Polly's Pause for Sport

A Fond Farewell

2011-07-25T13:39:00.001+01:00

“When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte (rather fitting).

As the title indicates, regrettably, this post marks the end of Polly's Pause for Sport. After a very enjoyable 18 months I feel as though the blog has run its course and, with new posts being almost non-existent of late and as other obligations currently consume much of my time, now seems like a logical time to bring the curtain down on this little project.

I do so somewhat reluctantly as I have thoroughly enjoyed running the blog and writing the posts. The whole experience has proven to be both beneficial and entertaining. It allowed me to develop my writing style, express my opinions on some of the more pressing issues within the sporting world and to interact with many other great writers and bloggers. But for now, although I won't rule out having the sudden urge to sporadically write a new post from time-to-time in the future, there will be no more pauses for sport.

Between having to finish my Masters dissertation and getting a new job, the time and focus is no longer there for me to continue running the blog with anything like the regularity and consistency that I would like. Thankfully there are many far better blogs than this which are thriving and growing all the time, all of which I intend to continue to read and recommend.

Having the blog placed on the Guardian's list of the Top 100 Football Blogs for 2011 was an unexpected but very proud moment. As too has been the large amount of followers I have somehow amassed on Twitter as a result of my blog updates. The result of both these things saw viewer numbers soar in 2011 to some quite humbling figures at times. Moreover, the largely positive and complementary feedback and comments received from people through Twitter has been one of the most enjoyable parts of running the site. I have come to know many of the writers and editors of other sports blogs and websites well, contributing on several of them, and that has possibly been the best part of creating this blog and the Twitter account which followed on from it.

Aside from the criticism from Manchester City fans that seems to follow me wherever I write, I would like to think the blog has been well received. The main reason for writing this farewell post is to offer out some thanks for everyone who made it as worthwhile as it turned out to be.

Firstly, and most importantly, thank you to the tens of thousands of people who have, apparently, visited the site. I never envisaged more than twenty of my friends and family reading my words so to see the number of hits the blog generated was as surprising as it was gratifying. Secondly, thank you to everyone on Facebook and Twitter for putting up my incessant plugging of new posts – every retweet and plug was genuinely appreciated. Thirdly, thank you to everyone who took their time to comment on the pieces on the site, your feedback and opinions were greatly welcomed. And finally, thanks to the various guest writers for the pieces you have submitted. I would like to thank individuals by name but there have simply been too many over the last year and a half to mention.

Dry your eyes, loyal followers, and take comfort in these wise words:

“There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.”

- Joseph Campbell.

So quite possibly for the last time; thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Paid Mercenaries: Footballers forcing the hand that feeds them

2011-06-08T11:55:00.000+01:00

I watched Rambo 4, I read the latest words from Carlos Tevez... the reasoning and inspiration behind this blog is not hard to figure out.

Sympathy for footballers is something that is often hard to come by. They are getting paid obscenely large wages to do something that many of us would declare to be 'our dream jobs' and thus their moans and groans usually fall on deaf ears, no more so than when it is concerning their private lives. I for one have little interest in the seedy details of what they do off the pitch, indeed I believe that they deserve – as we all do both legally and ethically – the right to have their privacy respected.

Where the line must be drawn, however, and where my sympathy does indeed run dry, is with a lack of professionalism. Who a footballer may or may not have had an affair with is of no particular interest to me and as such I am not going to lambaste them for it but they should, of course, be judged in a professional capacity – as footballers and as representatives of the clubs who pay their wages. Thus, their performances on the field ought to be subject to scrutiny as too should their conduct, in a professional sense, off it. This does not mean whose bed they may choose to sleep in, whose clothes they want to wear or whose nightclub they wish to frequent (as long as it does not contradict the rules laid out by their club - i.e. not the night before a game).

'Paid mercenary' is a popular term to describe the modern footballer. A mercenary being someone 'working or acting merely for money or other reward', a player with no affiliation or particular connection to any club but who is free for hire, free in the sense of their availability, their services are obviously far from it.

Carlos Tevez is one man who seemingly epitomises this concept. On the pitch he is undoubtedly one of the hardest working players in the game. His effort levels are almost unparalleled and this, when coupled with his footballing ability, has made him one of the most sought after mercenaries around. Yet while his talents make him such a valuable asset, he is also a player who exploits this current trend of nomadic footballers who will ply their trade to the highest bidder.

Now, it is worth saying that footballers cannot and should not necessarily be criticised for this. There are very few people in the working world who do not offer their services to those willing to pay the most money for them, it would be illogical not to. But again, to reiterate, the emphasis here must remain on professionalism. Not even loyalty, just professionalism, although there is certainly an overlap between the two.

As long as you are contracted to a particular organisation or company, in this case a football club, you are then obliged to act in a professional manner. In other words, to show full commitment to those to whom you are contracted. Carlos Tevez may do this on the pitch but his behaviour off it could not be more polarised which raises a key problem, a problem which becomes all too evident at this time of year when the gossip columns and transfer prattle dominates the spaces on the back pages left behind in the off season. He is an example of the how the increase in player power has directly correlated with a decrease in professionalism by footballers in recent years.

Clubs spend huge amounts of money to acquire top players from another team and then hand over similarly vast wages every week to that player. As such, like many companies, their personnel are their primary investment. This may not mean that they should have total control over said player but it should mean that they remain in control of their assets. Too often now, however, it is the player who is able to dictate the terms of his future at a club.

If a player wishes to leave a club then now more then ever they have the power to force the hand of their club. By not signing new contracts, by speaking out in the press about their desire to leave for pastures greener or expressing a general lack of motivation to stay and play for their current team the player can determine his own transfer policy.

A player who has expressed a desire to leave the club and said that he wants to move to a different country and therefore will not be signing a new contract with his current employers not only puts himself prominently in the shop window but also affects the value of any potential transfer. The current line of thinking appears to be that you can't keep a player at a club against his will. That should not be the case. If fees have been for them, and wages paid to them, then they are the club's to use as, when and how they see fit until the end of the contract they signed.

For a footballer to try and force a move away from the club to whom they are contracted shows a distinct lack of professionalism and undermines the time, money and effort that the club has invested in them. One would not speak out openly and publicly against their current employers and state they wanted to move to a rival company in other professions and although it is always dangerous to even attempt to compare footballer to any other strand of life there still remains a need for professionalism.

Moaning about a dislike of all things Manchester in the press, saying you want to go to a new country, wanting a new challenge at a higher level or demanding a move for larger wages may be understandable yet the way modern footballers go about expressing and dealing with such desires is certainly not professional. It is more akin to divas with shin pads or overgrown and overpaid spoiled children. Moreover, it underlines a lack of respect and a lack of appreciation to their employers.

With two months before the start of the new season, much of this time will be dominated by endless rumours of who is going where and for how much. Tedious though it quickly becomes, we all accept it as being as much a part of summer as the depressingly inconsistent weather. It seems now though, that player power has become an even more integral factor in the transfer market. Perhaps it was always this way but it is just more apparent now as players express themselves more.

Nevertheless, by stating his intentions to stay or his desire to leave, a player can and will directly influence whether or not other clubs bid for him and if indeed they do, then how much they will pay. This means that a player can have a direct impact upon his own future which can, and often does, contradict the plans of the club that now must prepare to lose one of the key assets and investments.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

My Favourite Premiership XI: Stephen Fallows

2011-06-05T11:30:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging recently. Works on my documentary about racism in football is consuming much of my time but I intend to begin posting far more regularly upon its completion. In the mean time, Stephen Fallows has kindly contributed the latest piece for the 'My Favourite Premiership XI' series. You can follow Stephen on Twitter or visit his excellent website which showcases his various artistic talents.

I have gone for a team that may not statistically be the best in terms of breaking records, but each of these players have become vital parts of the teams they have played for and played major parts in the success in these teams. Also, most of these players are from the early years of the Premiership, as I wanted stay away from the current hype that surrounds any player who has a decent run of a few games and so is automatically worth £20m +, and because in the early days of the Premier League it seemed possible that any team could challenge for the title or at least a European place.

Jussi Jaskelainen has been a Bolton Wanderers stalwart for many years and was one of the main reason why Bolton went from being favourites for relegation to a good bet for Europe in a matter of a few seasons. Even when linked to a big move to a club in the Champions League (clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal most frequently), he stayed and helped Wanderers achieve a strong top 10 position year after year. His heroics also helped produce some of the club's famous 1-0 victories against the top four teams.

In defence I have gone for at right back Lee Dixon, part of the legendary Arsenal back four that helped that team win several trophies. Jamie Carragher was an easy choice at centre back, even though he is starting to show signs of decline. A one club man, and someone who Liverpool have depended on for some years now, one of the more reliable players they have had. My other centre back is John Terry. Like Carragher, a one club man and fiercely loyal to his team. A lot has been said abut John Terry as a person, but when he put his neck on the line (quite literally) in the Carling Cup Final against Arsenal, he showed how important the game and the team was to him. Terry would be a shoe in for the captain if it wasn't for my choice of Left Back, Stuart Pearce. After a fine career at Nottingham Forest, he represented Newcastle, West Ham and Manchester City and always played as if his life depended on it. Trying to walk after breaking his leg whilst playing for West Ham was a mark of the man. A player who everyone liked regardless of who he played for, and someone everyone would want on their team.

Midfield was quite a difficult one for me, as there have been many great players that have graced the Premier League in its time. I settled for Andrei Kanchelskis on the right side as he was there at the start of it all, and in 94/95 he was Manchester United's leading scorer. During his five years in the Premier League he scored and created many goals, and I think his pace would be invaluable to this team, were it to actually happen. In Centre Midfield Steven Gerrard was an easy pick for me. Just like others I have selected, as a loyal servant to his club, he has become vital to Liverpool success, even being the one who played well in poor team performances. He never shys away on the big occasion either, with memorable performances and goals in FA Cup and Champions League Finals. When he has an injury free run, he almost guarantees you 20 goals a season from midfield. The other central spot went to Gary Speed, he may not have been the greatest technical player, but you dont play in 16 consecutive top flight seasons without being a bit special. A no nonsense midfielder who did whatever was asked of him, covered his defence well and weighed in with a few goals too. On the left side of midfield I have gone for David Ginola. A flair player, a luxury for any team to have, and one of the few players that was liked by opposition fans.

When it came to forwards, the two I have picked are both in the top ten scorers in the history of the Premier League, and although midway down that table they were both big hits with fans. Robbie Fowler acquired the nickname 'God' at Liverpool, and from his debut right through to the final game of his second spell at Anfield, he showed he is one of the most naturally gifted strikers around. Accompanying him I have selected Les Ferdinand. Whether at QPR, Newcastle or Tottenham, Les always fitted into the team and brought goals whenever he played. A devastatingly powerful header of the ball, he will forever be in the history books for scoring the Premier League's 10,000th goal.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

VEST-IVAL: A Festival of Football, Music and Comedy

2011-05-19T13:11:00.002+01:00

Something slightly different for this latest post. I was informed about an upcoming festival this weekend which will be raising money for charity - including Football Action. So I thought I would do my little bit to help raise some extra awareness and support for this great idea for an excellent cause...

Top Radio One DJ Annie Mac and legendary British Band Toploader have confirmed they will be headlining a new ‘VESTIVAL’ of music and football at Jimmy’s Farm (of BBC 2 fame), near Ipswich on Saturday 21 May. The festival is set to help raise money to support children in poverty across the world.

The festival is also set to feature numerous celebrities from the football world and a 5-a-side celebrity football game between Dion Dublin’s ex professionals, the artists, charity representatives and the public – anyone purchasing a ticket will automatically enter a prize draw to play in one of the 4 teams alongside the celebrities!

The FA Cup will on site for the day courtesy of the Football Association and Dan Magness and Rocket from Soccer AM will be running a number of football freestyle skills school sessions.

Dion Dublin will also be promoting his DUBE drum and there will be an area to play and drum with Dion.

VEST-IVAL is completely ‘non-for-profit’ and all proceeds will go to two UK-based charities, Hanna’s Orphanage, which supports orphans in Ethiopia and Football Action, which places volunteer football coaches and English teachers in developing countries across the world, including Ethiopia and India.

Doors open at 10am on Saturday 21 May and the music kicks off at midday. As well as space for camping on site, food and drink will be available to buy from Jimmy’s Farm. Tickets are priced at just £20 and are still available.

You can listen and download a short mini mix of some of the artists involved and a whole bunch of football samples below...

Mini mix video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUnwyQ9pJFI

Mini mix Soundcloud (Downloadable): http://soundcloud.com/pete-carvell/mini-mix-vest-ival-21st-may

You can also follow @gashdigital and @VESTIVAL2011 on Twitter to be kept fully up-to-date on the festival.

My Favourite Premiership XI: Sam, The 15-Year Old Gooner

2011-05-15T15:31:00.001+01:00

For this week's My Favourite Premiership XI we have Sam, aka the 15-year old Gooner. Sam is one of the best young writers around and can be found writing for www.column10.com, www.twofootedtackle.com and his own site – http://15yearoldgooner.blogspot.com. Be sure to follow him on Twitter too.

As a young Arsenal fan, it’s difficult to put together a Premier League XI without the majority being those who played in the “Invincibles” season. However, I shall give it a try. There’ll still be some Arsenal players though – plus mainly recent players, given that I’m a teenager.

In goal though, I have to go for Peter Schmeichel. I’ve seen enough of him to know that he was an absolutely brilliant goalkeeper. David Seaman was great for Arsenal, but Schmeichel was something else. A true brick wall. I actually met him at the Emirates when Arsenal were playing Man City – his son Kasper saved a penalty and put in a superb performance. Like father like son! I’ll always remember his saves against Newcastle and his celebrations at the end of that game at the Nou Camp in ’99.

I’ve gone with three at the back to accommodate three centre halves. The first is perhaps a strange pick. David Luiz only joined Chelsea in January but he’s already made an impression on me. His performances have been full of flair and drive – he’s already scored some superb goals and put in some pretty solid performances. He may have been caught out a few times thanks to some clumsy defending (and there was that naughty dive against Tottenham) but he’s still a “top banana” as someone put it.

In the heart of my defence is the lion at the heart of Manchester United’s. Nemanja Vidic is an absolutely first class defender. Fernando Torres may have completely shown him up on a couple of occasions, but that doesn’t take away the fact that Vidic is the best defender in the league. A beast in the air, and not too bad on the deck either, Vidic is one of the best defenders to have pulled on the red of United.

Completing my defensive trio is Aston Villa defender Olof Mellberg. A top servant at Aston Villa for seven odd years, Mellberg was a rock at Villa Park. But what I like most about him was that on his final game for Villa, at Upton Park against West Ham, he gave every single Aston Villa fan attending the game a home shirt saying “Thanks 4 Your Support” – true class. Plus there was that third eye on Soccer AM where he seemed to have fleas in his beard. Brilliant.

The first Arsenal player in my line-up is super Swede Freddie Ljungberg at right midfield. Freddie was an absolutely marvellous player in his prime, linking up sublimely with Dennis Bergkamp in particular. His darting runs behind the defence were often finished off with delightful lobbed finishes – like against Juventus – and he was just a joy to behold. His goal against Chelsea in the FA Cup final, when he shrugged off John Terry to bend in a wonderstrike, will live long in my memory.

In the centre of my midfield I’ve gone for two Liverpool players and another Arsenal player. Xabi Alonso was excellent in his years at Anfield, playing some breathtaking passes, making some great tackles (including one that unfortunately injured another player in this particular midfield) and scoring some fabulous goals. I’ll always remember that lob against Newcastle – pure opportunism at its best!

Alongside Alonso I would have his ex-team mate Steven Gerrard. He may not set the world alight for his country, but nobody can write off his contribution to Liverpool. His passing and tackling are two of his best attributes, but without doubt it’s his ferocious shots that are his best feature. Goals against Olympiakos, West Ham and Middlesborough top the list, but there are many more. A true great of the English game. Just a shame about the dives.

Next up is a player who’s been my favourite since 2005/06, the season I first went to Arsenal games regularly. As soon as he slotted the ball past Gianluigi Buffon, Cesc Fabregas became my favourite player. He also ran the show during that game, and set up our second goal. He was my idol, and the following seasons just reinforced that status. The recent uncertainty over his future saw our relationship hang in the balance, but I was absolutely over the moon when he confirmed he was staying. So many brilliant goals and brilliant assists, as well as overall performances. Even if he leaves for Barcelona this summer, I’ll have nothing but fond memories of him, and he’ll remain one of my favourite players ever.

The third Spaniard in my team, perhaps a strange choice. Jose Antonio Reyes was only at Arsenal for a couple of seasons, but I absolutely loved him while I was there. Something about his play just made him my favourite player during his first two seasons, despite the likes of Henry, Bergkamp and Vieira being around. His goal against Chelsea was an absolute stunner, but I also loved his goal against Middlesborough on the first day of the 2004/05 season. One of my greatest regrets is that he didn’t become the player he was destined to become, thanks partly to the Neville brothers kicking him off the pitch at Old Trafford.

