not be willing to whip up the storm around England, rather like we have seen at every club he has operated at, he will be determined to analyse and study to an obsessive degree how he can mould England to avoid defeat and to achieve positive results. Whether or not that sometimes involves grinding out results like Italian teams of old, I do not care- ultimately winning is all that matters.

As for tonight's match at Wembley, it remains to be seen just how many fans and members of the public will be able to attend. The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) commenced with a 48 hour strike at 18:59 yesterday evening. With the impending threat of the strike going ahead, the FA stopped selling the remaining 20,000 tickets last week. In reality, of the 70,000 tickets that have been allocated there will be significantly less than that who will be able to make it to Wembley Stadium, all the Tubes running to the area won't be stopping and Wembley Park station will be closed.

It is quite sad that England will therefore face Andorra far short of it's usual atmosphere, though it won't affect the result at all. Still, you have to wonder if the RMT calculated their strike action to coincide with the fixture in order to place extra emphasis on the necessity of the Tube infrastructure. After all, probably the one major drawback about Wembley Stadium (aside from the spiralling costs in it's construction) is the fact that it is notoriously difficult to get to by car due to the lack of parking.

Ideally the FA could have perhaps aimed to boost the attendance for tonight's match by cutting their losses and giving away the remaining 20,000 tickets to local schools etc. If they were local enough then transport may not have been as much of an issue, it's not as if the stadium isn't used to having 90,000 people around it anyway. More to the point, it always seems like a wasted opportunity to me to have so many empty seats. The same is seen in some of the less attractive Premiership stadiums and so on, football needs it's grassroots and should react quicker to looking after them instead of taking advantage of them. By giving away unsold tickets to local youngsters, surely it is a logical way to attract interest in the sport, particularly in those areas that never sell-out anyway.

A mention must also be made for Gary Neville! The odds seem good for him earning his first England cap since February 2007, injuries have played a major part in him being omitted, but more recently the consistency of Glen Johnson has come to the fore. Mr Gary Neville may regularly come high on polls of disliked players, but if he does indeed play tonight then he will finally draw level on being the most capped full back for England. An 86th cap would leave him level-pegging with the Arsenal legend and favourite Kenny Sansom, and barring any more injury set-backs he may earn the record outright in future.

Capello is being strongly rumoured to be considering resting not only Glen Johnson, but also Emile Heskey and David Beckham, as all three are a yellow card away from missing the Croatia match in September. Gareth Barry is definitely out due to suspension and so we can expect a more attacking dynamic to the team, even if it's only through necessity. Either way it 'should' be enjoyable rather than frustrating against the team ranked 196th in the world. Then again, I know better than that- I'll plump for 3-0 and hope for more!

Barry is an unwelcome Villain, whilst rumours continue unabated.

2009-06-03T23:59:00.002+01:00

So Gareth Barry finally moved from the club 'who's result I'll always look for first'. The fact that he has ended up moving to Manchester City for £12million raises inevitable questions about his motivation. If rumours were to be believed and logic dictated, it seemed likely that Aston Villa were going to have to cut their losses on a player who only had a year remaining on his contract. The most obvious target was of course Barry's long-term suitors of last summer, Liverpool.

Barry had explained last summer that a move to Liverpool was motivated by the ambition to play in the Champions League and to rise to the challenge of the next competitive level. This is a fair argument and one that could be grudgingly accepted in the PR stakes. When the transfer became increasingly strained Barry survived making disparaging remarks about the club and Martin O'Neill, and in the end he won back the majority of fans with his performances- even if the trust was no longer there.

There will now be some bitter feelings over the way his exit from Aston Villa has eventually arisen. For all the potential that is spoken about Manchester City, they are still several signings and possibly a better manager away from seriously contending for one of the coveted top four Premier League places. Of course, by acquiring Gareth Barry the club has issued a statement of intent and have shown that they are looking for more established stars who will help the team, not just show pony's with individual flair such as Robinho. It may genuinely be an exciting summer of transfer activity for the blue half of Manchester.

As far as Barry is concerned, his motivation will be called into question, and for good reason. For all of their aims Manchester City are not Liverpool, for this moment in time they are not even of Aston Villa standards. The England international will not be playing in Europe at all next season, far away from the Europa League and further still from the Champions League that Barry wished for twelve months ago. What has become clear is that Barry has possibly doubled his weekly salary to £100,000, and in that process he rejected Villa's improved £80,000 a week contract extension.