Then to the two strikers. If I could have included Henry and Bergkamp I would have, but I didn’t want to give the team too much of an Arsenal feel to it. Most Arsenal fans would find it impossible to choose from the two, but I went for Thierry Henry. I absolutely adored his style of play – he was the complete striker. Pace, strength, finishing, dribbling, you name it. Even heading; I think it was Wenger who said Henry could have been one of the best at heading if he had wanted to. Still, he managed to score a few with his bonce, including that last minute winner against Manchester United. Brilliant. I would list some other of my favourite goals of his, but I’d be here all day.

Completing my side is ex-Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. A striker of pure power, Hasslebaink was superb for the Blues during his time there. His shots were absolutely vicious, and woe betide anyone who got in the way! He scored a couple of goals against Arsenal but I can forgive him that.

And there you go – My Favourite Premiership XI. Hope you enjoyed it.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Football Players Who Excel at the Felt

2011-05-13T18:16:00.003+01:00

Poker has been popular for many decades but it’s grown dramatically in recent years, with its popularity rising in part because of some of the high-profile athletes and celebrities taking to the poker tables, with many sponsored by poker websites. Most stars merely dabble at the poker tables, such as Nelly and Matt Damon playing a few events at the World Series of Poker each year, but others such as Jen Tilly and Shane Warne have made real efforts to improve their poker games. Of all the cross-over stars, though, it’s a trio of former football players that really stand out, with Teddy Sheringham, Tony Cascarino, and Jan Vang Sørensen all finding success at major poker tournaments around the world.

Jan Vang Sørensen is the most decorated of the three, with the former Danish footballer (who played for Odense BK and other clubs before retiring at the age of 30 with a knee injury) winning two World Series of Poker bracelets, and collecting more than $2 million in lifetime tournament earnings since he began playing regularly in the mid 1990s. He’s not a one-trick pony at the poker tables, either, winning one of his bracelets in Omaha and the other in 7 Card Stud, while his biggest tournament cash of $800,972 came in a No Limit Hold’em event (the 2008 Master Classics of Poker).

Sheringham and Cascarino are no slouches at the poker felt either, with the former Millwall teammates each notching big cashes in major events against top pros. Sheringham's best result was a cash in late 2010 in an European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Vilamoura, where he finished 5th for a payday of nearly $120,000; Cascarino’s biggest payday to date has been a victory in 2009 at the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Grand Final worth $283,412.

Some of the best online poker rooms have also been active in seeking out athletes to sponsor, with PokerStars sponsoring former tennis great Boris Becker in some events and bwin spending millions to be the primary sponsor of the Real Madrid football team. bwin has also sponsored some lesser-known athletes such as former Belgian national team football player Daniel Camus in a recent World Poker Tour event held in Austria, as well as sending former French team coach Raymond Domenech to the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2009.

An Interview With Ben Cohen

2011-05-11T15:53:00.000+01:00

*This interview was originally conducted for and featured on sport.co.uk*

Last month I had the opportunity to speak with 2003 Rugby World Cup Winner Ben Cohen. Ben's contract with Sale Sharks has not be renewed and as such he is without a club (although this interview was conducted when there were fixtures remaining in the season). The winger, who is 3^rd on England's all-time top try scorers list, talked to me about his past, his future and why he is yet to be convinced by Martin Johnson and the current England side.

With the season now over, would you consider playing abroad or in a lower division to prolong your career?

No no. I think you have always got to weigh up your options but I have got another two years in the Premiership in me, maybe more. But we will have to wait and see what comes up. I don't want to go abroad though, I want to stay at home.

I would like to play for at least another couple of years. I wouldn't say I am an old 32, I have played a lot of rugby but I haven't had a lot of injuries, touch wood. I am still hitting all my targets with my fitness and while I am doing that it would be a shame to retire but I am still weighing up all my options.

It was reported that after winning the 2003 World Cup you lost your hunger for the game. Would you say you have rediscovered it now?

I think it was the workload that you go through in winning a World Cup. It started in 2000 and I went almost none stop for five or six years. I had my first proper break really in 2005 when I didn't make the Lions tour. I had about nine weeks off which was fantastic. I finally managed to put a few emotions to bed like winning the World Cup and being the best in my position which has helped me in the long run.

That is the one downside to being successful and winning trophies. When you are successful you are playing week-in-week-out for your club in all competitions and then you are also playing for your country which means you are training or playing pretty much everyday, every week, every month of the year. When the season finishes you then go on a tour while your club is having its six weeks off, so you get back and they are two or three weeks into pre-season so you may get three weeks off and then are straight back into playing rugby. They try give you a half decent amount of time off but three weeks is nothing really. You end up playing catch-up as you are trying to get fit again but you don't get a pre-season so you can't get fit.

When your playing days do come to an end, would you want to stay involved in the game?

Yeah, most definitely. I am passionate about rugby, it's been my life from the amateurs to the professionals. It is something I would like to stay in whether it was through coaching, punditry or analysis.

I pride myself on being professional and I have enjoyed being around the youngsters at Sale and I like that side of coaching. I think if I did go into a coaching then it would be in the academy. It's good because the kids have so much energy, they want to learn and improve so that is something I would certainly be interesting in doing when I finish playing.

Who in the course of your career was the hardest player you played with or against?

I would say it would probably be someone I played with and that was a guy called Garry Pagel. He was a South African prop who won the World Cup in 1995 and he came to Northampton and he would have to the hardest players I have played with.

How envious are you of your former International team-mates like Jonny Wilkinson, Mike Tindall and Lewis Moody who won the World Cup with you in 2003 and are going to have the chance to win it again this Autumn?

Well I was in that position in 2007 and I chose not to go to the World Cup. I pulled out because my wife was having children and I wanted to be there for that. I had put rugby first for a long time and I finally changed that. I took myself out of that equation and now I have a totally different outlook on the game, I am passionate about rugby but my family comes first now. Am I envious of them? No. Am I happy for them? Most definitely because they are my friends and I wish them all the luck in the world.

So how would you rate England's chances in the upcoming World Cup in New Zealand?

It is a tough question. I think they will do quite well, they have the ability to do well. Look at the last World Cup, England were dreadful and they got to a World Cup final. It just shows you that it's all about how you perform on the day and how you pull together and how you are as a squad. Is everyone going to be living, eating, drinking and sleeping rugby? Will they capture the World Cup fever? How will the training go? The camaraderie between them may be fantastic but it's about how will they come together on the pitch? These are the questions that no one can answer until the tournament begins. In the 2007 World Cup, England got stuffed by South Africa in the group and went on to play them in the final, anything can happen.

As a prolific try scorer for England yourself, what have you made of the exciting prospect Chris Ashton over the past twelve months?

Well he is more than a prospect. He is delivering already which is great. However, the disappointing thing about Ireland was that some people went missing. As a winger like Chris Ashton or myself in my hay day, you live off other people's work. He is a great poacher, he is fantastic at it and I think he is a great, great talent. But when the team are not performing well and things are a bit shaky and you are not going forward then it is hard for someone like himself to get into the game and make an impact. When your forward pack are on fire, they are going forward and you are on the front foot, as a winger you can't not score tries. So when things aren't going well, that is where I would have concerns with him as a player. That is where he needs to grow and learn at the top level.

You played alongside Martin Johnson, have you been surprised have you been by his and England's success over the last year after his relatively unconvincing start in the job?

He never had any experience of doing anything like this before. He has been in the job for three years now so he has had time to find his feet and find what sort of team he wants. I think he is finally getting a bit of consistency in selection which has seen them playing better rugby.

What do you think it is about him that has made him successful as a player and now a manager?

I don't think he has been successful yet. I think he is finally getting a team together that is playing good rugby. As a player, winning the Six Nations is great and all but you want the Grand Slam and they missed out on that and they will be disappointed about that. I am only thinking as a player, I don't mean to be degrading or put anybody down. I just know as an International player you want to be the best in the world your position and as a team as well. You don't just want the Six Nations, you want the Grand Slam. They had an easy draw. They had a tough game against Wales away, granted, and they did well to win that won. It is a tough place to go and win and they ground a win there, fantastic. But then they had three home games on the bounce and that really played into their hands. That win against Italy really snowballed into the other wins. But when it came to the pressure game, this was what I was disappointed with. Ireland away, Triple Crown, Grand Slam, St. Patrick's day, Ireland having been shafted by Wales the week before – there was a lot of pressure on that game, a lot of pressure. Ireland came out and won that game in the first five minutes and that's what disappointed me. They have got to learn from that game and the next chance they will get to learn from that will be the first game of the World Cup. Their away form has also been a bit worrying. There is no doubt that they have got talent and they have got fitness but it is the mental side of things that they need to get right.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

My Favourite Premiership XI: Rob McCluskey

2011-05-08T12:53:00.001+01:00

Time for another instalment of the Sunday series 'My Favourite Premiership XI'. This week it is the turn of Rob McCluskey to give us a line-up of all the players he has admired over the past two decades. Rob can usually be found writing at www.epltalk.com and you can also follow him on Twitter.

I always wonder how to pick these things. I’m never sure if I want to pick a team that I feel would work in a system or if I should just pick a team of all my favourite players for sentimental reasons. I’ve decided to go for the latter in this instance, as I do have an exam coming up on Tuesday and I could waste days thinking up of the perfect strategy! I’ve gone for the traditional 4-4-2, despite its redundancy in the modern game. I’ll warn you, there will be a very strong Newcastle United feel to this team.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we realised that there aren’t really that many truly great goalkeepers about today. One of them though is Petr Cech, a player I’ve always admired and thought highly of. A head injury like the one Cech received could really dent a goalkeepers confidence, but he came back just as strong in my opinion and I’d go as far to say he’s the best goalkeeper in the world at the moment (Sorry, Julio Cesar). His shot stopping is top quality, but it’s his organisation of the defence and communication that really wins me over. On top of all that, poor Cech has had to deal with having John Terry in his defence all these years; a man who often likes to show up on the left wing.

Prepare for a bit of a suspect defence (much like the team I support). At left back I have Aaron Hughes as I love how versatile he is and never feel he gets enough credit for how reliable he can be. I was disappointed when Newcastle sold him for a mere £1m, but I remember him best for being part of our defence that played in a thrilling Champions League campaign under Sir Bobby Robson. Next up is Philippe Albert, who I’ve mainly chosen because a certain goal he scored summarises the era in which I started supporting Newcastle as a youngster. My taste in football has evolved since I was a bright eyed 5 year old, but to completely ignore the side that originally stole my heart would be wrong. It’s somewhat a token gesture, but Albert was still a great player and will always be remembered as a hero of mine (even though Rob Lee was my hero as a youngster... because we shared the same name). Next is Nemanja Vidic, for the sheer fact that he is so consistent and steady on the ball. One of the best in the world at the moment, I’m sure he’s on a hefty wage as he’s voiced out plenty times about hating the weather in England! I was going to choose Jonathan Woodgate in this position (based on the 27 or so games he played in a Newcastle shirt), but Vidic is a top quality player who only cost Man Utd £7m. Finally, I went for John Pantsil. That’s right – John Pantsil. Any man that does a solo lap of honour at the end of pretty much every game has a place in my starting XI every week.

The midfield is Newcastle United dominated. Laurent Robert may have been frustrating quite a lot of the time, but when he was on his game, nobody could stop him. As well as that, he scored some of the most memorable Newcastle goals ever and played a part in helping us break our London jinx against Arsenal, when we won 3-1. Gary Speed is a player I still question why we ever sold. At the time, people generally gave the reason that he was “getting on a bit”. In truth he was still a great player, as shown by his longevity playing for Bolton where he made us rue his departure in some ways. I always have great respect for Gary Speed as he was a great player no matter where he went, and although he can’t really be considered one of the all time greats, he always did a job and very rarely gave a bad performance. Alongside him is another Chelsea player; Michael Essien. So much energy and a great team player, Essien could fit into any team in the world. He’s one of the main reasons Frank Lampard is allowed to stay advanced up the field so many times, because he knows he can rely on Essien to track back and do a lot of the work. Although in a season or two, I suspect that Essien will be replaced in this line-up by Yaya Toure; someone who has instantly impressed me this season with his more advanced role. Finally, who else on the right but Nobby Solano? Newcastle’s very own trumpet maestro was a fantastic servant to the club and another player who put his heart and soul into every game. Bringing him back to Newcastle was probably Souness’ best decision in his short time at Newcastle. I remember my old housemate who is an Aston Villa supporter is still furious to this day that Villa sold Solano back to us.

Choosing two strikers was probably the hardest part of deciding my favourite XI (maybe one of the hardest moments of my life) and I sadly had to leave out Paolo Di Canio and Gianfranco Zola. As a Newcastle United supporter, I have to pick Alan Shearer. It’s not even a token gesture because he’s my club's greatest ever player either. Alan Shearer has a lot of sentimental value for me as he was dependable and arguably the greatest finisher the English game has ever seen. When he was managing us in the season we got relegated, all my housemates at University constantly wondered why Shearer didn’t pull a shirt on and put himself up front. They more than likely had a point too, our strike force was woeful that season and Shearer probably still had twice the skill they did. My second choice is Thierry Henry, for the simple fact he was easy to watch and an exciting player. Henry wasn’t just a striker, but a play maker and one of those rare characters that can completely change a game in a second with one bit of amazing skill. I was still disappointed however when I got to see him for the first time at a game St. James’ Park and he was quite poor. Still though, Newcastle won that game which was the most important thing.

So yeah, that’s my team. Probably aim towards a top five finish...I guess. Nothing too outlandish.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

An Interview With Peter Shilton

2011-05-05T15:04:00.000+01:00

*This interview was conducted for, and originally featured on, sport.co.uk*

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview footballing legend and England's all-time most capped player Peter Shilton. The goalkeeper who played 125 times for England and made over 1000 club appearances took time to talk about his illustrious playing career, his brief foyer into management, Joe Hart's future and gives advice for all aspiring goalkeepers.

Having made 125 appearances for England and over 1000 club appearances, what would you consider to be the proudest moment of your career?

It's very difficult to say. I played for 30 years, 20 years with England. It's very difficult to say the proudest moment. I think when I made my England début in 1970 against West Germany at Wembley, that was a great moment because you know you are a full international. It was more special because I had actually played for England schoolboys, England youth team and the England Under-23s so I kind of got the full set and not many players have done that. So having gone through the full set-up on the way to becoming a full international was a great feeling, that was a very proud moment.

Obviously getting to the semi-final of the World Cup in 1990 and getting so close to the final too. That was the best we, as a country, have ever done away from England so that was great. And I think winning two European Cups with Nottingham Forest was an incredible achievement. Then, of course, getting 125 caps for England, which is still the record. I think those four things were really great moments.

Are there any games that particularly stick in your mind for good or bad reasons?

I think when you are a goalkeeper, you are very lucky if you are remembered for great saves or great games. Over a period of time, saves get forgotten and you become remembered for the not-so-good moments. Obviously you have in years in gone by, the save by Gordon Banks against Pele, the save by Jim Montgomery for Sunderland against Leeds in the FA Cup – saves like that are remembered by fans.

I was quite lucky because there are a couple of saves I made which people still talk about. One was for England against Scotland in 1973 which was a massive game at Wembley. We were 1-0 up with ten minutes to go and it was a shot from Kenny Dalglish, I was going with my left arm but I realised I wasn't going to get there so I brought my right arm over and I just managed to push it away. There is a photo of that with the ball right in my hand which is on the front-cover of my autobiography. Also, at club level, when Nottingham Forest one the First Division in my first full season there, we got a 0-0 draw at Coventry to clinch the title. I made a tremendous reflex save from a forward named Ferguson and people still come up to me and talk about it. Those are the moments which stick in my mind and it is nice as a goalkeeper to have these things that people remember.

In terms of games people bring up. My first chance to get to a World Cup was in 1973 when we had to beat Poland in Wembley to qualify. We ended up drawing 1-1 and their goal was a bit dodgy - the ball went under my body and people still bring up that game now. It is remembered because they had a goalkeeper called Jan Tomaszewski who had one of those nights where he was very fortunate but also brilliant. I think Brian Clough nicknamed him 'the clown' in the television studio afterwards and people remember that. Even though in 1990 we went to Poland and got a 0-0 draw to qualify for the World Cup in Italy, and I had a blinder that night, nobody remembers that, they always bring up the 1973 game. But that is the nature of goalkeeping.

Having made over 100 appearances for five different clubs, is there one that you remember particularly fondly?

Well the most successful was the three years I spent at Forest which were incredible. I mean, you couldn't write the script – winning two league cup, two championships, two European Cups and the Super Cup by beating Barcelona. In terms of success, that was a great memory.

But obviously Leicester are my home-town club. I was 10-years old watching them on the terraces. I trained from the age of 10 at the club, signed as an apprentice at 15, made my début at 16 and I think I am still the youngest player to play for them. I took over for Gordon Banks there and then left for a record fee of £250,000. So Leicester is always going to be the club I support.

There is Southampton too. I was there for five years. We had three semi-finals; two league cup, one FA Cup and were runners up in what is now the Premier League. Although we didn't actually win anything, I had a successful time there. But at every club I played I would like to think I did a really good job for them and gave it 100% and I can always go back to with my head held high.

As you played under several legendary managers, who would you single out as the best or most influential on you?