It's not absolutely fair to accuse Barry of greed, but as far as his career choice has gone there is understandable doubt over his belief in Manchester City compared to the new found belief in his wallet. I still believe that for the immediate future, his career aims were more likely to be met by Aston Villa instead of 'City. I may be proven wrong in the next twelve months but I feel more positive about my chances than Mark Hughes should feel about his in taking his team into the Champions League.

Elsewhere there has been an increasing hive of activity, but more concerned with the managerial merry-go-round than with the players. Steve Bruce has moved clubs again and now finds himself at the helm of the Sunderland ship, it could be a match made in heaven as the Black Cats are now rumoured to have the transfer funds to match Bruce's lust for success. Meanwhile the opening left at his old club Wigan is being linked with the ever popular Roberto Martinez.

The Swansea City boss has attracted many admirers in the almost two and a half years that he has been in charge. He guided Swansea back to England's second football tier after almost a quarter of a century, and last season they made an admirable push for the Championship play-offs and consecutive promotions. All this has been done whilst also playing an attractive brand of football, they are a team that isn't afraid to pass along the floor and maintain possession.

Martinez is being courted by Celtic as well, the Scottish Premier League runners-up are keen to produce their own attacking brand of football and are seriously considering him. When you take into account that Martinez spent almost half of his playing career with Wigan, it does appear that Swansea may be fighting a losing battle to keep hold of one of the most highly rated young managers in Britain today.

Celtic's other options do not appear to include Tony Adams though. The Arsenal legend has reportedly been talking up his chances of being thrown a managerial career lifeline, mostly on the back of a suggested return to Parkhead with Wim Jansen. The one-time Celtic boss worked with Adams back when Portsmouth's ex-manager was doing some coaching with Feyenoord.

Unfortunately for Adams the story has quickly become one that is lampooning him and will cause embarrassment. Jansen has denied any such talk or suggestion of working with Adams at Celtic, in whatever role. Unless something miraculous happens soon I fear that all the hopes of him ever becoming a manager of any note will evaporate, that is if they haven't already. As great a player and leader on the pitch as he was, he just comes across as far to aloof to succeed from the dugout.

The soap-opera of Newcastle United meanwhile has been quiet by it's usual standards. Mike Ashley has decided again that there is no time like the present and that he should sell up the Geordie franchise, he will expect a big loss but in the long run it might just save his health! The Alan Shearer question is still yet to be resolved and may be made more difficult by the potential sale of the club. He is still widely expected to stay on as manager in the Championship and whoever takes over would be wise to leave it that way, even if it is for the sake of their sanity and some peace until the results go too awry.

Elsewhere Jim Magilton has quickly recovered from losing his job at Ipswich Town in order to take the somewhat poisoned chalice of QPR manager. The almost richest club in the world has descended into farce at times in the last season or two. Managers have been sacked and replaced frequently and there is still to be any significant moves in the transfer market, even by Championship standards. Magilton will need to hit the ground running to keep up with the inflated expectations at Loftus Road.

As for transfers of players Barry's is the major story thus far, although I'm sure there will be several exciting moves amongst the scores of rumours and conjecture this summer. Birmingham have broken their transfer record in celebration and preparation for their Premiership return next season. It is believed that they have parted with the sum of around £9million for Christian Benitez from Santos Laguna in Mexico. Although he is relatively unknown on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, he has a good reputation and is viewed as an exciting prospect, let's hope he is for Alex McLeish's sake.

There are naturally many other stories gathering pace, it has been generally accepted that Kaka will be leaving AC Milan this post season, either to follow Ancelotti to Chelsea or to be sucked in by Real Madrid. Either way it promises to come close to breaking the world record for a transfer fee, if not smash it. The usual rumours around Cesc Fabregas and Chrisiano Ronaldo also persist, I still think and hope that the former will not be swayed by any approaches. Ronaldo on the other hand is more difficult to predict, but again I expect him to remain in the Premiership come August.

If you're already tired of the what-ifs, speculation and down-right fantasy that is being projected since the end of the season, then I suggest you really distract yourself from the news for a couple of months. On the other hand, if you love the endless gossip and the rumour-mills, settle back for what promises to be a fascinating spate of transfer activity. At some point there should be a signing that will get everyone talking..

Just don't know what to do with myself..?

2009-05-28T22:31:00.001+01:00

Many millions of grown men will have been lamenting the end of their respective football seasons in the last couple of weeks and I myself am no different. Surely after watching dozens and dozens of games, be it at the ground or on the TV, we should be taking stock and looking forward to a break?!

Unfortunately it just doesn't really work that way, instead I have already found that I'm looking for what football there will still be to savour over the summer break. So far it's not looking that bad at all, there are of course the upcoming World Cup qualifying matches for England and the other home nations, as well as everyone else in the next couple of weeks. These days we should at least be looking forward to England matches again with some optimism.

If you're curious to scout for the future then there is of course the Under 21's European Championships, due to start on June 15th. England will face Spain and Germany in their group in what may be a salivating appetiser for future senior tournaments. At the very least there should be some decent football on show to whet the palette.

Meanwhile, though Europe may have wounded up most of it's major leagues, barring the culmination of Ligue 1 and Serie A this weekend, there is plenty of other club football going. You may wish to replace the Italian Serie A with the Brazilian Série A, the top league in the country is only three games into the season and the injury ravaged Ronaldo (the proper one!) is enjoying an Indian summer with Corinthians. It may not be of an immense overall standard, but then again there will be plenty of skill and poise on show- you may get a heads up on who the next great young talents to emerge from South America will be.

Taking it down several pegs, there is the K-League in South Korea, where our very own Steve Rome is currently residing. Though he is very busy (and perhaps a little worried considering recent diplomatic failures between North and South), I hope he enlightens us with some more reports from the league that gives us there own version of the FA Cup, and ironically the Peace Cup. Their season has been under way for a couple of months now and it remains to be seen if it can drive Steve as mad as the Portuguese Liga Sagres does to our Ian Shine..

Coming back home, we still have our original FA Cup final to look forward to this coming weekend. Most neutrals will be intrigued to see if David Moyes can cement his reputation as the best manager outside of the top four, or if the genius Guus Hiddink can bequeath a fond farewell to his Chelsea resurrection. Either way I hope the traditional season finale will provide a fitting end to what has been an entertaining season on the whole, despite my own Arsenal frustrations. Like I say at the end of any such season, I'm sure we'll be close next year (closer I hope!).

As for last night’s spectacle in Rome, it wasn't a bad game but it was somewhat hollow. I, and I'm sure most others watching, were quite surprised by the contrast between Manchester United's impressive opening flourish and their damp squib of a performance after conceding the first goal. Perhaps the team had run out of any more comebacks or will, although I tend to hate those excuses, particularly when such a big game is concerned.

More to the point was Ferguson's own assessment, Barcelona were simply the better team. The way they held possession and passed the ball was sometimes staggering. I just hope that people now finally realise that Cristiano Ronaldo, as good as he is, should not be held up against Lionel Messi for measure. The combative Argentinian is clearly the one player to have come closest to the cursed mantle of being the 'next Maradona'. Still he has a long way to go to emulate the brilliant no. 10 of yesteryear, but Messi continues to grow in stature, skill and ability to do what other players can't.

So, if you are feeling stuck for what to do whilst your team is off sunning itself on some ridiculously expensive resort, take comfort in knowing that however desperate you become there will be some football out there to quench your thirst and exasperate your partner. Then again you could simply take a break like the professionals do, it might do you some good but it will be hard to resist the endless transfer gossip and stories. If that fails then you could take up another sport, I recommend the Ashes- maybe I'll see you in Cardiff for the first test, if we make it to day five!

All 'Good' Things...

2009-05-25T14:02:00.000+01:00

Many papers and news outlets will be picking over the remains of Newcastle United's end to a 16 year tenure in the top flight today. Whilst relegation has looked like an increasing possibility in recent weeks, there is still a lot of shock and glee over the demise of the black and white Geordies. They say that all good things must come to an end, but really Newcastle United have been a miserable team for a few seasons now. As silly as it may sound, a season or more in the Championship might actually help to revitalise this ongoing 'sleeping giant'.

As is the norm when any team, particularly an established one gets relegated, there are masses of recriminations and questions. With Newcastle Utd it really isn't that difficult to see what has gone wrong, the club has increasingly become a walking soap opera- almost a self -parody. The mistakes of Mike Ashley have been frequent, ranging from bad PR to strange managerial choices, and he will naturally be the major scapegoat.