For England I would say Sir Alf Ramsay. He is England's best manager. Although I have great fondness for Bobby Robson. He picked me for eight years and I would like to think I did a good job for him and he enabled me to get the record number of caps. But Sir Alf was a bit special.

And then there was Brian Clough. I know later on he had his problems, but when I worked with him at Forest he was at his peak and he was brilliant. I would say those two, Alf and Clough, were fantastic but I have a lot of fondness for Bobby Robson too.

Was management not something you wanted to stay in after you finished playing?

I did have the three and a half years at Plymouth which were very successful. We really changed the team around. When I joined they were the lowest scorers in all four divisions and within my second full season we finished third in the league and were the highest scorers in all four division and the three players I bought scored 65 goals between them. Unfortunately we lost in play-offs to the team who finished sixth, 12 points below us. Such is the nature of the play-offs.

Although I signed a new contract, within six months I had fallen out with the chairmen and I never got back into it and that is probably my biggest regret – having not got back into management and having another go at it. I never say no to anything but I am involved with so many other things now but I did always feel that managing was the main thing I was going to do because of the great managers I played under and all the experience I had. The chairman at Plymouth I didn't get on with. I have to say, at the time I did have my own problem which I don't want to go in to, but the chairman at the time had five managers in five years after me. He was not easy to work for so I was lucky to get three and a half years I did, really. But I have to take some of the responsibility myself because I had problems in the background which eventually surfaced.

It is 25 years since the infamous 'Hand of God' moment, is this still something that you harbour any anger or annoyance towards?

Well, I do a lot of speaking now around the world and it is a great incident for me to speak to people about and have a bit of fun with it. People always ask me if I think about it. The answer is no but people remind me about it a lot! Obviously it was an incident when the world's greatest player cheated and got away with it and it was the referee and the linesmen's fault. It's happened before, it's happened since and it happens with goalkeepers too who pull the back from behind the line. That sort of thing is a natural reaction sometimes. But it is what happens after the match. Do you admit to it and apologise? That is the one thing that Maradona has never done and I think he has probably lost a lot of respect for that.

Do you think your record number of caps will ever be surpassed?

I think it will be difficult in the modern game but you can never say never. It has got to be somebody who starts very young. It will be hard for it to be striker to do it because they get to an age of 30 and then usually struggle to stay in the team. David Beckham was getting close but at the end of the day he needs to be playing week-in-week-out at the top level to get back in the England team and I think that maybe that might all be passed him now. I think it will be very difficult for anyone in the modern game, I have to say that.

What are your opinions on Joe Hart? Is he the future for England in goal?

I think Joe Hart has done well since getting the shirt after the World Cup. Hindsight is a great thing and people may think he was the right choice for the World Cup but I think before the World Cup Robert Green was the right choice. Unfortunately it didn't work out but it was right that he got his chance.

It's early days for Joe. He has confidence and he has some big games ahead of him. He has to make sure he doesn't make many errors, if he does avoid that then I can see him staying there for a long time. He will make mistakes but he needs to make sure that he doesn't make too many or make them too often.

What advice would you give to young, aspiring goalkeepers reading this?

Goalkeepers are born I think. You have to the right ability and personality to take the criticism and to overcome mistakes. As a goalkeeper, you are kinda part of the team but you're not at the same time so you have to get use to that. I would say as a youngster, work really hard and try to develop your technique. It is not all about agility, reflexes and diving around at full length, there is a lot more technique to it. Unfortunately there is not as much coaching of that in the modern game as there should be. But if you can try and get some good coaching that will give you the basics and then work hard build up your game from there.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Darwinism in Action: The need for footballers to evolve

2011-05-02T11:51:00.000+01:00

*The piece originally featured on sport.co.uk*

The average length of the modern footballer's playing career is between 15 and 20 years. Most breakthrough around the age of 18 and then continue to play until the age of 33, or in some cases later. Players will naturally have a period in which they are said to be in their 'prime' – at time when they are at their physical and technical peak.

Sustaining success, as an individual, across the span of 15 years is a very difficult challenge and is something that many fail to achieve. Age will, inevitably, catch up with everyone and they will become less effective in their position. Injuries will take their toll and eventually players will no longer be able to do what they had once done with such ease.

The most successful players, though, are able to evolve their style of play or even their position throughout the course of their career so as to enable them to be as valuable in their mid-30s as they were in their early 20s. When their speed, strength and stamina fades, their game must adapt lest they suffer the fate of many players the wrong side of 30 who slump down into the lower leagues. The acceptance that one can no longer perform in the same way as they did back in their hay-day requires a transformation of their approach to the game. It is Darwinism in action – if you want to survive at the top then you must evolve.

This does not mean that every player who plays well into their 30s have undergone this transformation. Players like Teddy Sheringham continued playing in a largely similar style, albeit to a lower standard, until the age of 40. Claude Makélelé's role as the archetypal holding midfielder relied far more on his ability to read the game than cover a lot of ground and as such it is no surprise that this is a role he has been able to continue to do successfully right through his career.

The real challenge comes to the once all-action, buccaneering players who, whether it be because of age or injury, have had to change their game. Likewise, other players spent long periods of their career in one position before moving to a new role with equal or greater success. Certain managers and clubs, like Sir Alex Ferguson and AC Milan, have proven themselves particularly adept at helping remould players with great success.

10. Danny Murphy

For much of his prime, while at Crewe Alexandra and Liverpool, Danny Murphy played in an advanced, attacking-midfielder role or as a deep-lying forward. His creativity and ability to contribute both goals and assists saw him rise to international level. Since entering his thirties and having left Liverpool to go to Charlton and Tottenham before settling in Fulham, where he is club captain, Murphy's game has been vastly altered. He now dictates his side's passing and attacking play from a deeper role. His new, more disciplined style of play has got the best out of his ability in his advancing years.

9. Luis Enrique

The Spaniard plied his trade on both sides of El Clásico's divide, first for Real Madrid and then for Barcelona. He played in most positions on the pitch and over time, as his pace dried up, he moved into a more central role with great effect. His temperament and technique allowed him to be used as a creative yet controlled player rather than the direct, attacking player he was when he started his career.

8. Ryan Giggs

He begun his career at Manchester United 21 years ago as a pacey and tricky left winger. He spent well over a decade terrorizing defenders but his game now relies far less on his speed-of-foot or jinking runs. Rather, he remains an invaluable member of the United squad because of his ability to read the game, pick the right pass and his never-faltering technique. He has even featured at left-back and in central midfield for his club in recent times. The pace and skills may have largely left the Welshman's game but, now in a far more controlled and disciplined role, he is still receiving plaudits for his performances.

7. Phil Neville

He spent a large part of his prime playing second fiddle to his brother Gary and Denis Irwin as Manchester United's back-up fullback. His success has largely come since he migrated into the centre of midfield. He reinvented himself as a tenacious, ball-winner at the end of his time at United. He has since cemented himself as a key part of the Everton team. The change optimised his aggressive style of play and has enabled him to play some of his best football at his current age of 34.

6. Marcel Desailly

The former French captain spent large parts of his career sat as an immovable force in the centre of midfield while playing for Marseilles and Milan. His strength and athleticism made him one the stand-out performers of the 90s. After his move to Chelsea in 1998, however, he was used largely as a centre-back. As a winner of the Champions League and the World Cup, Desailly showed the adaptability to emerge as a true great in two different positions.

5. Paul Scholes

When the ginger maestro broke into Ferguson's team he played most of his football up front or just behind the striker. He was known for his finishing ability. Over time he was then a formidable attacking midfielder who would grab goals by breaking into the box with perfect timing or by chipping in with vicious strikes from distance. Now, at the age of 36, his game has undergone dramatic changes. As a deep-lying playmaker he influences matches in a completely different way to how he did 10 years ago. His sublime touch, vision and passing range allows him to dictate games while the goals and distance he once covered have slowly faded away.

4. Ronald Koeman

One of the most gifted defenders with the ball at his feet, Koeman scored 193 league goals in 533 matches. The Dutchman was used as a midfielder in the first five years of his career before then, in 1985, dropping back to become a great centreback. His ability from set pieces as well as his excellent passing range distinguished him as one of the best players in world football through the 80s and the 90s.

3. Franz Beckenbauer

'Der Kaiser', one of the finest players to ever play the game and one who was utilised in different positions and in different ways throughout his illustrious career. He featured in midfield, centreback and as a sweeper for club and country and proved to be equally adept in every role that was required of him. A superb defender and great on the ball, he was able to use his talents to subtly change his game across the 700 appearances he made with fantastic success.

2. Ruud Gullit

Gullit, in many ways, epitomises total football and versatility. A gifted technical player with superb physical attributes, he was one of the best players of his generation. In much the same way as his distinctive dreadlocks have now gone, the Dutchman changed his game throughout his career. He began as the right-winger in an attacking trio at Milan. Over time he slowly moved backwards from his role as a winger and, when he joined Chelsea, Glenn Hoddle played him as a sweeper before slotting him into central midfield. He tweaked his game according to the team and league in which he played in, as well as compensating for his own changing attributes, all with great success.

1. Frank Rijkaard

During his seven years at Ajax, Rijkaard performed outstandingly as a centreback, right-midfielder and central-midfielder. It was while at Milan that he became fully transformed from a central defender into quite possibly the best holding midfielder to ever play the game. His awareness, passing and obvious defensive qualities singled him out as the man who pioneered and revolutionised the position.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Rooney's Renaissance

2011-04-30T10:47:00.000+01:00

*This piece originally featured on sport.co.uk*

His performance on Tuesday night once again had fans and pundits alike singing his praises. Wayne Rooney produced another inspired display to drive Manchester United past Schalke with a 2-0 victory in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final. It would appear that those dark days of just six months ago are well and truly behind Rooney now.

He received a barrage of criticism after his woeful World Cup and his form had clearly not improved at the start of United's current campaign. He cut a forlorn, disinterested figure before Christmas. His touch had deserted him and his characteristic hunger and aggression had all but disappeared. Following a contradiction between himself and Sir Alex Ferguson over the extent of an ankle injury he was supposed to have suffered, it was announced that Rooney wanted to leave United.

Rooney's well-publicised dip in form coincided with his even more well-publicised alleged affair with a prostitute. A scapegoat for England's World Cup failures, hounded by his once adoring United fans and top of the tabloids villain list, Rooney had a nightmare start to the season. And yet now, as Manchester United close in in another Premiership title and seem destined to make the Champions League Final at Wembley, the England striker has reached what is quite possibly the finest form of his career.

Over the past three months Wayne Rooney has been an imperious figure for his club. His goalscoring tally may not have reached the heights of his prolific record last season but his all round play has been nothing short of sensational. Whereas last season Rooney was the spearhead of the United attack, this season he has played a much deeper role, thus allowing him to become far more instrumental in all aspects of United's play.

Rooney's willingness to work for the team and his intelligence for finding space has seen him pulling the strings across the pitch. Whether he is utilised on the left wing, when Sir Alex wishes to bolster the midfield with a fifth member, or he playing just off of a main striker, Rooney has been a destructive force of late.

Since 'that volley' which won United the Manchester derby in February, Rooney has been potent in front of goal. He has only scored 14 goals in all competitions this season but these have included a decisive hat-trick against West Ham - which was followed by that notorious outburst which earned him a two match ban - and the only goal in their crucial quarter-final first-leg victory over Chelsea in the Champions League. He added another goal last night in Germany to round off what was a superb performance.

The partnership that he has formed with Javier Hernandez has undoubtedly played a big part in Rooney's renaissance, he has revelled in the energy and enthusiasm shown by United's wonder signing. The little Mexican plays on the shoulder of the last defender and constantly tests them in behind. This, in turn, keeps the defenders on the back foot and stretches the defence which enables Rooney to drop deeper into the space left behind. It is this position that gets the best out of Rooney and indeed the United team. He acts as the linchpin of the United attack, dictating the direction and tempo of the attack and dissecting the opponents.

It is the position that all England fans want to see him play. Just in 'the hole'. It is a role that optimises his clever movement, vision, passing, technique while still enabling him to be a goal threat. All of which were highlighted this week against Schalke. His resurgence in the second half of the season has been at the heart of United's push for a Premier League and Champions League double. Had he not been suspended for their FA Cup semi-final match against Manchester City then they may well have still be on track to repeat their treble winning season in 1998/99.

His passion for the game seems reignited which can be seen by his desire to be on the ball whenever possible. Towards the end of their match against Everton at the weekend Rooney dropped into a deep-lying midfield role to collect the ball from the centre-backs and begin building the play. The contrast with his lethargic performances at the start of the season could not be more stark. His turn around is not just evident on the pitch but his attitude off it has been far more relaxed.

It would, however, be unfair to pinpoint Rooney as the sole reason for United's current success. As already stated, Hernandez has proven himself to be probably the signing of the season while the likes of Giggs, Vidic, Van der Sar and even Carrick in the Champions League have all be extremely important. Nevertheless, it is Rooney who elevates United from being a good to a great team. His industry and skill completely alters the United attack when he is at his best.

'Form is temporary, class is permanent', or so the old cliché goes and Rooney is, of course, a player of the highest class. He is also a player in fantastic form. The combination of the two has been potentially decisive for United in the final third of the season. They have four games remaining in the Premier League and, as long as they see off Schalke in the second leg at Old Trafford as they are expected to do, they have two more matches left in Europe. If Rooney can carry his current, devastating form into those six matches then he may well prove to be the decisive factor in deciding where the two trophies end up this season.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Top Ten Injury Ruined Careers

2011-04-28T17:26:00.000+01:00

*This piece originally featured on sport.co.uk*

Injuries are part and parcel of the game of football and all players will inevitably suffer a variety of them throughout the course of their career. Players who come to clubs with bright futures, big reputations or with large price tags can suffer injuries which mean they never reach the heights that were expected of them by their buyers and can potentially threaten their careers. Here is a list of the top ten players who have seen their careers severely hampered, if not ended, because of injury.

10. Daniel Prodan
£2m / Athletico Madrid – Rangers / Knee.
The Romanian centre-back made a promising start to his career. He played over 150 games for Steaua Bucuresti and Atlético Madrid between 1992-1998 before then moving to Rangers for £2million. In his three years in Glasgow he played precisely zero matches due to a knee injury that he had actually already suffered before moving to the club. A club doctor is reported to have admitted that the deal was rushed through without a medical being completed. He only went on to play 33 more games in the rest of his career.

9. Andy van der Meyde
£2m Internazionale – Everton / Various.
A bright start to his career at Ajax saw the Dutchman move to Italian giants Inter Milan for two years. Having struggled to feature regularly at the San Siro he made the move to Everton in 2005 in order to resurrect a career which had once promised so much. Various injuries and a battle with alcoholism plagued his first season and took their toll on his potential. He would make only 10 appearances in his next three seasons at Everton due to a string of injuries and disciplinary problems. He was released by Everton in 2009 and spent six months in the wilderness without a club before he went to PSV, for whom he made just one appearance. He has since retired from the game.

8. Luc Nilis
Free / PSV – Aston Villa / Leg.
Nilis made just three appearances for Aston Villa, having moved to the club in 2000 after a prolific spell at PSV in which he scored 110 goals in 164 games. Nilis had also played for Belgium 56 times. He managed to score a sublime goal against Chelsea before a collision with Ipswich's goalkeeper Richard Wright resulted in a horrific leg break. He never played again.

7. Valeri Bojinov
£6m / Fiorentina – Manchester City / Knee & Achilles.
Within weeks of signing for City in 2007, the Bulgarian forward suffered a knee ligament injury against rivals Manchester United which saw him spend five months on the sidelines. At the start of the next season, almost exactly a year after his first major injury, Bojinov suffered more bad luck when an Achilles injury kept him out for six months. In 2009 he was sent on loan to Parma where he eventually secured a permanent deal. Bojinov made only 11 appearances and scored just two goals for City, that's £3million a goal, in case you couldn't do the maths.

6. Dean Ashton
£7m / Norwich City – West Ham / Ankle.
Having joined West Ham in the January of 2006, Ashton made 11 appearances for the club in the league in the remainder of that season. That summer, however, Ashton broke his ankle while away on international duty with England. He subsequently missed the whole of the next season. He did return in 2007 at the start of West Ham's next Premier League campaign and went on to play 31 times and scored 10 goals. Just a handful of games into the 2008-09 season, though, Ashton suffered another ankle injury, one from which he would never return. He was forced to retire in December 2009 at just 26.

5. Pierluigi Casiraghi
£5.4m / Lazio – Chelsea / Knee.
The Italian striker came to England in 1998 with 90 career club goals and 44 caps to his name. In his two years at Stamford Bridge he would add just one more goal to his name and never feature for his country again. He played for Chelsea just ten times before a cruciate ligament injury halted his career. Like Luc Nilis, he collided with a goalkeeper, this time West Ham's Shaka Hislop, and he would never play again.

4. Jonathan Woodgate
£13.4m / Newcastle United – Real Madrid / Various.
After impressing at both Leeds and then Newcastle, Woodgate moved to Real Madrid in 2004. He had been hampered by injuries while at St James Park and made the move to Spain still not 100 per cent fit. He did not play at all in his first season at the Bernabeu and then only went on to make at total of 12 appearances at the club due to a seemingly never-ending run of injuries. His début will be remembered for all the wrong reasons as Woodgate managed to impress his new fans by scoring an own goal before getting sent off. In 2007, the year Woodgate left Madrid to return to England, he was voted 'The Worst Signing of the 21st Century' by the Spanish paper Diario Marca.