It's obvious and true that Ashley should never have brought Dennis Wise to the club, should never have appointed Joe Kinnear, and should never have left Chris Hughton and Colin Calderwood in charge for any extended period. The man has somehow invested near to £250 million in a club and ultimately made it worse off. His one major scoop was tempting Kevin Keegan back to the place that he will always be intrinsically linked with. Even so that effort was half-hearted and a cynical move to appease the fans, Ashley may of risen 'the messiah' from the grave but along with Wise he swiftly drove a steak through his heart.

The mistakes at St James Park do precede the ownership under Mike Ashley however. If we're honest, the beginning of Newcastle United's downfall can be traced back to the unsavoury way that previous Chairman Freddy Shepherd ousted Sir Bobby Robson. The former England manager spent almost five years at Newcastle and he swiftly re-established the club amongst the top five. Two consecutive seasons they played in the Champions League after finishing fourth and third in 2001/02 and 2002/03 respectively.

When Robson was pushed out soon after the start of the 2004/05 season, it was widely seen as a result of the team having only finished fifth the previous term. How ridiculous this seems now, but since the end of Robson’s tenure Newcastle have increasingly lived up to their reputation as an underachieving team. When you look at the roll-call of managers since: Graeme Souness and Glen Roeder being the most questionable appointed to the post, they were never really good enough to replace the quality that they had in Robson.

Sam Allardyce was heralded as the right man for the job, and given time he may well have been. Instead he was hastily shown the door in yet another example of blind panic from the Newcastle United board. When you hear that both Robson and Souness were concerned over the under investment in and quality of the club's youth team and training ground, getting rid of Allardyce seems like an even bigger wasted opportunity. 'Big Sam' may not be known for his teams playing the prettiest football, but the man certainly knows how to run a club from bottom to top.

It has also been suggested that the fans of Newcastle are somewhat to blame, the pedestals that Keegan and now Shearer have been placed on are almost farcical in their coverage. That faith is partly down to the fans and partly exacerbated by the media, who love the silly notions that it all conjures up.

I alluded to earlier the glee that a lot of neutral fans will have over Newcastle's relegation, it is true and a lot of that comes down to the tiredness of always hearing about how the club is 'massive' and should be challenging for honours. The truth is Newcastle have a large fan-base and stadium but little else, (although it will be curious to see how large it is in the Championship). A lot of Newcastle fans don't really tap into the hype over their club, but then quite a few still do. They should realise that they had it good in the past with Keegan's first reign and Sir Bobby Robson, why things have failed since must come partly down to those in charge at the club failing to realise the importance of stability.

As for the future, it is hard to judge for now. There is the inevitable clamour for Shearer to stay on and try to guide them straight back to promotion, that will be easier said than done and may not be the answer. Shearer seems to have the intelligence to manage, but without experience the Championship will be a rough and tumble place to be. This is especially so when considering the major clear-out that will happen over the summer. The club is unlikely to recoup much transfer money from the motley crew of a squad it has, all they will save is their huge wage bill.

Only this season we have seen three recent former Premiership clubs slip into League 1 (Charlton, Southampton and Norwich). In fact League 1 is looking more and more like an old Premiership boys club, with the likes of Leeds, Swindon, Oldham and the MK Dons already there. There will be no guarantee that Newcastle’s Premiership return will be quick, so what is decided in the next few weeks will be crucial.

What is sure is that Newcastle will need to get a grip whoever ends up in charge, and they will do well to invest in the areas of the club that will help to reinvigorate them in the future. For now some time in the Championship will give the club and it's fans a much needed reality check, which hopefully they will learn from and maybe improve from. Newcastle United have not won a major honour for exactly forty tears, if they focus on the Robson years it may not need to be another forty years until they start to behave like a 'massive' club...

Europe: Heartache for McClaren but great prizes beckon for Wolfsburg and Bordeaux

2009-05-18T16:44:00.006+01:00

This past weekend certainly had a lot of storylines across the major European leagues, and so I thought it would be most appropriate to give a general review of how things are panning out for some of our continental neighbours. Certainly in Germany and France there has been no absolutely dominant force, meaning that the excitement has built as their domestic leagues are taken to the wire.

Netherlands
Firstly a look at Steve McClaren and his team FC Twente for the final time this season. After what has been a very positive and successful first year in the Netherlands. Unfortunately for McClaren his first season in the Eredivisie came agonisingly short of a fully triumphant riposte to his critics. On Sunday night FC Twente eventually lost the KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup) 5-4 on penalties, after a 2-2 draw with Heerenveen.