3. Owen Hargreaves
£17m / Bayern Munich – Manchester United / Knee.
As a consistently solid performer at Bayern Munich for seven years Hargreaves broke into the England team. It was there that he really grabbed the attention of English football fans and, after an outstanding World Cup in 2006, he put himself well and truly on the radar of Sir Alex Ferguson. The next year he was signed by Manchester United for a fee in the region of £17million. Renowned as a tireless worker and tenacious ball-winner, Hargreaves helped United win both the Premier and Champions League in his first season in England. Since that first season, however, Hargreaves has only gone on to make four more appearances for the side meaning that he has cost the club around a little over £600,000 for every time he has stepped out on the pitch.

2. Gianluigi Lentini
£13m / Torino – AC Milan / Head.
In 1992 Lentini became the most expensive player in the world when he moved from Torino to AC Milan for £13million. He helped Milan win the league title in 1993 but after a pre-season tournament in Genoa in 1994 Lentini was involved in a car crash. He suffered a fractured skill, damaged eye socket and was left in a coma. In his next three seasons he rarely featured for Milan and did not add to the 13 caps he had acquired for Italy. His career, which had once promised so much, then faded into relative obscurity as he went on to play for some smaller Italian clubs.

1. Fernando Redondo
£11million / Real Madrid – AC Milan / Knee.
Having spent the prime of his career at Real Madrid, the Argentine midfielder cost AC Milan the tidy sum of £11million when he moved to the San Siro in 2000. He is reported to have suffered the first of his many knee problems (that would ultimately claim his career) just three minutes into his first training session at the Italian club. In his defence, Redondo did suspend his wages while he was unavailable for selection. He did not feature for the side in either of his first two seasons at the club and, in total, only managed 16 appearances before eventually admitting defeat to his persistent knee problems and retiring in 2004.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

An Interview With Dominic Matteo

2011-04-26T09:35:00.001+01:00

*This interview was conducted for, and originally featured on, sport.co.uk*

What does Dominic Matteo, a man who's passions include football and having a few beers with his mates, do when he retires from football? Simple. Buy a bar. But the former Liverpool, Leeds and Scotland defender is quick to steer clear of any ideas we may get that this was the business venture of a man turning to the bottle having hung up his boots. “I thought I would give a little bit back to the city,” he tells me.

'Rock Bar' is located on the trendy Call Lane in Leeds' city centre and it becomes abundantly clear through the course of our conversation that this is a city that still holds a special place in Matteo's heart. But it is not his first love and that is where we begin our conversation.

A life-long Liverpool fan, he signed for the Reds as a “young boy” and spent eight years at Anfield as a pro. He reminisces about what it was like to be come through the ranks at the club at the same time as other prestigious young talents such as Fowler, Owen and Gerrard.

“It was amazing to watch them mature as players and to see them go on to do what they have all done. The good thing about it is that are all great lads. Every single one of them is a good lad off the field and they all deserve everything they've got.”

The end of his time at Liverpool is not a subject of such positivity, however. “The thing about leaving Liverpool is that I never wanted to leave,” he explains. “I thought the season before I left I was one of the better players in the team and I thought I deserved my place in the team for the following season. Gerard Houllier made it difficult for me because he told me he was bringing someone in who was going to play my position. He didn't really give me too much of an option.”

“A couple of days earlier I had signed a new five year deal, I was on top of the world. I was delighted to be at Liverpool. I thought I was maturing and getting better as a player and getting stronger as a person. I just thought this is it now, I didn't see myself leaving. But football changes very, very fast sometimes and that's what happened unfortunately.”

His assessment of his relationship with Houllier is one that is frank, honest and somewhat cathartic. “Me and Gerard, we didn't have the worst relationship in the world but we didn't have the best either. I think there is a way of dealing with players. I had been at that club since I was young boy and he was trying to tell me things about Liverpool, I knew a lot more then he ever would. But I respect what he did there and the trophies he won.”

“I never have any resentment for anyone in football. I know it is a difficult job in whatever you do. Whether you are playing or managing, I know how tough it is and decisions have to be made. Sometimes, if that effects you, you have to be man enough to accept it and I did and I went on my.”

And so we move back to Leeds. Matteo joined David O'Leary's young Leeds side in the summer of 2000, on the back of a season in which they unexpectedly qualified for the Champions League. We waste little time in moving on to what was, quite probably, the defining moment of his playing career. On the night of the 8^th November 2000 Matteo scored a near-post, glancing header from corner against AC Milan at the San Siro. It was the goal that booked Leeds' place in the knock-out stage of club football's most coveted competition.

“For me personally, because I have an Italian background through my father, I think that night in Milan was special. There was a lot, a lot of Leeds fans who made the trip over. People I meet around Leeds still tell me to this day that it was one of the best nights they have had in football. I have met people who broke their arms and broke their legs in their celebrations when the goal went in.”

“I think anyone who played in that Leeds team and who experienced what we did after that game, the sing-song with the fans on the pitch. Things like that don't happen that much any more in football and it was a great moment for me and a great moment for the team.”

Matteo remains a fan favourite at Elland Road not just for that goal but, as the man himself recognises, because “Leeds fans always knew that they were always going to get 100% out of me.” Yet, like his time at Liverpool, things did not come to a ceremonious end at Leeds. Their all-too-well-documented fall from grace still baffles football fans today.

Unfortunately he was apprehensive, no, reluctant, to shed too much light on the issue. “I don't want to go too far into it because in the book I have coming out I will be going into it in more detail.” He pauses before offering some brief insight into those turbulent times. “I don't think we were any more aware than a lot of people were. Obviously we knew there were problems because it was well publicised but we didn't know how bad the stuff was a lot of the time.”

Again, on the subject of his decision of whether to play for England or Scotland, Matteo refuses to be loose-lipped due to his pending book release. Despite having played for England Under-21s, England B and being in England squads, Matteo was eventually capped by Scotland in 2000. All he says is “I was brought up Scottish, I was brought up supporting Scotland so as far as I'm concerned I'm Scottish,” and he leaves it at that.

On that succinct sentence we move from past to present. We touch upon the prominent issue of respect in the game, or rather the apparent lack of it. “I think towards the end of my career I saw it appearing more. Now it's everywhere because there are more cameras and there is more people looking out for it. I don't remember it being talked about like this when I was playing. When I was playing, you would have a couple of words with the referee every now and again after a bad decision and that would be it finished with, and that's how I used be.”

“The referees have a hard enough job as it is without getting more grief but the thing is that sometimes the players don't think the referees are getting some of the easy decision right and that's what frustrates them and managers the most.”

It is a topic that neither of us are overly enthused to discuss much further and so the conversation swiftly moves on to the current situations at Liverpool and Leeds. On Liverpool's turn around under Kenny Dalglish he says “Kenny has given everyone a lift. He is Mr. Liverpool, he is a legend at the club, we all love. I think all the players really respect him as a person as well as a manager and I think you can see that they all really want to play for him. He has done a fantastic job since he has come in. I think if you spoke to any of the players or you hear what they are saying then you'd know that they want him to get the job.”

“If you look at the performance against Man City, there were a few youngsters in the team, it's good to see Kenny giving young lads a chance. That has always been the Liverpool way and we haven't had that for a few years so it's good to see them back in the squad.”

He is particularly impressed by their new striker partnership of the “classy” Suarez and “raw” Carroll who have come in to replace the “sulking” Fernando Torres.

The focus then switches back to Leeds once again. The club, who sit in sixth in the Championship table, just inside the play-off places, are making an unlikely push for back-to-back promotions. “I did think they might have a chance of the play-offs,” he says. “I have been a little surprised by how some of the players at the club have performed, though. A few have done better than what I had thought. People like [Max] Gradel, I had doubts if he could step up to this higher level and perform in the Championship. He always had looked a little bit raw but I think this year he has matured a lot and turned into a good player.”

He laughs to himself before continuing, “Leeds haven't got the best record in the play-offs, we all know that. I don't fear for Leeds in any of their home games at all. Against anyone at home they have got a chance. But away from home they conceded a lot of goals and they have been quite sloppy. In the play-offs they certainly do need a bit of luck and they haven't had that but maybe this could be their year.”

Throughout the conversation his children play in the background. He urges them to go and play with their mother while we continue to 'talk football'. They serves an apt reminder as to how this is a man who has seemed to make the transition into retirement with relative ease. Between being a father and owning his bar, Matteo also has his book coming out at the end of summer and he writes a column for the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“I do like the media-side of things,” he tells me. “I like talking about football and watching games. It is definitely an option so I am not ruling that out.” He breaks to make the point though, “You know what, I have had a pretty serious back injury over the past few months so once that has cleared up I would like to go back and finish my coaching badges just so I've got them.”

“I think, at the moment, defending in the country is not great as a whole. Maybe I could get into that side of it, some kind of a defensive coach. I don't know if someone would need something like that but I just sometimes see defenders making wrong decisions like not getting tight enough to people. We have all done that ourselves but when you see it and you have been there you can try and help someone out, especially at a young age.”

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

My Favourite Premiership XI: A.D. Winn

2011-04-24T10:55:00.002+01:00

Blogging has been somewhat non-existent of late and I have a range of poor excuses for that which I shall not bother even mentioning. Over the coming week I shall be putting up some of the features and interviews I have done for sport.co.uk but in the mean time, as it is a Sunday, I thought it would be good to put up another post in the 'My Favourite Premiership XI' series. This time it is A.D.Winn who has kindly taken the time to give us a side comprising of all the players they have most enjoyed watching over the past two decades.

For my goalkeeper, there’s only one rational choice here. Peter Schmeichel was, at times, unbeatable. Being 6ft 4in gives you one kind of advantage when faced with oncoming strikers, but being able to appear almost double that at times meant that shot-stopping seemed almost unfairly tilted in his favour. Add to that his ability to claw away what sometimes looked like the most unreachable efforts on goal puts him in a category of one for the best goalkeeper to grace English football.

You were unlikely to get many goals out of Gary Kelly, but he was dependable, hard-working, and loyal to his club, which are traits I’d happily have in my XI. His presence means I would be putting Denis Irwin on his weakened foot, though the former United full-back played the majority of his United career in that role, keeping Phil Neville out of a regular first-team place until the Irishman was near retirement age. Irwin’s ability at free-kicks and penalties would be ideal too; it’s one of those rare treats in football when someone unexpected deals with set pieces. I’d happily have them either side of Frank Leboeuf and, somewhat of an unexpected choice perhaps, but Brede Hangeland. I’ve never had a bad word to say for the Norwegian, I find his style of defending to be one that many of the so-called top four could actually benefit from having 40 times a season, and would happily have him alongside the World Cup winning Leboeuf.

The biggest problem my XI appears to have is the two central midfielders are quite similar. McAllister and Le Tissier were both set piece and penalty takers, heavily focused towards creativity and awareness on the ball and, well, hardly known for their out-and-out defensive abilities. It could be argued that both players were able to control games more when they had a more defensive partner alongside them, worthy names like Batty, Hamann... um... Magilton?

McAllister’s European goal against Rangers in 1992 was one of my earliest memories in football of thinking “wow; that was great!” Le Tissier, much like Cantona or a more modern day example in Berbatov, had the ability to do so much looking like he did so little.

The backup here is that if Matt or Gary ever had an off day, I think having Sinclair and Sinton as the wingers would give you plenty assists in any given game; a tactic which is downright crucial considering I have Thierry Henry and Kevin Phillips leading the line.

Henry was the worst name to see on the team-sheet when your team played Arsenal. He would always seem to score, just at a point in the game where you think things were turning in your teams favour. With 226 goals in 369 games for Arsenal he was, and perhaps still is, the epitome of excellence.

Phillips is in not just because he is a fantastic goalscorer, but because I’ve followed his career since he was at Baldock Town, around the same time that I was playing for one of their many youth teams. One day I will sit down to interview him, making sure to tell him that he is the best striker I have ever paid money to watch play.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Polly's Pause for... Sport.co.uk

2011-04-08T17:32:00.000+01:00

Sorry for there not being any new posts this week but I do, for a change, have a reasonable excuse. I am currently doing a placement at sport.co.uk so have been channelling all my sport writing efforts towards their site. Lucky them, ay.

So, here is a round up of my various pieces for them this week. Over time I will hopefully feature some of these pieces on this site too.

An alternative top ten for the Championship Player of the Year.

Why Gareth Bale's talents need to be kept firmly in perspective.

My reaction to the ICC's decision to leave the minnows out of their restructuring of the 2015 Cricket World Cup.

An interview with former World, European and Commonwealth 400m gold medallist Iwan Thomas.

An interview with former top Premier League referee Jeff Winter.

An interview with 2003 Rugby World Cup winner, current Sale Sharks winger, England's 3rd highest try scorer of all-time Ben Cohen.

Interviews with Leeds United goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and England's all-time most capped player, goalkeeping legend Peter Shilton have also been completed and will appear on the site in due course.

I intend to write something over the weekend for PPFS though so watch this space.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Turn That Frown Upside Down: The psychological strains on the modern day sports star

2011-03-31T13:19:00.000+01:00

Having taken a not so well-earned break from my ‘work’, I read a piece on the BBC Sport website about Andy Murray’s visit to 5th Street Gym in Miami. Murray was invited along to the iconic boxing gym by David Haye, who is currently in training there. Amidst this relatively uninteresting article, the question was raised as to “how Murray's tennis benefit from the boxing experience?”

This question was posed to Murray and answered with predictable dullness. Critics have been once again challenging Murray’s mental strength as he appears unable to play his best tennis on the biggest stage yet this was not touched upon in Jonathan Overend’s piece.

The Scot’s lose in the final of the Australian Open seems to have triggered somewhat of mini crisis. He has since flopped out of the Miami Masters - having lost to a qualifier for the second straight tournament, this time in the form of Alex Bogomolov Jr - and is now looking for a new coach prior to the French Open.

This is not, however, a post about the fortunes of Andy Murray. I simply don’t care enough about him to write anything like that. This is, rather, a look into the old clichéd ratio between the importance of mental to physical strength within sports (90% mental, 10% physical and all that guff). The other news from last week of Michael Yardy’s battle with depression adds a further, deeper dimension to this debate.

Yet the point remains largely the same. That is the great importance of being able to cope mentally with the strains and pressures that come with being a sports star in the modern day. Lambasted by sections of the public as being overpaid men 'just playing a game', it is all too easy to overlook the seriousness of the psychological effects of playing sport at the highest level.

Naturally those playing any sport at the highest level are gifted with both physical and technical attributes that allow them to excel beyond the average man. Furthermore, they are then of course trained and conditioned to optimise this gift. The issue then lies in the mind. To revert back to my opening example, so as to make it appear slightly relevant, a boxer can have excellent reflexes and being in superb condition but that can only carry them so far. As Murray illustrates, having the technical talent to beat an opposition counts for nothing if you cannot utilise or optimise this talent.

To be successful, whether it is in an individual or team sport, you must execute what you have been trained to do but under immense pressure. This may be taking a penalty, bowling a delivery to land on a precise area the size of a post card or it may be hitting a backhand winner down the line all with millions watching intently. The mind must obviously be able to cope with the pressure if the body is to perform effectively. Nerves, doubts, fears and pressures can cause the slightest variations in usual technique and execution that can lead to errors.

‘Clutch’ performers, as the Americans call them, build reputations as being able to perform at the key, decisive moments. An example being Kobe Bryant who is renowned as being the go-to-guy when a basket is needed in the last seconds of a game. Generally speaking, the top sportsmen are just that because they have the ability to perform under pressure. Such an ability comes with specific coping mechanism in such moments and often an unfaltering confidence in their own ability.

Andy Murray, the evidence thus far in his career would suggest, is yet to develop these mechanisms. He usually looks visibly tense and nervous in the big games and his play reflects this. When he is losing he struggles to find the calm self-belief to gather himself and instead becomes very animated and vocal at his own frustration. This is not meant as a criticism of Murray or any other supposed ‘chokers’ in sport. I get sweaty palms during a penalty shoot out on FIFA and struggle to hold my nerves so would not have the audacity to preach at them for losing their bottle.

The case of Michael Yardy exemplifies how constant exposure to these strains can have a far more detrimental effect on a person beyond simply their performance in any given moment. This is coupled with the difficulties of living away from home for extended periods of time. Sub-par performances, an unrelenting schedule of high intensity sport and critical media attention, one can understand why there would be serious physiological side effects for sports stars today.

While many eagerly wait to criticise any mistake they make, both on and off of the field of play, sports stars battle against both the opposition and their own mental demons. It is easy to forget or underestimated the severity of the strains placed upon them and even easier to fail to sympathise with people earning the amount of money they do to do a job that most of us ‘would give our left arm to do.’