Crucially FC Twente lost two players to injury within the opening twenty minutes of the cup final, Marko Arnautović and the veteran Peter Wisgerhof. Both players have been instrumental to driving the team onwards to their eventual runners-up spot in the Eredivisie. Arnautović has been increasingly monitored by the more powerful clubs in Europe after the twenty year-old has contributed twelve league goals this season.

After twenty-seven minutes Heerenveen capitalised on FC Twente's misfortune and scored the first goal through Goran Popov's close effort. Eljero Elia equalised shortly after the re-start and it remained that way until the ninety minutes were up, despite McClaren's team having the bit between their teeth and seeing several winning opportunities go by.

As it seemed that extra-time was petering out Heerenveen re-took the lead with eight minutes left, via the well-named Bonaventure Kalou. FC Twente managed to steady and with time running out they equalised once again, this time thanks to a Youssouf Hersi header. It was then left to the lottery of penalties, and sadly for Hersi his joy at equalising turned into despair, he missed the only penalty of the shoot-out and Heerenveen had won their first ever KNVB Beker.

So, whilst McClaren missed silverware by the narrowest of margins, his disappointment should subside to immense pride at how he has improved on FC Twente's recent history. Rumours continue that Ajax may seek him to replace Marco van Basten, hopefully they will remain just rumours because McClaren must surely be enthused by the potential at his club.

His team will be considered as a genuine title challenger for next season, especially if they can keep their best players and develop the nucleus within the squad. He will have the challenge of the Champions League as a reward to saviour, but perhaps even better he can now start to put his England debacle behind him.

Germany
As reported last week, the Bundesliga has continually twisted and turned in the last few months. Several teams have led the league this season and whilst things have settled down since the winter break, there has continued to be a plethora of would-be champions. Last weekend may have been a decisive turn of events.

Wolfsburg the current champions-elect were dominant until a recent little wobble. Most probably stemming from a combination of nerves in chasing their first ever Bundesliga title, and their manager's announcement that he will be leaving the club in the summer.Even so Wolfsburg have now emphatically re-asserted themselves, on Saturday they travelled to Hannover and embarrassed them by cruising to a 5-0 win. Unsurprisingly their goals were shared out between their incredible strike team of Edin Dzeko (hat-trick) and Grafite (brace), the two players have now collated 51 goals!

Meanwhile their nearest challengers were managing to mess up their own chances of grabbing the Bundesliga. Bayern Munich were equal on points with Wolfsburg going into Saturdays penultimate round of fixtures, but they failed to defeat TSG 1899 Hoffenheim at home. The "Herbstmeister" have started to find their touch again and they deservedly held Bayern to a 2-2 draw, which may ruin their hopes of retaining the title.

Hertha Berlin suffered similar frustration, a 0-0 draw at home with Shalke 04 has all but buried their dreams of a first Bundesliga since 1931. The expectancy had been great but a dour game means that Hertha require such a miracle to win the title that it isn't worth explaining. All I'll say is that they are three points behind Wolfsburg with one game left.

VfB Stuttgart were the only other title chaser to win last weekend, doing a professional job of seeing off Energie Cottbus 2-0. In their final fixture they will clash with Bayern Munich, both teams have to win to overturn Wolfsburg, whilst Felix Magath's team just need a home draw or better to clinch the Bundesliga. They will face Werder Bremen who will be heavily distracted by their upcoming Uefa and DFB Pokal (German cup) finals.

As for the bottom of the table, Cottbus' loss to Stuttgart leaves them facing relegation, although they may still jump into the relegation play-off. They will not survive outright unless they somehow win by several goals against Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia M'gladbach lose, hence overturning a -7 goal difference.

Technically Karlsruher SC can also now survive via the play-off if they win their final game. They have been rooted at the Bundesliga foot for most of the season, but two wins and a draw in their last five have given them a whisker of hope. On the weekend they overcame Werder Bremen 3-1, but their final fixture is likely to see sterner resistance from Hertha Berlin in their vain attempt to win the title.

France
In Ligue 1 there has been a similar tight tussle for the championship, only between two clubs rather than four. Prior to last weekend Olympique Marseille and Bordeaux were neck and neck on 71 points at the Ligue 1 summit. Unfortunately for Marseille their hopes were dealt a serious blow, by the long-time and outgoing champions Lyon.