Yardy’s admission of his problem and the subsequent ignorance in the comments from Geoffrey Boycott highlights both the nature of the difficulties sports stars face and the all too common reaction to them. In the seats of the stadiums, through the screen of the television and within the words of the press, there can be a tendancy to become overly critical of modern sports stars. We expect too much of them as people and as athletes. In doing so the humanistic nature of sport is diluted in our assumption that these people are in some way super-human because of what they can do in their respective sports. The truth is that through the technical and physical gifts they possess, they are exposed to strains, pressures and expectations that are almost unparalleled in any other profession.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please…

Player Prejudice: The blinkered nature of football coverage

2011-03-28T15:00:00.000+01:00

Apologies for my prolonged absence from the site but hopefully something resembling regular blogging will now return. I have been tempted out of my month break from writing any posts by a growing displeasure at certain aspect of football coverage so further apologies for the negativity of this latest piece.

We, as football fans, are naturally highly subjective. We often have preconceived ideas about teams and players which will inevitably detract from our ability to make fair and accurate judgements. This unavoidable instinct extends beyond simple, negative prejudices against rival clubs or unpopular players, often it is applied in a positive manner as we lavish praise on someone’s performance when it really is not warranted.

To put it another way, as a football community we see certain players in a certain way and any judgement that we may cast about them is distorted by the lens through which we like to view them. The prime examples of this of late are Jack Wilshere, Gareth Bale and Neymar. Now I am not, of course, suggesting that these are not exceptional talents. They most certainly are. Their reputations as such, however, results in a complete fixation on them by journalists, commentators and fans alike.

When these players step onto the pitch every touch they take, pass they complete or bit of skill they show is met with cries of brilliance. Obviously logic would suggest that as these are extremely talented players, it is to be expected that they will provide us with these moments that are more worthy of praise. There is truth in that. Yet I have seen Wilshere complete a five yard pass and be compared with Xavi and Iniesta while Gareth Bale can bumble his way past a defender and be called the best winger in the world. Too often these players just can’t put a foot wrong.

Some off-the-field misdemeanour may alter our opinions of them but until that point such players are heralded as demi-gods. Nothing they do is by luck; everything is a moment of perfectly planned, expertly executed genius. This works the other way round too. Football is littered with its collection of villains and comical characters that are scrutinised for their slightest mistake so that it can be put in super slow mo and over-analysed by pundits after the game. Coverage of this type leads to misleading and inaccurate portrayals of the game, acting only to exacerbate the preconceptions we have about those who play it.

Had Gareth Bale played on the same pitch as Wilshere on Saturday afternoon it is quite possible that Chris Coleman would be harbouring a never-subsiding erection today. Bale could have stood on the pitch and done little more than make a couple of jinking runs or dangerous crosses and there still would have been a montage made to commemorate his performance. The problem with this tendency is that it makes football coverage painfully predictable and repetitive.

Match of the Day have their weekly script virtually written for them. It will feature footage of Blackpool’s adventurous attacking play, Arsenal’s defensive frailties and Stoke’s long throw. These things are as certain as Mark Lawrenson’s tone is monotonous. These things become innate within our understanding of the game, they are inbuilt into how we watch and talk about the game. As such we approach every match with an expectation of what we will see and by doing so further pander to the stereotypes that are endlessly repeated to us.

The example of Neymar in Brazil’s match against Scotland exemplifies this point. Again, it is important to stress that I am not trying to discredit him as a player. Yet there was so much hype before the match about him and so much focus on him during the match that his performance was never going to be judged purely on its own merits. His performance was impressive but to call comparisons with Pele and Ronaldo premature would be an almighty understatement.

Teams are categorised, players are pigeonholed and we as fans are forced to watch football through the predetermined views of the broadcasters, commentators and pundits. If you look hard enough then you will see what you want to see. As such, football matches become broken down into clichéd side shows.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please…

My Favourite Premiership XI: Michael Hudson

2011-02-27T10:28:00.000Z

It is Sunday which means, of course, it is time for the latest instalment of the 'My Favourite Premiership XI'. This week's selection comes from Newcastle United fan (in case his piece did not make that clear enough) Michael Hudson. Michael can also be found writing over at his own site - The Accidental Groundhopper.

Some people think it was signing Faustino Asprilla that cost Newcastle United the Premier League title in 1995-96. Others still say Keegan’s “I’d love it if we beat ‘em” rant at Leeds United was to blame, or Graham Fenton’s late double for Blackburn Rovers, or losing 4-3 away to Liverpool. But most of us who were there remember the two games against Manchester United, Keith Gillespie getting injured in a post-Christmas defeat at Old Trafford, and Peter Schmeichel single-handedly saving his side from annihilation in the first half of the return at St James’ Park. Newcastle battered Ferguson’s side, pouring forward in wave after wave of attacks. Impossibly, the two teams went into the break still goalless. Fifteen minutes after the restart, Eric Cantona scored the winner. For obvious reasons, the Dane wasn't everyone's favourite goalkeeper - but he was undoubtedly the best.

He was sent off three times in the inaugural Premier League season, became the last ever Liverpool player to score a goal in front of the terraced Kop, and finished top scorer for West Ham with ten goals in 1995-96, but Julian Dicks gets his place in the team for something he did off the pitch before the Premier League began. In February 1992, as West Ham fans protested against season ticket price rises and being asked to pay between £500 and £950 to guarantee their seat in their ground, Dicks told newspaper reporters: “The Bond Scheme is wrong. You can’t ask an ordinary bloke to pay £975 just to watch his favourite football team”. Disregarding a club warning, he repeated his comments in a fanzine interview just a few weeks later: “I wouldn’t buy a Bond because they are a lot of money and are morally wrong”. The West Ham board eventually saw sense. Unfortunately, football didn’t.

Elegant, comfortable in possession of the ball, and defensively underrated, Philippe Albert epitomised many of Newcastle United’s qualities in the mid-1990s, scoring the fifth and final goal of the game which, together with that 4-3 defeat to Liverpool, still defines Keegan’s team to this day. Gathering a pass from Robert Lee, he touches the ball to the left, pushes it forward into space, and flights an almost effortless chip over the heads of two defenders and Peter Schmeichel into the centre of the net. Partnering him is Colin Hendry, a man who looked and played like he’d just been plucked from a medieval battlefield. Although the plaudits went to Shearer and Sutton, Blackburn Rovers would never have won the title without Hendry and Tim Flowers in defence.

Never the greatest defensively - “Nowhere near good enough for the Premier League,” a commentator once sniffed - I first came across Lee Young-Pyo playing in midfield for Anyang Cheetahs (later franchised out of existence by the Korean FA and LG Group) at home to Daejeon Citizen in the K-League. A year later, I watched Ahn Jung-hwan head his curving right-footed cross past Gianluigi Buffon to knock Italy out of the World Cup, and didn’t have to buy another drink for the rest of the night.

Nicknamed ‘The Little Maestro’ by Diego Maradona, Nolberto Solano scored 37 goals in 230 league appearances for Newcastle. My favourite came at Elland Road, two days before Christmas 2001. 3-1 down to goals from Bowyer, Harte and Mark Viduka, Newcastle equalised through a Robbie Elliott header and an Alan Shearer penalty. With only a minute left to play, Craig Bellamy won a tackle against Erik Bakke, Kieron Dyer picked up the loose ball on halfway, raced through the Leeds midfield and rolled a pass into Solano’s path. As Nigel Martyn belatedly edged left to cover his near post, the shot slid along the ground and into the opposite corner of the net. It was, people later said, the defeat that started Leeds’ near terminal decline.

Only Fumaca (who made one start and four substitute appearances for Newcastle United in the 1999-2000 season, and was disparagingly nicknamed Formica for his complete inability to trap or keep possession of the ball) comes anywhere near rivalling Ali Dia as the worst player in Premier League history. A 30-year-old Sengalese amateur, Southampton manager Graeme Souness signed him from Blyth Spartans on the recommendation of a man claiming to be FIFA Player of the Year George Weah. Named as a substitute for an away game at Leeds, Dia came on for the injured Matt Le Tissier after 32 minutes. “His performance was almost comical,” the watching Le Tissier recalled. “He kind of took my place, but he was just wandering everywhere. I don't think he realised what position he was supposed to be in. It was embarrassing to watch.” Dia lasted until the 53^rd minute before Ken Monkou was sent on instead. His next league appearance was for Gateshead. Le Tissier himself completes the midfield three. As Xavi once said, "For me he was sensational".

From the moment Faustino Asprilla turned up at St James’ Park wearing a grey fur coat in a snowstorm, he was sublimely dissimilar to anyone we’d seen before. Contrary to popular misconception, Tino was arguably Newcastle’s best player in the title run-in, scoring three and turning a near certain defeat against Middlesbrough into three points on his debut, after sinking a pre-match glass of wine in the team hotel. Preposterously talented, he had a deceptively languid running style, his feet operating like an octopus’s arms trying to keep a predator at bay. When he was in the mood, he was almost unstoppable: only two of the best goalkeeping displays I’ve ever seen stopped him running up cricket scores in back-to-back games against the Uniteds of Manchester and West Ham in April 1996. The following season, Barcelona weren’t quite so lucky.

Andy Carroll wasn’t the first Newcastle United centre-forward to be sold in the middle of a season. But when Keegan let Andy Cole join Manchester United in exchange for £6 million and Keith Gillespie, he already had his replacement lined up. I’d seen Les Ferdinand destroy our defence in a 3-0 defeat at Loftus Road, but he was even better in black and white stripes, scoring fifty goals in eighty-three games and winning PFA Footballer of the Year in 1996.

Roker Park, January 1997. Paul Merson finds Dennis Bergkamp twenty yards out from the Sunderland goal. The Dutchman miscontrols, drags the ball back as a defender closes in, shifts it onto his right foot, and curls a shot past the despairing goalkeeper into the far corner of the net. Rafael Van der Vaart and Robin Van Persie are good, but Bergkamp was better.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The French Footballing Revolution

2011-02-25T12:38:00.000Z

The English national team is still struggling in an attempt to recover from their woeful World Cup. Their rivals across the Channel, meanwhile, have set a shining example of how to go about the much needed transformation, so writes Samuel Geny...

The 22nd June 2010 - the day the revolution in French football began. It was the moment that their star-studded team was knocked out of the World Cup in the group stages. Since then there has been a remarkable improvement in the side. Here is my assessment of the changes that have seen them beat both Brazil and England in their recent friendly encounters.

Youth:

The coming of age of the French U17’s, U18’s and U21’s has meant that there is now a wealth of talent from which the new French coach Laurent Blanc choose. These players can be developed over the next two to four years for the European Championship and World Cup respectively.

Here is a list of the latest crop of fresh French young talent with their age.

M’Vila 20
Menez 23
Payet 23
Rami 25
Sakho 21
Remy 24
Matuidi 23
Nasri 23
Sissoko 21
Gameiro 23
Gourcuff 24

This list contains the best hopes for the future of French football and with them all having fewer than 10 caps to their name, with the exception of Nasri who has 17, things look good for the future.

With this strong talent base and a few wise older heads these young players have been allowed to flourish. The balance has been struck with the likes of Mexes, Malouda and Abidal playing amongst this young squad while the huge ego complexes and imposing personalities of the likes of Henry, Anelka, Evra and Gallas have been removed.

The key figures which the new French team is basing itself around are the extremely talented Gourcuff and Nasri in the centre of midfield. Laurent Blanc has a strong belief in Gourcuff from their time together at Bordeaux where he mastered their midfield and was the architect of the movement up the pitch and helped Bordeaux to their first League 1 title in ten years. With his big money move to Lyon in the summer he struggled at first but has now settled in to life at the Stade Gerland and has started to show the promise he had at Bordeaux.

Next is Samir Nasri an ever evolving figure since he signed for Arsenal from Marseille. He has shown great skill and a wide range of passing that has allowed him to play all across Arsenal’s mid field over the last two seasons. Having mastered the difficulties of the English Premier League he is quickly becoming hot property in Europe and will be a key member of the future French team.

The Coach:

Laurent Blanc's appointment was two years too late. The shenanigans of former France coach Raymond Domenech went on for too long and the team suffered. But under Blanc all the silly selection decisions, tactical inconsistency and astrology has gone. Now France look like a team who are organized and threaten every time they move forward with the ball whilst also having a solid defensive base. Blanc has instilled a new mentality into the French team that has allowed them to play with confidence and play an attractive football without the ego centered former players who tried to conquer the world on their own. Before France used to scrape wins over minnow nations and made all their games look like an arduous task when they should have been formalities.

Mentions:

No Frank? There is a lot more to come from France with Ribery having not featured in their last two games that were considerable scalps against England and Brazil. If they can get him fit and put into the system that Blanc wants to play, their attack will become even more potent.

Benzema’s move to Real Madrid put him in the spotlight. He seemed to struggle under the enormous expectation that comes from playing for such an illustrious club and he failed to make an impact from the bench in his first couple of seasons – playing second fiddle to the prolific Higuian who scored 29 in La Liga last year. However, with the unfortunate injury to Higuian, Benzema has had to step up and has done so with good effect helping Real keep in touch with Barcelona in the title race by scoring some important goals notably a tricky 1-0 win against Real Mallorca.

To conclude:

Les Bleus' future once again looks promising. Under their new coach the French national team can look forward to an exciting generation of footballers who will be challenging for major honors again shortly. Their recent friendlies against Brazil and England have shown that this is a progressing side with plenty to learn. Yet, while missing some key members, this is a team that can already challenge the big teams despite still being in the early stages of their transformation. If you compare this French side to the Brazilian one who has never had a lack of exciting potential youth, their recent feats seem even greater. They have done the same thing as France choosing to go with a new coach who has no international experience and removing the dead wood from the side and keeping a spine of older stable players around which to base the side whilst having a wealth of young talent at his disposal with the likes of Breno, Luiz, Rafael, Sandro, Ramires, Pato, Douglas Costa, Neymar and Andre to name but a few.

As the likes of England continue to struggle in their post-World Cup transformation, France have put themselves on the road to success. With new management and faith being shown in a young and exciting crop of players, they are building a team with the long term future of the national side clearly in mind.

Thought, comments and opinions please...

A Premiership All-Star Weekend

2011-02-22T11:21:00.001Z

The inspiration for this post was very simple - the NBA All-Star weekend. It took place last weekend and, having watched some of the events, it got me pondering whether or not it would be possible to implement a similar feature into the Premiership season.

The NBA weekend is run over three days. It consists of a rookie versus sophomore match, a D-League (the minor league) All-Star match, a team shooting challenge, a skill course, a three point shooting competition, a dunk contest and culminates with the East versus West All-Stars. Indeed, all American sports have the same mid-season for similar event-packed, star-studded affairs. The break can prove problematic for players and clubs alike, though. A weekend break for such festivities is not ideal for a team trying to gather or maintain momentum and form.

It remains, however, something that I think would be extremely interesting and entertaining to see transferred across the Atlantic. It allows fans to see a different side to the players, witnessing some absurd bits of showboating and it often is a useful means of raising money and awareness for various charitable causes.

The way it would work is relatively straight forward. Players, managers and journalists would vote for the players that they believe deserve to feature in the All-Star match (not fans - this prevent clubs with larger fan bases simply getting all their players in the team). Other players, meanwhile, would be selected to take part in the individual events which I will outline in due course.

There are a couple of obvious problems in trying to introduce such an event. These are, firstly, the Premiership has a hectic enough schedule as it is to try and fit it in and secondly, the league is not split into two separate conferences (as American sports leagues are) from which to select two sides. These problems can, however, be easily overcome. To fit the game in the season could either be prolonged by one extra week or simply add one set of midweek fixtures. To form the two sets of ten teams from which the 'All-Stars' could be chosen, a simple solution would be to divide the the league between the northern and southern clubs. This would mean that the pools of teams would look like this:

North – Newcastle, Sunderland, Blackpool, Blackburn, Bolton, Wigan, Manchester City, Manchester United, Everton and Liverpool.

South – Stoke, Wolves, West Brom, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Tottenham, Arsenal, West Ham, Chelsea and Fulham.

On balance the north/south divide seems to split the teams quite fairly which would allow for a reasonable mix of the Premiership's elite players to face off against one another. As for the events. The focal point of the day would, of course, be the north versus south All-Star game. But other competitions would be required to make the whole thing more interesting.

There would have to be some form of skill-based time trial, something akin to what you would see on Wayne Rooney's Street Striker. This would involve dribbling and passing into or through targets so we could see which Premiership player has the best “tekkers”. Another event could be a skill showdown as features on Soccer AM or a skill shot contest (alla Ronaldinho's shot from behind the goal, below). Others could be simple challenges to see who is the quickest player at dribbling the ball half the length of the pitch and a test to see who has the most powerful shot. It could even tie in with 'The Match' by featuring the celebrities versus ex-pros game.

Amidst the mayhem of the Premiership campaign, an All-Star break for one weekend of the year would offer some light relief and allow us to appreciate a different side to the league's footballers, and indeed football itself. This is just a quick example of what some potential line-ups for the events could be... you know you would want to see this:

Tekkers Trial – Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard, Arteta, Modric, Nasri.

Speed Dribble – Walcott, Bale, Lennon, Guitierrez, N'Zogbia, Agbonlahor.

Skill Showdown – Berbatov, Adam, Anelka, Silva, Young, Van der Vaart.

Power Shot – Huth, Alex, Hitzelsberger, Van Persie, Taylor, Kolorov.

With an All-Star match of the League's best performers of the season.

Now some may not want to see such a weekend introduced as a distraction from the Premier League season. Moreover, managers would almost certainly not want to lose their players for such an occasion. But tell me you would not want to see the Premiership's finest go head to head over a series of irrelevant yet intriguing challenges.

Would very much like to hear people's thought on this idea. What kind of events would you like to see footballers go head-to-head in? Who would you like to see take part in such challenges? Which players would make your All-Star XI from the respective north and south divisions?

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

My Favourite Premiership XI: Dave Peacock

2011-02-20T11:27:00.000Z

Last Sunday I posted my all time favourite Premiership with the view to making it a running series. As the response to the concept was resoundingly positive I will be doing just that. Thus every Sunday I will now be posting the all time favourite Premiership XI of a different football writer, blogger and/or enthusiast. This week it is the turn of Dave Peacock and so, without further ado, here is his selection.

As per the criteria, the following 11 players aren’t necessarily who I think are the best players to have graced the Premiership, more the players that I personally like and have enjoyed watching over the years. I will also say that I have picked these players as a team that could function – hence the 4-2-3-1 formation.

First off, let me explain my choice of ‘keeper. Clearly, the obvious choice would be that red nosed Danish glove man who won a few league titles. As mentioned above, this isn’t about that though. I’ve chosen Nigel Martyn as he was a very solid goalkeeper. Had it not been for David Seaman, he’d have won many more England caps than the 23 he earned

Now, on to the defence. Here I’ve tried to mix style, speed, strength and aggression. My right back is Lauren, a main stay of the unbeaten Arsenal side of 03/04. For two or three seasons, Lauren was the best right back in the league (yes, even better than Neville). He was the modern day full back, strong, quick and athletic, always up and down the flank. On the other side, I’ve gone for Stuart Pearce. Maybe the Premier League years weren’t when he peaked, but nevertheless he was still good to watch – he never shirked a tackle. Would have been fascinating to watch Ronaldo try and dance around him! My first centre half had to be Sami Hyypia. Sami was a revelation when he came to Liverpool. He never had much pace but such was his awareness, he was always in the right place at the right time. I feel he and Sol Campbell would complement each other well and would be unbeatable in the air. Campbell had that raw speed that any defence needs.

In midfield, I felt I needed two players in front of the back four to cover my more attack minded wingers. David Batty was always a favourite of mine. He rarely lost a tackle and was a much better footballer than he was given credit for. With the engine of Paul Ince next to him, these two would be a formidable midfield partnership. In front of them, I had to find a place for Steven Gerrard, who could easily have played further back. But this way, he was licence to roam and create, and would almost guarantee 10-15 goals a season.

A more obvious choice is my number 7 – Cristiano Ronaldo. As a Liverpool fan, there was many reasons to hate Ronaldo. Arrogance, petulance and selfishness – to name just a few of his less desirable traits. But for two seasons (at least) he was untouchable in the Premier League. Breathtaking goal followed breathtaking goal as he dragged Man United to victories almost single-handled. On the other wing, I’ve gone for the mercurial David Ginola – because he’s worth it! At his best he could drift past players with ease and he had a classy touch.

And finally… every team needs a good striker. There’s not been many better than Alan Shearer. As the record Premier League scorer, he’s an obvious choice perhaps. The reason I admired him so much was that he wasn’t a striker who’d pass the ball into the net. Whether he was 5, 15 or 25 yards out, he’d smash it (not in the Richard Keys style, mind). As he grew older and a few injuries took their toll, Shearer lost some of his pace. But he adapted his game and became a stronger, more physical centre forward. One thing never changed though – goals!

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The Plot Thickens: The importance of plots and characters in our love of sports

2011-02-17T14:26:00.001Z

No one ought to need to be made aware of the electrifying news that Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has returned to wrestling. This is a man who played a central role in the childhood of many a fan of the fictitious entertainment show. WWE is just that after all. It is scripted, planned and rehearsed. Yet ultimately the reason people love it is because of the characters and the plots and, in that sense, is it not like all sports?

I have written before about the role of sports within modern society and why it holds such gravitas in the lives of millions many times (there was my Football as the Opium of the Masses parts one and two as well as my post Why Write about Football which covered this topic). My arguments then stemmed from a sociological and functionalism viewpoint. Indeed, as well as this we have the appreciation for the game itself, this being the art of playing football - the technical and physical skills that are on display and which we fans could only dream of being able to replicate.

These factors, however, do not fully account for why so many people's lives centre around football or, more generally, sport. Of fundamental importance is the role of characters, history and Hollywood-esque plots. Just like the WWE, our intrigue in sport relies on the subtle sub-plots, the stories of the individuals and the ongoing rivalries.

Let's look at the match between Arsenal and Barcelona last night as an example. Now this was always going to be an excellent game of football. But the skills of the respective players that were witnessed on the stage at the Emirates last night were merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Tactics can be analysed, attacking moves assessed and defensive errors scrutinised but as worthwhile as this certainly is, a large part of the appeal of the game relies on something different.

Yesterday's match was a clash between two teams who have, in some ways, become European rivals. Both clubs are based on a footballing philosophy of what could be called, to make things simple, 'total football'. It was a contest between two sides who approach the game in the same way, an approach which is relatively rare due to its extreme intricacy.

To thicken the plot, these two teams met in the same competition last season adding immediate history to their rivalry. Then Barcelona emerged the victors after two thrilling games of football, yet now, one year later, Arsenal have seized the upper hand as they do battle once again. The young pretenders have matured and improved and come back to avenge what happened twelve months ago. The history between the two clubs, albeit a rather recent one, adds extra depth to the encounter.

Furthermore, there are the always the stories of the individuals, or the protagonists if you will. In this case all eyes were on the Arsenal talisman Cesc Fabregas. A life long Barcelona fan who left the club at the age of 16 to move to North London, in recent years he has seemed destined to return to the Catalan club but, for now at least, he remains at the heart of their opposition. If he were to score the winning goal in the Camp Nou in the second leg it would be much more than simply a decisive goal because of his emotive and well-documented history. The subtle layers underneath what happens on the pitch is what makes sport so time-consumingly fascinating.

Every team has their history, their achievements, their moments of agony and their rivals. Every individual the same. As fans we have our memories, our heroes and villains which we carry into every match we watch. This is why it was always so entertaining to see Roy Keane and Alan Shearer or Patrick Vieira line up alongside one another in the tunnel. This is why we all watched to see if Wayne Bridge would shake John Terry's hand. This is why we love to see an underdog triumph over a bigger team.

The plots, the back-stories and the characters that we watch develop and change are what gives sport its edge. Transfer sagas, players swapping loyalties and ongoing feuds build on the technical beauty of the sports themselves. All these things, like the action on the field, are not predetermined or scripted but unashamedly real. Whereas WWE may be more explicit in its use of plots and character stories to appeal to their audience, all sports adhere, although not consciously, to the same basic principle which makes our interest in them almost unfaltering.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

My Favourite Premiership XI: Polly

2011-02-13T18:22:00.003Z

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the absence of any blogging over the last week. Work and laziness conspired against it. Secondly, you can see pieces that I did for Ghostgoal's 'My Favourite Goal' and Talkingsports' 'My Sporting Hero' series.

Today, as I have been writing pieces for series run by other sites, I thought I would start a new series of my own. The concept is simple. Over time I will get different people to share their Favourite XI of the Premiership era. To get the ball rolling, I will start.

Each player is unique, rare and embodies a different aspect of the game that I love. But that is not simply to say that this is the best team to ever play in the Premiership. This is a team of players who endeared themselves to me for various reasons, usually a mixture of personality and ability. So, without further ado, this is my line-up of the favourite players I have enjoyed watching in over the last twenty years with a quick explanation of why each player was included.

3-4-3 Formation:

Starting in goal. Peter Schmeichel was simply an outstanding goalkeeper. The iconic star jump saves, red nose and ear-full he would give his defenders live long in the memory and I am not sure if a better, more dominant keeper will ever grace the Premiership.

At the back I have opted for three 'hard bastards'. From a centre back all I ever want to see is a blatant disregard for both their own and their opponents well-being. The combination of Martin Keown, Neil 'Razor' Ruddock and Julian Dicks capture this mould of player perfectly.

With the nitty gritty of the team out the way, the rest of side is put together through consumate class. On to the midfield. First we have Patrick Vieira. A hybrid of strength and elegance, one of the most complete midfielders of the Premiership era. Next up is Jay-Jay Okocha, so good they named him twice. A regular feature on Soccer AM's 'Showboat' feature, the man excited whenever he touched the ball. He was never afraid to try the audacious and for that he must be applauded.

Paul Scholes is quite possibly, in my opinion, the best player the league has had. His passing and vision still impresses me seventeen years after he emerged on the scene. A small, understated man that was under-appreciated by the national team but has been at the heart of Manchester United's dominance of English football over the last two decades. Just in front of the ginger maestro I have opted for Georgi Kinkladze. His time at Manchester City in the mid-90s saw him become somewhat of a cult figure. His jinking runs and dribbling ability always astonished me. He scored remarkable solo goals and was always a joy to watch.

Now for the front three. This is where things got very difficult. I have gone for Eric Cantona to lead the line. The Frenchman had an arrogance, an air of infallibility about him that meant you could seldom take your eyes of him. Scorer of some stunning goals, utterer of some mind-altering philosophies, he had to make the team.

Behind him I have chosen two superb technicians. Perhaps the two finest. Bergkamp was class personified. The touch and vision of a demi-god and a footballing brain that should be pickled and kept in FIFA headquarters when he passes. While at Arsenal he made things that few other players can do look infuriatingly basic. Completing the team I have picked Zola. Like Bergkamp he had the technical ability that allowed him to do astonishing things with a football. However, his selection comes largely due to his attitude. Rarely did his trademark smile leave his face which is why he was loved by fans, not just at Stamford Bridge, across the country.

It is worth mentioning those who didn't quite make the cut; Stuart Pearce, Le Tissier, Asprilla, Di Canio, Giggs, Theirry Henry, Roy Keane and Vinnie Jones, I am very sorry.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Those who can, play. Those who can't, manage: Why great players don't usually make great managers

2011-02-05T14:34:00.001Z

Sometimes, possibly too many times in my case, you get things wrong. I spent much of 2010 criticising Martin Johnson's management of the England Rugby team. Now, however, I probably ought to hold my hands up and admit I got it wrong. This is not in response to England's win over Wales last night in the Six Nations opener, but rather for the way he has changed the whole team over the past couple of years.

Two years ago England needed fresh personnel and revised tactics. Johnson has, contrary to my belief that he was not the right man to do so, delivered with both. This is not a post about Martin Johnson though. I believed that Johnson was not the right man for the job because he was awarded the position for his reputation as a player, not a coach. This ultimately relates to the bigger question which I am going to explore today - do great players make great managers?

To examine this question I thought I would do some research. Using the current crop of twenty Premiership managers, I wanted to see how many medals they had between them, with the help of trusty Wikipedia of course. So here is a list of the league's managers with how many major trophies they won as a player – this includes top division league titles, domestic cups (but not Community shields or the like etc.), European competitions (again not including Super Cups) and International tournaments:

Arsenal – Arsène Wenger - 1

Aston Villa – Gérard Houllier - 0

Birmingham – Alex McLeish - 11

Blackburn – Steve Kean - 0

Blackpool – Ian Holloway - 0

Bolton – Owen Coyle - 0

Chelsea – Carlo Ancelotti - 13

Everton – David Moyes - 1

Fulham – Mark Hughes - 11

Liverpool – Kenny Dalglish - 23

Manchester City – Roberto Mancini - 10

Manchester United – Alex Ferguson - 0

Newcastle – Alan Pardew - 0

Stoke – Tony Pulis - 0

Sunderland – Steve Bruce - 9

Tottenham – Harry Redknapp - 0

West Brom – Roberto Di Matteo - 5

West Ham – Avram Grant - 0

Wigan – Roberto Martinez - 0

Wolves – Mick McCarthy - 3

Total = 87 – that is an average of 4.35 pieces of silverware gathered as players by the current group of Premier League managers.

OK, so what can we learn from this tedious number crunching? On this list of twenty, ten (50%) never lifted a major footballing trophy. Remove recently appointed Dalglish from this list and the average drops to 3.2. The point here is that with a handful of exceptions, the top managers in England right now were not remarkable players in any way. Great players do not make great managers, more often than not great managers did not shine on the pitch. But why?

It is not that complicated. The two are very different areas of expertise and often being an outstanding player will restrict your ability to teach others how to play. To use an example from outside of football, a MENSA member with an IQ of 170 could not necessarily teach an uninterested eight-year old child about the wonders of fractions. A simpler person would, on the other hand, probably have far more success.

The example if often applied to managers like Roy Keane. Very gifted players who are unable to appreciate how players of a lower quality cannot match his own high standards. The transition is a far from straight forward one. Being able to motivate, man-manage, coach, buy well in the transfer window, have tactical nous and deal with the men upstairs is a long way removed from being a successful footballer. It requires a different set of skills and characteristics that are not connected with being a superbly skilled player.

Diego Maradona serves as a good example of this. His record prior to getting the national job at Argentina was woeful. Yet he was entrusted with the role because he was an icon. A living legend. Unfortunately, his managerial skills do not in any way relate to his dribbling skills. He may gain immediate respect from the players and have charisma but he also opted for playing Jonás Manuel Gutiérrez at right-back in the World Cup. Enough said.

Martin Johnson may have proved me and many other doubters wrong over the last year. He remains, however, an exception to the rule that great players do not make great managers. Football has its own exceptions too, of course, both in past and present. On the list above there are some extremely talented players who are now managing at top clubs.

The news of Gary Neville's retirement also contributed to me deciding to write on this topic. The former United right-back has already earned many of the FA coaching badges and looks certain to coach and probably manage in the future. He was, love him or hate, a great player. Yet it must be remembered he was very successful within a great club, playing under a great manager. How he would fare as a manger himself with players of a lower quality than he had known thus far in footballing career is completely unknown.

My point - great players can make great managers but they are not great managers because they were great players. In fact the reality would appear to be that they succeed in spite of the fact that they were great players, something that often makes the transition into management more difficult.

Thoughts, comment and opinions please...

Intolerance in the Terraces

2011-02-01T23:29:00.000Z

It has been a dark fortnight for the game of football in the UK. After the sexist comments made by Sky Sports presenters Andy Grey and Richard Keys there was widespread public outrage. Understandably so, of course.

Due to the sheer volume of material produced about said incident, I have hitherto abstained from writing about it. Indeed, I still do not intend to revert back to all that has been said and done. The fact remains, though, that no one ought to have been in any way surprised by the views they held. Yes, the fact they had been foolish enough to broadcast these views on more than one occasion is perhaps somewhat surprising. Nevertheless, they merely showed us what we already knew – that such out-dated opinions are inherent within football.

The unpleasant truth lying behind the whole story is that football stadiums remain home to a minority of people who are, in some ways at least, very much behind the times. Some people, and it must be recognised as only being a minority of people, leave notions of acceptable social behaviour at the turnstiles and instead, for two hours every Saturday afternoon, act in ways that cannot be condoned in modern society. Unfortunately, we all know this to be true.

Sexism is just one area in which football is lagging behind the times. Homophobia and racism are also both far too commonplace within the game in this country.

There is widespread casual racism from the fans in all stadiums. Fans will unite to sing about how Park Ji Sung eats dogs, Adebayor's dad washes elephants and Kenwyne Jones sells watches on the beach. Although this cannot be deemed acceptable in any way, it remains a lighter side to the racism present in the terraces. This is the 'acceptable face of racism' that is all too widespread.

More concerningly however, there are pockets of football fanatics at stadiums up and down the country who partake in racial abuse every weekend that is much darker than these chants. When a black player goes to retrieve the ball, take a corner or is suspected of unsportsmanlike behaviour, they are subjected to obscenities that are more suited to the deep south of the USA in the 19^th Century than a 21^st Century developed country. These comments are not meant in a light-hearted manner but have far more disturbing and sinister motivations.

The reason I am writing this, not that a reason is necessarily needed to address an issue with such gravitas, is that today I began on the road to making a film about the racial intolerance that can be found in the terraces of football stadia in England. Hopefully working with the 'Let's Kick Racism out of Football' campaign, players of past & present and football clubs across the country, I will be:

Exploring just how commonplace and serious this problem is.
Examining why football stadiums act as hotbeds for such behaviour
Assessing what exactly is being done, and indeed what can be done, to eradicate this problem.

As such, this is almost certainly an issue that I will be returning to over the coming months as the project develops.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Andy Hughes: An example of what fans want to see in a player

2011-01-30T13:11:00.000Z

Fernando Torres is the latest in a line of players to hand in a transfer request so as to push forward a move away from his current club. As players' loyalties to clubs dwindle, Max Smithson looks back at Andy Hughes' Leeds United career and explains what he thinks it takes to win the fans hearts.