The pressure was on as Bordeaux had recorded a vital 3-2 win over Le Mans on Saturday, their ninth league victory in a row. Le Mans fought like a team looking over their shoulder at relegation and certainly threatened Bordeaux's overall authority, particularly Anthony Le Tallec who grabbed a brace. The Ligue 1 challengers overcame any nerves of their own though to secure the three point gap on Marseilles, defender Marc Planus got the winner.

So to Marseille who hosted Lyon in what may be the titles turning point. Lyon are understandably a little irked to finally lose their seven year grasp on Ligue 1, but not wanting to be too selfish they have now made a huge impact on who their successors will be. Karim Benzema scored both of Lyons goals in the first half to establish a 2-0 lead, the chase was on for Marseille and to their credit they reacted well.

Alas they were unable to capitalise on several chances, especially as the first half drew to a close. It wasn't until the 81st minute that they finally made their breakthrough via Sylvain Wiltord. As Marseille desperately pushed on for a coveted equalising goal they naturally left themselves open to Lyon on the counter attack. In the final moments they gave away a free kick and up stepped Lyons veteran specialist Juninho, he promptly scored to make it 3-1 the final score.

Two fixtures remain in Ligue 1 for Marseille to snatch back the initiative that they once held. Unfortunately for them the odds are no longer in their favour, nonetheless this title race certainly isn't dead and there may be another twist, however ominous Bordeaux's recent form has been.

As for the wrong end of Ligue 1, Caen stormed to an absolutely vital 2-0 win over their fellow strugglers Sochaux. That result meant that Caen leap-frogged Sochaux out of the relegation places, whilst pushing the latter team into the mire. Two wins in their last three matches have given Caen cause for celebration, but it may still turn very pear-shaped as in their final two Ligue 1 fixtures they will face Lyon and then Bordeaux!

Sochaux meanwhile face another massive 'six-pointer' next weekend. They will face Nantes who are desperately battling to avoid a first ever relegation from the top flight. Nantes almost gave themselves the perfect tonic by winning on Sunday, for what would have only been the fourth time since the New Year! They failed to see out a 1-0 lead at home to Stade Rennes though, Moussa Sow stole in for the equaliser which leaves Nantes perilously close to the drop.

And the rest
Lastly congratulations must go to Inter Milan, Barcelona and Manchester United for finally wrapping up their respective league titles. All three have long been favourites to win their domestic title this season and have on the whole been deserving of such. Still, they all had to wait until their penultimate games or thereabouts to secure victory.

I hope and expect that Manchester United and Inter Milan will face even tougher challengers for their crowns next season. Sadly for Claudio Ranieri he won't be one of those to try, his tenure at Juventus came to an abrupt end today. It may not be too bad for the 'tinker man', if he looks at AZ Alkmaar in the Eredevisie and Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga both require new managers soon. Of course after their seasons, the only way would be down- it's a tough business!

Bundesliga Battle will not let up!

2009-05-14T01:35:00.001+01:00

Another round of fixtures took place this midweek as the duel at the Bundesliga summit failed to become any clearer in its outcome. There remain two fixtures left to play and yet amazingly there are still five teams that could technically win the title, four of which cannot be separated by more than two points at this late stage of the season.

Bayern Munich continued to defy their recently departed manager Jurgen Klinsmann, by comfortably winning their third game in a row since his sacking at the end of April. This time around they eventually overwhelmed Bayer Lerverkusen 3-0 at home. Luca Toni scored his thirteenth league goal of the season soon after half-time, Frank Ribery then skilfully flicked the ball over Leverkusen's goalkeeper on the hour mark. Twenty minutes lingered when Lukas Podolski wrapped things up, with what is only his sixth Bundesliga strike thus far this term.

This result moved 'Munich onto 63 points and gave rise to hope that they would not only overhaul Wolfsburg at the top, but that they could overturn their goal difference deficit. Alas Wolfsburg were busy swatting aside their own opposition with an equal score line, and with a performance that was greatly needed to regain their focus.

Up until almost three weeks ago Wolfsburg had been unbelievably imperious in their pursuit of a first ever Bundesliga title. Since early February they had strung together ten consecutive league victories, that run came to an abrupt and shocking end when they were defeated on April 26th by second-bottom club Energie Cottbus 2-0. Wolfsburg regrouped and soundly saw off FC Hoffenheim 4-0 but were then completely undone by title rivals VfB Stuttgart last week (4-1).