It’s 19^th April 2008 and Leeds are 1-0 up away at Millwall with 11 minutes left. Substitute Andy Hughes then finishes off a lovely passing move from all of two yards out to clinch Leeds United’s promotion back to the Championship at the first time of asking... or so it should have been. Had Leeds not been given a 15 point deduction at the start of that season, Hughes’ only goal for the club would have been one of the most talked about in Leeds’ history. Instead, it will only be revered by the 1,892 Leeds fans who made the trip to Millwall that day who can say that they witnessed the only goal and subsequent hilarious celebration of one of the most popular players to have worn the white shirt.

The reason for this article is that last week Hughes left Leeds for Scunthorpe United, much to the disappointment of all Leeds fans, not because he is especially talented, but because he embodied everything a fan wants a footballer to be. All too often these days we are seeing players becoming more and more out of touch with reality, and many fans are feeling alienated from the sport they love because of it. For us, footballers are living our dream. Turning out for the club we have supported all our lives every week and being paid handsomely for it. So many players seem to forget what a privileged position they are in and how much their work matters to the fans – just look at Rooney, Tevez and now Torres this season.

If these players who are becoming increasingly frustrating for fans took a leaf out of Andy Hughes’ book, football would be in a much better state. The efforts that Andy Hughes went to to make himself so widely loved by Leeds fans are not anything extraordinary but it these small gestures that fans appreciate so much, ensuring that they will always be behind you. The first of which is to always give 110%, right till the death. Hughes was always the first to admit that he was not the most gifted of players and did not have the same ability as others but to Leeds fans it did not matter because he always gave everything on the pitch. He wore his heart on his sleeve and never gave up. Fans love to see this sort of commitment because we would be doing the same if we were out there. We care so much about our teams, so it is great when we see a player playing as if he has as much passion as we do. It is this reason why it was so hard for us to watch England's abject performance at the World Cup. How could anyone appear to lack passion when playing in a World Cup for their country?

Secondly, a player must show his appreciation of the fans. This really does not take much effort but believe me, it counts for a lot. It only takes two minutes of a player’s time before his shower, but after you have travelled over 200 miles to Exeter to stand on an unsafe terrace in the pissing rain to watch your team lose 2-0 you feel the least the players can do is to come over to the away end and clap the fans a bit to thank you for your support. Hughes always did this, no matter what the result and he was always the last player left clapping. He was also looking to give something back to the fans and the community, attending fan events and being involved in LUDO (Leeds United Disabled Organisation) as well as other charity projects.

Finally, and probably the most important trait for fans in a player, is loyalty. Sadly, this is becoming an increasingly rare commodity in modern footballers. It is very unusual now that we see a player only playing for one club during his whole career but players such as Matt Le Tissier deserve huge credit to staying loyal to the club who gave them a career. It pains me to see youth players leave small teams for teams such as Chelsea despite not having made an appearance for the club which has spent many years developing them through the academy. They are convinced that this is the path to stardom but often they struggle to make an impression with so many quality players in front of them. Players are too quick to move for a better financial deal when the footballing aspect could be detrimental to their career.

The reason for Andy Hughes’ move to Scunthorpe is that they offered him an 18 month contract and with his contract at Leeds expiring at the end of the season, Hughes had to consider his long-term future. It is somewhat fitting that Hughes’ last appearance for Leeds (the draw with Arsenal at the Emirates) came almost exactly a year after the victory at Old Trafford, a match in which he had made Obertan look disticntly average. A great way to bring the curtain down on a Leeds career that will be fondly remembered for many years to come, showing that you do not have to be a special talent to win the hearts of the fans if you have the right attitude and commitment.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The Myth of Market Value

2011-01-25T11:03:00.001Z

It's January, just in case you were unaware, which of course means that we have the usual, steady flow of transfer action. Many managers choose to stay out of the bidding at this time of the year, most notably Ferguson and Wenger who rarely delve into their pockets mid-season through claims that 'there is no value in the market'.

The truth is surely that there is never any real value in the market. This because there is no set market price for players. Every transfer is based on a set of individual and changing circumstances. Having been slowly making my through the interesting book 'Pay as You Play: The true price of success in the Premier League era' by Paul Tomkins, Graeme Riley and Gary Fulcher, it is clear that there is a set criteria that will always determine the value of a transfer.

Position, age and ability of the player
The contract situation of the player
The needs of the two clubs
Respective financial situations of the two clubs involved – as Andrew Thomas recently wrote about.
Now, with the new home-grown rules implemented, the player's nationality.

These are all relatively straight forward. A goalkeeper is usually where you get best value for money. Often they are the least expensive and will play the most. Strikers, on the other hand, will always cost more in the transfer market. Why? Simply because goals are the most valuable commodity of the game. You can't win anything without them. Thus you will always pay above the standard rate for a player who can score them.

Age is self-explanatory. The older the player the less value there is their purchase. A young player can be bought cheaper as he is yet to realise his full potential and then developed and sold on – such is Wenger's tactics. Players in their prime, usually their mid-20s, will cost the most as you are buying the finished article, so to speak.

Obviously the vital factor is the ability of the player. This is where valuations will vary between clubs and fans. How much do we rate a certain player. This valuation will also vary depending on whether a team is in particular need of a winger or striker etc. A team in dire need of a left-back will be more likely to pay more than may appear fair for a player to fill that hole. Another team may have a surplus supply of mid-fielders (ahem-Tottenham) and therefore one of them could be purchased at a knock-down price.

The fourth criteria I have outlined is what will always make some transfers appear misleading. The easiest examples to use are those involving Chelsea or Manchester City. Clubs like this - who have huge financial backing - will more often than not face the problem of inflated price tags. The teams who own the players they want know they can demand over the market value from such wealthy clubs. Poorer clubs, in contrast, are much easier to pinch players off as they are not in as strong a position to resist the economic gain from selling one of their players. Clubs entering administration of who have been relegated are thus predictably vulnerable.

The fifth and final factor is also straight-forward. The inevitable consequence of enforcing Premier League squads to contain a higher proportion of English players is that the value of them in the transfer market increases considerably.

With all this in mind, it becomes far easier to understand why some transfer deals that may, at first glance, have raised a few eye-brows are not quite so baffling. Darren Bent may have cost £24million, which is £1.5million more than Torres cost Liverpool (calculated by the Current Transfer Purchase Price in 'Pay as you Play'), but he does have a better goal-scoring record since his move to Sunderland. Bent averages a goal in ever 1.73 games over the past 18 months compared to Torres' 1.84.

When you add the factors that Bent in English, Sunderland did not particularly need the money from the deal and it was in January, when clubs are more reluctant to lose key players, the Bent transfer makes far more sense. Is he a better player than Torres? Almost certainly not. But he fits the bill. He is what Aston Villa needed and when assessing the criteria above it is easier to understand why he cost them so much.

Ian Holloway declared that Liverpool's valuation of Charlie Adam (£4.5million) was “disgraceful”. Again, however, the factors must be considered. Blackpool are a much smaller club and thus do not have the same strength in financial negotiations. He also doesn't have the added bonus of being home-grown. Then there will be the difference in opinion over just how good the player is. Holloway may think he is better than he is because he is so integral to the Blackpool team. Liverpool may see him as a different player, performing a different role – one that does not warrant the 'big bucks'.

Ultimately, comparing transfer will prove fruitless. There are so many variant factors that is becomes extremely difficult to provide a price tag to any player that is not merely a reflection of the status of said player within the context of the place the two respective clubs find themselves in.

Thoughts, comment and opinions please...

Speaking Their Mind: Why footballers should be allowed to express their own opinions

2011-01-22T13:12:00.004Z

Today I was alerted to the fact that Clarke Carlisle appeared on Question Time on Thursday night. Immediately this connected with an issue which is becoming increasingly prominent in football and is something that I have considered writing about for the last few weeks. With the recent Twitter outbursts and the subsequent consequences of them, I think we must assess the role of the footballer within the media, not simply about the use of 140 characters as other people have talked about, but the wider and more important issue of their right to speak their mind.

Today the Guardian began a new weekly column called 'The Secret Footballer'. This column features the news and views of an unnamed insider, someone playing the game now and reporting on its issues. The latest member of the Guardian's writing team clarifies why it is that his identity must remain a secret due to his contractual agreement:

“The Player agrees that he will not knowingly do, write or say anything or omit to do anything which is likely to bring the club or the game of football into disrepute, cause the player or the club to be in breach of the rules or cause damage to the club or its officers or employees or any match official. Wherever circumstances permit the player shall give to the club reasonable notice of his intention to make any contributions to the public media in order to allow representations to be made to him on behalf of the Club if it so desires.”

Now, the first half of this is understandable. It stands to reason that a footballer, like anyone employed by a business or company, has to act within the rules of said employer. Thus, it seems only right that they are contractually obliged to not speak out in such a way that will comprise those who pay their wages. We must accept that.

There is, however, a fine line to be drawn on the matter of a football speaking their mind and the idea that a club must be forwarned if the player wishes to say anything publically seems unjust. We cannot and should not expect for footballers not to have opinions on all the same matters that we ourselves spend much of our time discussing. For a player to be criticised when offering an opinion on something, whether it be on Twitter or to the Press, seems intolerant and undemocratic. They may represent a club but they are also their own person and, shock horror, they have their own views on things. Playing footballer should not mean that you have to live in silence or, at least, in an uncontroversial state, until you are wheeled out to deliver the usual drivel in front of the cameras.

Glen Johnson recently had a controversial incident on Twitter. Having been criticised by Paul Merson on Soccer Saturday, Johnson replied by saying that he was not going to concern himself with the criticisms of an 'average' player who has suffered from addictions. This cannot be condoned insofar as he has launched an attack on a person's past private life having himself been criticised in a professional sense. That being said, I remain adamant that a player, like any other person, has the fundamental right to speak their mind as long, of course, it is conducted in the right manner.

Ryan Babel just a few days later put up a picture of Howard Webb skilfully photo-shopped to be shown wearing a Manchester United shirt (see above). He was fined by the FA. Is this fair? Thousands of people had commented on Webb having a poor refereeing performance at Old Trafford that day. Again, like Johnson, he may have voiced his opinion in the wrong way. Nevertheless, he is fully entitled to say if he feels aggrieved by something as Johnson has the right to reply to criticisms made by Merson.

The repercussions of both of these outbursts, in terms public reaction and FA action, were relatively harsh. I fear we may be setting a worrying precedent.

There are few things more frustrating than the pre-match press conference or the post-match interview. They are constructed like Frankenstein's monster using a collection of hideous clichés and standardised comments straight from 'The Footballers Guide to Dealing With The Press'. “At the end of the day... we played well today... it was a game of two halves... I am happy to have scored but the most important thing is that we got the three points.” Words that have become almost void of meaning.

There seem to be automatic responses to predictable questions. There may be truth behind the same old lines we hear but a fear of offering an opinion in front of the praying Press, who are hungry for the slightest bit of controversy, has rendered players mere puppets in a very boring show. The more that players were to speak their mind, the more use to it we would become and, in turn, the less of a shock it would be when a player did stray from the status quo. Let them speak their mind and then judge them on the merit of their point, do not criticise them for simply offering an opinion.

Clarke Carlisle; Burnley defender, Countdown Champion and Chairman of the PFA, appeared on Question Time last weekn and acquited himself, in my opinion, very well. His intelligence is well known and I am certainly not advocating that footballers featuring on Dimbleby's show becomes a regular occurrence. For me though, it highlights that footballers do, of course, have opinions on things outside of the game and the fact that just because they are under contract at a club ought not to mean that they are unable to express their opinions.

We may deem their opinions to be wrong. Sometimes they may not voice them in a way we believe to acceptable. But could the same not be said about any other member of the public doesn't everyone? My views on this blog are sometimes criticised. That is the simple joy of differences I opinions. It is what we want to hear, it is what helps save us from the mundane. In the modern game I think that a player trying to expressive his views, whether it be about footballer or any things else, should be embraced and encouraged lest we continue the monotonous trend of predictably dull interviews. This is, after all, why we all share a love for characters like Ian Holloway, because they are both rare and refreshing.

After today's set of fixtures must of us will sit and Match of the Day and the repetitive set of post-match chat. I think it would be great to see a player come out and speak their mind, not in a way that would harm their club but in a way that would give us some actual insight into their thoughts and feelings about a particular incident or issue.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Time: Football's most precious resource

2011-01-18T11:37:00.004Z

Earlier this month I wrote about football being a 'results business'. Now, as I struggle along with work, Sam Poplett has written this superb follow up on the all too short shelf-life of Premiership managers. You can read Sam's other works over at www.chelsea.vitalfootball.co.uk or you can follow him on Twitter...

It won’t have gone unnoticed to observers and fans but football is fast losing its greatest and most important resource of them all: time. Forget about how the influx of money and foreign players has rejuvenated the English game into one of the most watched on the planet and think about how those factors, amongst a great deal more besides, have contributed to the situation we currently experience in the Premier League.

It’s staggering to note that the average tenure for three-quarters of the 20 current Premier League managers is just a smidgeon over a year. Arsene Wenger, David Moyes, Mick McCarthy, Sir Alex Ferguson and Tony Pulis are the quarter not represented in that statistic, their average tenure stands at a much more impressive 11-and-a-half years. In fact, it’s even more incredible when you look beyond the averages towards the total years in charge; that aforementioned quarter have a total of 57.5 years in charge at their current clubs whilst the other 15 managers have a grand old total of just 17 years

Looking at the most recent previous managers of the three-quarter segment indicates an average incumbent of just a smidgeon under 2 years, so there is clearly evidence there that the problem of time, or a serious lack thereof, is prevalent and is becoming increasingly more so.

It is wrong, though, to point the finger at the influx of foreign owners into the English game; it is not a question of whether an owner is Russian, American or British but rather whether they are patient, understanding and willing to give their manager time. See Mike Ashley at Newcastle United as the perfect example; he’s British, he’s been a successful businessman and made many millions but he doesn’t have a clue about football. The sacking of Chris Hughton earlier this season was rightly condemned throughout the game, another example of how Ashley hasn’t the knowledge, or the patience, to run a football club.

In football terms, more often that not, time is rewarded with success. How does anybody expect a manager to come into a football club, adapt to the new surroundings, new players and new coaches and put his footballing philosophy into place in three or four months? How on earth can you hold somebody accountable for failure when you’ve only given them 14 weeks in the job? It’s an old football pearl of wisdom but Manchester United would shudder at the mere thought of what would have happened if Sir Alex Ferguson had been stopped, judged and harangued after six months of his United reign.

One must be understanding of the precarious nature of life near the bottom of the Premier League table. The threat of relegation and the subsequent exodus of star players and financial devastation will be in the forefront of the chairman’s mind every morning. But how often have quick-fix sackings and rash appointments worked for clubs in the long haul? Usually it is the panic and scare mongering in the boardroom that drives the hierarchy’s decision to let the axe fall, the accountant’s constant reminders of repayments and creditors are what tips chairmen over the edge.

Take Gerard Houllier at Aston Villa, a man four months into his job and already under immense pressure and scrutiny. He’s come in with his different methods and ways of working (some may say outdated but who are we to judge on that?) and people expect him to emulate his predecessor, Martin O’Neill, within weeks. He’s yet to even make a single transfer signing of his own (the free signing of Pires aside) but already there are people calling for his head.

Look at Carlo Ancelotti at Chelsea, a man who won the league and FA Cup double last season in his first campaign in English football. Clearly he is a top-class manager and yet, once the first signs of the brown stuff hitting the fan emerge, his head is next on the chopping block. Forget about the fact that the Chelsea board sold several key squad members in the summer without replacing them adequately, and against Ancelotti’s wishes. Forget about the fact Ray Wilkins, Ancelotti’s trusted right-hand man, was sacked so unceremoniously a couple of months into the season.

Football is such a results-based business that a lot of people actually do forget all about those factors and look just at what happens on the pitch; if you’re winning then you’re the best in the world, if you’re losing then you might as well start clearing your desk already. There’s no middle ground, there’s no understanding and there’s certainly no time allowed to regroup and put things right.

Gladly, it appears both Randy Lerner and Roman Abramovich, the respective owners of Villa and Chelsea, continue to back their managers. Lerner has apparently given the green light for Houllier to sign Sunderland’s Darren Bent for a reported £18m, a sign that he has absolute and unwavering support for his manager. It’s a most welcome sign. Even Abramovich, so often in the past a man not concerned with wielding the axe if results fall below par, seems to be showing some compassion in giving Ancelotti support and the time to turn things round.

However, for every Houllier there is a Hodgson, and for every Ancelotti there is a Grant. Roy Hodgson, of course, was dismissed from Liverpool after just half a season in the job, a ridiculous amount of time for anyone to make an impact. Avram Grant, the West Ham United manager, is a nailed-on certainty to follow Hodgson in the great Premier League sack race, also after just five months in the job. The saving grace for John Henry and the Gold-Sullivan-Brady troupe, the respective owners, is that neither Hodgson nor Grant were their appointments. And we all know how much owners like ‘their own man’ in the job. It’s fair enough; if you’re looking at investing a couple of hundred million pounds into a business you want to be sure it’s in safe hands. Likewise for transfer money, you can perhaps understand the Liverpool board’s unwillingness to let Hodgson spend more of their money after some of his dubious recent signings.