Amongst all of this came the hardly well-timed announcement that their manager Felix Magath will be leaving at the end of the season. The former Bayern Munich manager has done wonders to turn Wolfsburg from a relatively obscure club to one that's on the verge of glory, but there is an understandable bitter taste of resentment at his departure.

It turns out that he has agreed to take the helm next term at Schalke 04, and Magath has freely admitted that his move is motivated by an inflated salary. At the same time he has tried gamely at trying to justify it by suggesting that managers have a hard job to work long-term with clubs, however successful you are with them.

Even so Wolfsburg re-grabbed the bull by the horns and impressively defeated Borussia Dortmund 3-0. Dortmund had recently been regaining some credibility by going undefeated for six matches and climbing back up the table to sixth place, but here they were chasing shadows from quite early on.

Wolfsburg took the lead in the 14th minute through the Bosnian Edin Dzeko, it stayed that way until just after half-time when Grafite scored his 24th goal in 23 league games! After Dortmunds Boateng saw red, Dzeko grabbed his second goal with five minutes to go. Wolfsburg are therefore still top of the Bundesliga pile by virtue of two goals difference.

Another perspective champion Hertha Berlin kept up the pressure on the top two by also winning and moving on to 62 points (one behind). Hertha secured a 2-1 away victory against 1. FC Köln, a team that have now lost eight of their last ten league games and must be thankful that they are safely clear of any relegation threat. Cicero and Patrick Ebert were on target for Hertha whilst the team from Cologne mustered a last minute consolation through Adil Chihi.

VfB Stuttgart meanwhile persist with their late surge for the Bundesliga, they have now won seven of their last eight games in an unbeaten run. Their latest victims were Schalke 04 who are sinking firmly away from any European place for next season and demonstrating the scale of Magath's future task.

Cacau scored the first for Stuttgart after quarter of an hour, but Schalke equalised shortly before half-time via an Ivan Rakitic free-kick. With a little over half an hour left Stuttgart got the winning goal that keeps them realistically in the title race, Ciprian Marica being the hero. Stuttgart are now on 61 points, one behind Hertha Berlin and two further back from Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg.

As for the rest, Martin Jol's Hamburg got back to winning ways albeit too little too late. They have suffered an astonishing loss of form in the last month which has all but blown their previous hopes of a treble of trophies. All the more galling for them is the fact that their domestic rivals Werder Bremen have been the protagonists.

In their last seven fixtures Hamburg have played Werder four times, in the semi-finals of the DFB Pokal (German Cup) and the Uefa Cup, and then last week in the Bundesliga. All but the first leg of the Uefa Cup were lost, and even a victory in that was overturned by Werder at home!

On Wednesday night they defeated VfL Bochum 3-1, the result leaves them in fifth place on 58 points. They can mathematically still lift the Bundesliga, but with just two games left and four teams above them it seems highly unlikely now. Bochum meanwhile have drifted to fourth bottom and are now just a point above a relegation play-off, they desperately need to get out of the rut which has borne six defeats in their last seven.

As for TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, the team that came from nowhere and stormed to the "Herbstmeister"*, they registered a second consecutive win after a massive disappointment of a second half of the season. Until last weekend they had not won since January 31st, but they then beat 1. FC Köln and on Wednesday they dispatched Arminia Bielefeld 2-0.

Hoffenheim have now moved back up to seventh and wherever they finish they can still be proud overall with the incredible impact they have had on the Bundesliga in their first ever year in the division. Bielefeld on the other hand appear doomed to drop out of the top division. They are only a point away from safety but the problem lies in that they will most likely need to win one of their last two fixtures. Seeing as they've only managed two victories since November though, the odds don't look good for them.

To predict who will win the Bundesliga then is still a bit of a lottery. I hope that Wolfsburg manage to obtain their fairytale, if they can win their final two games against mid-table opponents then they most probably will. Bayern are very close too but on the final day of the season they play Stuttgart in what could amount to a title-winning decider.

Finally there is Hertha Berlin who are the outsiders of the four but may well be worth a punt. They have left to play Shalke who are in poor form and then lastly Karlsruher SC, who will be expected to be relegated by then. Either way it promises to be the most compelling end to a Bundesliga in years...

*"Herbstmeister"- Autumn Champion, being the team that leads the Bundesliga during the winter break.

Ligue 1: End of an era..

2009-05-11T19:04:00.001+01:00

The signs are that with four games left of the season, France's Ligue 1 will be crowning a different champion for the first time since the 2000/01 season. In that year FC Nantes won the French title for the eighth time, their history in the intervening years has seen them fail to replicate that success but instead suffer relegation in 2007 with promotion back to Ligue 1 last season.

Meanwhile the last seven Ligue 1 championships have gone to Olympique Lyonnais in what must be the most impressive winning streak in modern European football. Even more so when you consider that they had never won Ligue 1 before the first in that sequence in the 2001/02 season!

This season though has finally witnessed an achilles heel in Lyon, as things stand they lie third in the table on 61 points, seven adrift of the top two: Olympique Marseille and Girondins de Bordeaux. Whilst possible that they can mathematically keep their incredible run going, it does seem highly unlikely that they'd be able to come back so far at this stage of play.

The pretenders to their crown will bring a welcome break to the monopoly and stranglehold that Lyon have had over Ligue 1, whoever it ends up being. Marseille are on a twelve match unbeaten run which started with a 1-0 home win over their title rivals Bordeaux in early February. Whereas Bordeaux have won eight of their last nine Ligue 1 fixtures to move into contention.

Such has Lyon's domination been since the turn of the century, that either club will be celebrating a long-awaited reclamation of the title. Bordeaux (runners-up a year ago) last won Ligue 1 back in the 1998/99 season. For Marseille the wait has been a longer and bitter one. Their last Ligue 1 title was the 1992/93 season and that was taken from them in light of the infamous match-fixing scandal that enveloped the club soon afterwards and led to their enforced relegation to Ligue 2. The 1991/92 title represents their last official championship as seen in the record books.

Both Marseille and Bordeaux have been challenging on other fronts as well as in their league. Bordeaux have already claimed silverware by winning the Coupe de la Ligue, the French league cup equivalent. They comfortably defeated mid-table Ligue 2 team Vannes Olympique Club 4-0 a fortnight ago.

Marseille have had the Uefa Cup as a handsome distraction, several scalps were taken en-route to the quarter-finals including FC Twente and Ajax. The last-eight proved to be a step too far in a long campaign and they were defeated by Ukraine’s FC Shakhtar Donetsk 4-1 on aggregate a month ago.

Lyon on the other hand had only Ligue 1 to concentrate on for the last two months after they exited the last sixteen of the Champions League. They were victims of a rampant Barcelona who eventually overwhelmed them 5-2 at the Nou Camp and 6-3 overall. In fact after the first leg was drawn 1-1, Lyon have only won twice out of nine subsequent Ligue 1 matches and this is where they have lost the grip on the title that’s been theirs for so long.

On the 17th of May Marseille will face Lyon at home in the Stade Vélodrome. A match that potentially will confirm the deposition of Lyon as champions after seven years, and that may go some way to restoring Marseille back to the top in France after so long.

What is intriguing and unfortunate for Marseille is that whatever happens they will be losing their experienced and well-travelled manager Eric Gerets in the summer. The architect of their revival in the last two seasons, Gerets has revealed that he will be leaving after the end of his current contract. This is mostly due to a falling out with the club owner- Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who criticised signings and issued warnings over a potential lack of silverware.

Didier Deschamps has already been lined up to return to his old club as manager in June and it remains to be seen what sort of tough act he will be following. By the sounds of it he would do well to summon his strength and expertise from his solitary season as manager of Juventus.

Bordeaux do appear to have the easier run-in though, three of their four remaining fixtures are against teams in thirteenth place or below. Significantly they are separated from Marseille by virtue of a goal difference of just one goal. If they remain tied on the last day of the season then Ligue 1 could be decided by how many goals Bordeaux can manage against the lower placed teams.

A small mention must be made for Lyon’s historical predecessors FC Nantes. They are currently lying third from bottom of the table and are desperately trying to avoid becoming a yo-yo club and moving between divisions for the third straight season.

Just as with the top of the table they are cut off from above and safety due to an inferior goal difference. Only three league wins since the New Year is symptomatic of their season, but despite losing five of their last six games they still have every chance of survival. Their run in is not easy but crucially they face Sochaux (the team above) in their penultimate game, one they will surely have to win to enjoy the post-Lyon modern era of Ligue 1.