Yet there has to be some accountability. Everyone at Liverpool has commented on how Hodgson was never the right man for the job but someone at the club appointed him, someone headhunted him and decided he was the best available on the market. Similarly at West Ham, some bright spark thought it was a good idea to give Avram Grant the manager’s job! And, so often, these guarded executives never get hauled out and asked why. Until there’s greater responsibility and answerability of those who are in charge of recruitment, football clubs will always have someone to hide behind when things go awry.

Ask any manager in the game and it’s doubtless that most, if not all of them, would forsake £10m, £20m, even £30m in transfer money for a bit more of that most precious of resources in football: time. Sir Alex is fast approaching his 25^th anniversary at United, undoubtedly he wouldn’t have achieved all that he has without the vast sums of money he’s had the luxury of spending over the years.

But he also wouldn’t have got past the first six months without the time and support he’s received from the board. It’s doubtful whether he’d have even lasted six months in today’s climate. Certainly the chances of us seeing another manager spend a quarter of a century at one club look very unlikely indeed.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

My Premiership XI of the League's Biggest Villains

2011-01-16T15:13:00.000Z

There is light at the end of the tunnel. The work is nearly complete and normal blogging should be resumed very soon. In the mean time, while watching part of the Sunderland vs Newcastle game today I gained inspiration for a possible post. Seeing Joey Barton triggered the idea of constructing another one of my Premiership XI's.

Having done the best and worst signings last month, I have now put together a team of Premiership villains. The players that are widely hated by fans at every other club other than their own. The ones that are booed in every away stadium they play in. The footballers we love to hate. So here is my team of the XI most hated players currently featuring in the Premiership, playing an unorthodox 4-3-3:

GK: Manuel Almunia (Arsenal)

DEF: Gary Neville (Manchester United) - captain

DEF: John Terry (Chelsea)

DEF: William Gallas (Tottenham)

DEF: Ashley Cole (Chelsea)

MID: El-Hadji Diouf (Blackburn Rovers)

MID: Joey Barton (Newcastle United)

MID: Nigel De Jong (Manchester City)

ST: Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

ST: Didier Drogba (Chelsea)

ST: Emmanuel Adebayor (Manchester City)

So let's run through the team quickly. Almunia has been given the gloves because he is a player who neutrals seem to love see fail. He has a tendency to whine and make a fool of himself. As far as goalkeepers go, he is the only real pantomime villain we have and has continued in the proud tradition that Jens Lehmann left behind.

The defence was far more straight forward. Gary Neville may well be the most detested man in the Premiership. He is the face of the most strongly opposed team in the league and has never been shy of ruffling the feathers of opponents and their fans. He also an an uncanny knack for getting away with very bad challenges. In the centre of defence we have John Terry - the man who was stripped of the England captaincy for his adulterous behaviour with a team-mates ex-partner. Alongside him we have quite possibly the most temperamental players in the country William Gallas who is never shy of a good sulk and a moan. He has also moved to rival clubs twice in his career which does not help either. Completing the back-line, Ashley Cole – a well-documented money grabbing tit. Enough said.

In the midfield we have a fine selection of controversial players. On the right of the three we have the abuse-hurling, saliva-spitting, simulation expert himself, El-Hadji Diouf. In the centre of the park is De Jong. The Dutchman has split fans, some enjoy his physical approach to the game while many accuse him of being reckless and dangerous. On the left of the three is Joey Barton - a man who has had brawls with strangers, opponents and his own team-mates (although it seems those days are behind him).

Finally the three up top. Firstly we have Wayne Rooney. Rooney was exposed in September for having an affair. The saga that then followed involving his contract renegotaitions did little to help his cause. Add to this the fact that he also has had to carry a weighty majority of the blame for England's woeful World Cup due to his dismal performances. Alongside him is Didier Drogba. Drogba seems to embrace his villainous role. He has never shied from going to ground easily for such a strong man and rarely bites his tongue when it comes to letting the referee or other players know what he thinks. The last of the strike trio is Emmanuel Adebayor. His celebration when he scored for City against Arsenal did little to help his cause but his over-sized ego and under-sized work-rate had already earned him a reputation as one of the league 'baddies'.

So there it is. I think if this team did ever play together, there would be such rage that the heads of football fans across the country would probably implode. Other players who failed to make the cut include Bendtner, Nani, Balotelli and Lee Bowyer.

These teams always spark a bit of debate as inevitably our opinions and views of certain players vary so much. So let me know who you think did or did not deserve to make this team.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

NFL Preview: Elegant Patriots Play The Classless Jets

2011-01-13T21:57:00.002Z

With the NFL now in its exciting post-season period, Gary Molloy is on hand to offer us his take on what promises to be an intriguing Playoff match between the Patriots and Jets...

Sunday sees the return of one of the biggest rivalries in the National Football League. The New York Jets travel to Foxbourgh, Massachusetts to face the number one seeds in the NFL the New England Patriots.

What a season it has been for the 14-2 New England Patriots. They started the season with very little hype around them, the fans still hurt about last years trimming at home in the playoffs at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens. It wasn't until a 28-14 defeat by the Jets in game 2 and the subsequent trade of Randy Moss that a formidable monster was unleashed. The Patriots went on to end the year 13-1 after this defeat by their arch rivals. Their offense looking absolutely menacing, quarterback Tom Brady had so many options to pick with a pass that it didn't matter if someone was residing on 'Revis Island.' Whether it was Branch, Welker, Woodhead, Green-Ellis or rookie Gronkowski, Tom Brady always had multiple options on the football field which will keep the opposing defense guessing.

What pulled this whole season together for New England was their ingenious and undemonstrative coach Bill Belichick. Belichick's hunger for the game is truly inspiring, starting this year with numerous rookies, then trading their franchise wide receiver, one would be forgiven to think the Patriots were going through a transition period. Adversely the Patriots produced astonishing season which saw them finish as the best team in all of the NFL.

If you are looking from a far, it seems like the New York Jets' season has gone how they would have wished so far. Finishing a solid 11-5 Wild Card team behind the best team in the NFL in the AFC East is nothing to be ashamed of. However, the Jets have dealt with a wide scope of embarrassing off-the-field and on-field issues this season. I can summarize the many incidents the organization has encountered this season with the following list: (please feel free to google each incident for a guaranteed laugh):

Hard Knocks (Ryan's loud mouth, his war of words with Tony Dungy)
Darrelle Revis contract holdout
Ines Sainz (Jets players heckled sexy media worker)
Star Wide Receiver Braylon Edwards DUI
Brett Favre's trial by the NFL for sending inappropriate photos of himself to a Jets co-worker (in 2008 while Favre was with the Jets)
Foot fetish videos emerge of coach Rex Ryan's and his wife
Sal Alosi & Tripgate (see below)

Last weekend the Jets produced a notable victory against Peyton Manning's (severally depleted) Indianapolis Colts. So then this week began the build-up for Sunday's match up. I foolishly thought the Jets (who are currently 9.5 point underdogs) might keep their heads down and not provoke Belichick's army. How wrong was I? The egotistical Rex Ryan has so far spent the whole week trash talking Belichick and the New England organization. My favourite Ryan quote: "This is about Bill Belichick versus Rex Ryan. There's no question, it's personal."

It could be argued that coach Ryan is trying to take some much needed attention off his team, particularly the under performing second season QB Mark Sanchez. Although a quick look at Ryan's history and I truly believe he considers it a personal match up, however against a three-time Superbowl winning coach it is a match up he is grossly under qualified to consider 'personal.' Finally, cornerback Antonio Cromartie's comments during the week for me summarize this Jets organization as the classless pretenders they are: "We really don't give a damn, to tell you the truth. ... [He's] an ass----. F--- him."

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Jimmy Hogan: A father of total tootball and pioneer of the modern game

2011-01-11T19:24:00.001Z

The annual January crush is upon us. Work loads sore and deadlines loom for all students. Because of this I am struggling to find the time to write a new post today. Instead, for the team being, I thought I would put up a piece that I originally wrote for lesrosbifs.net (a fantastic website that focuses on the fate of English players and managers who apply their trade abroad). Normal blogging should hopefully be resumed soon.

This is an article about Jimmy Hogan for lesrosbif.net's Hall of Fame series which features all the former great Englishmen to have enjoyed success away from our shores, such as Bobby Robson, Ray Wilkins, David Platt and Steve McManaman. A piece was written about each of the 21 Hall of Fame finalists, each by a different guest writer, and was then judged by a panel of former players and current writers. After all that, Jimmy Hogan emerged victorious. Don't know who he is? Have a read about one of the fathers of total football and a true pioneer of the modern game...

Fifty-seven years ago the revolution of European football began. On the 25^th November 1953 Hungary travelled to Wembley to take on an England team that had never lost an International football match on home soil. On that fateful day the East-European team taught the creators of football a lesson in how the game was going to be played in the modern era. The mastermind behind that historical performance, Jimmy Hogan.

Hungary tore England’s tried-and-tested WM formation apart at the seams that day, winning the match 6-3. The Hungarian team displayed superior technique and tactics making Walter Winterbottom’s England team look disturbingly out-dated. Hogan, who sat in the crowd with the Aston Villa youngsters he was coaching at the time, watched his career’s work of teaching a new brand of total football come to fruition on that Wembley pitch.

Hogan was born in Nelson, Lancashire in 1882. He enjoyed a playing career as a skilful inside forward at various English clubs between 1902 and 1913, but it was for his work as a coach that he has gained such notoriety within the football world.

His desire to turn to coaching came in 1910 after Bolton’s summer tour to Holland, after which he vowed to return and “teach them how to play.” Indeed, while still playing the game, Hogan worked on the continent serving as manager of Holland and Austria Vienna before he then retired in 1913 to pursue his passion of becoming a full-time manager.

He found himself in Austria when World War I began. As an ‘enemy’ to the Austrians he was thrown in jail before being allowed to go to Hungary where we worked MTK Budapest. Hogan bought new levels of professionalism to the game. He combined higher levels of fitness with technical coaching and tactical nous to advance any team he worked with on to higher levels. While the English game was static with complacency, Hogan was fathering a new approach to the game, an approach that later became known as ‘total football’.

His brand of football that he created with great success at MTK, leading them to consecutive titles in 1917 and 1918, married attractive, free-flowing football with superior technique and meticulous tactical training. It was the start of a journey that would lead Hungary to that victory at Wembley in 1953 which shook the football world.

Hogan enjoyed sustained success in Hungary in the 1920s, as well as leading the Swiss national side to the final of the 1924 Olympics, the countries greatest football success in their history. In the 1930s he worked with the famous coach Hugo Meisl with whom he led the Austrian national side, known as the ‘Wunderteam’, to unprecedented success. The team had a dominant and destructive fourteen game unbeaten streak between 1931 and 1932. They won the 1932 Central European International Cup and were semi-finalists in 1934 World Cup, which they were favourites to win.

He returned to Britain at the end of the 1930s to go on to work with Aston Villa, Fulham and Celtic. He tragically never managed England due to his rather non-Anglo philosophy and the view of the FA that he was a “traitor” for applying his trade in Europe during the war.

Nevertheless, his emphasis on greater ball-control, attacking freedom, quick passing, better conditioning and creative flair changed the way the game was played. Those fortunate to work with him or play under him had nothing but praise for the man they recognised at the time to be a true legend of the sport.

Hogan is a pioneer of modern football in every sense of the word. He is quite possibly England’s most successful managerial export. The work he did across Europe as a coach and manager transformed the sport of football into the beautiful game we have today.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Some Thoughts on Manchester United vs Liverpool and the Bigger Issues it Raised

2011-01-09T16:44:00.000Z

Today's FA Cup tie between Manchester United and Liverpool, like any football match, contained key turning points, namely, a controversial penalty decision and red card. Watching the match, you see such events unfold and can already predict the inevitable furore and debate that will follow.

People will always be divided on such key incidents and with them larger discussions will usually arise concerning the state of the game and the problems that seem to haunt it. Berbatov dived. Didn't he? There was contact from the defender, albeit very minimal. No one would condone such blatant acts of 'simulation' and yet it can be argued that if a defender is going to be foolish enough to stick a leg out in the box then he should expect the worst. Nevertheless, it was not a penalty and it was an example of a footballer cheating the referee with ultimately decisive consequences.

Likewise, Gerrard's tackle on Michael Carrick, that left Liverpool down to ten men for an hour of the match at Old Trafford, will too split opinions. People say that we want to see strong challenges in the game, it is part of its attraction. Others would argue that he did, indeed, use unnecessary force and warrant his punishment. Gerrard left the ground and lunged in, in what was surely an honest attempt to win the ball and increase the urgency from his team. It was, ultimately a dangerous tackle which deserved the red card, in my eyes at least.

Liverpool fans will say that Howard Webb single-handedly cost them the match. Others would say that they beat themselves by making the mistakes that we see impact games week-in-week-out. These debates are, of course, the reason we love football. Such differences in opinions, interpretations and preferences towards the game of football is why it can and does dominate so much of our time.

Moving past that aside about the virtues of football chatter, let's look at the wider issue raised in the game today. Simulation. Berbatov's act of simulation, diving, cheating or whatever you may want to call it proved to be the decisive moment in the match. The Bulgarian has claimed that there was enough contact to force him to go to ground but the replays appear to clearly contradict that. The only way, in my opinion, that such incidents can be eradicated from the game is through severe repercussions.

If the FA or FIFA want to help remove this problem then a firmer stance must be taken. Fining Rivaldo a fraction of his weekly wage for rolling on the floor, clutching his face in the 2002 World Cup when a ball struck him on the shin (which in turn saw his Turkish opponent given a red card) is barely a deterrent. A slap on the wrist for Theo Walcott's dive yesterday, regardless of the fact he went on to apologise for it, is not an example that needs to be set. Stronger sanctions must be implemented, for example, a new fair play system that would prevent these acts of simulation from being so commonplace.

Such a system would have to involve cases being reviewed by a governing body after the match and then suitable punishments awarded. This may include suspensions for players, which would increase for repeat offenders, and reductions in prize money for clubs. Thus after today's match, Berbatov could be given a one match ban (or perhaps his first and final warning) and Manchester United could be fined 5% of their FA Cup prize money.

That hurriedly thought out system may never work but the fact remains, changes need to be made. There will more obvious cases of diving throughout the rest of the season, some will be met with a yellow card for the simulator, some with a foul being unjustly awarded and others with a simple gesture from the referee for the player to return to his feet. Either way, it is an issue that ought to be addressed so as to prevent it from detracting from the other aspects of the game that we want to talk about.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

An Ode To England's Ashes Performance

2011-01-07T01:00:00.001Z

So the result that we were all patiently waiting to be confirmed has been emphatically delivered with another victory by an innings, the third in the series. I have avoided commenting on the Ashes throughout the Winter due to the sheer quantity of material available and my own difficulties in being able to watch the action live. Yet it seems unfair not to write something about what has been a quite remarkable Ashes winning series from England, even if the post is not original in its analyse or content.

Before a ball had been bowled I had predicted a 3-1 series win for England. I certainly did not, however, envisage such a sublimely dominant tour for the visitors. Superlatives have been rightly thrown around as over-by-over England, whether it be with bat or ball, grinded their rivals into a slow and painful submission. Some may criticise the woeful Australian performance but let them worry about that. They contributed to their own downfall, no one would question that, but it ought not to detract from or diminish England's achievements over the past two two months.

There are so many positive facets to the England team and their performances that ought to be mentioned that it would be impossible for me to talk about them all and deliver any justice upon their excellence. Records have tumbled, outstanding stats will remain to be drooled over, careers have been made and ended and all the while England received the plaudits.

Each one of the batsmen, apart from Collingwood who I will go on to talk about, has contributed huge runs at one time or another in the series. Strauss has been steady and consistent at the top of the order. As a captain, along with his partner Andy Flower, he deserves a lot of credit for the series victory. It was the result of a long-term process that has transformed the team from the dark days in the West Indies two years ago. They have picked a team and backed it consistently. They have built confidence, corrected problems and created an extremely competitive, focused ethos that has been clear to see in Australia. Strauss has though, contrary to what I and many others believed the case would be before the series began, been overwhelming eclipsed with the bat by his opening partner Alastair Cook.

Cook has had a career-defining Ashes and deserves the award for 'Man of the Series'. After a superb start to his Test career many felt that the promising left-hander had been found out, his technical deficiencies exposed and exploited. Yet these flaws have been resoundingly corrected. I do not doubt that confidence has played the main role in this transformation. He looks like a player reborn compared to the one even in the warm-up matches back in November. Coupled with this he has addressed the problems of playing with a stiff front leg and allowing his head to fall out of line with the ball which had made him susceptible to both lbw decisions and edging fuller delivers when attempting the drive. He has remained resolute in his defensive play and capitalised on the wayward deliveries, of which there has been many. His patience and concentration have been a lesson to any player wanting to play as an opening batsmen in Test cricket. Cook has stuck to his strengths of playing square of the wicket off the back foot while correcting his weaknesses which has allowed him to drive pitched-up deliveries and this, in turn, has enabled him to torment the Aussies with devastating consequences. He has been simply phenomenal.

Trott and Pietersen meanwhile have both contributed scores, and big scores at that, at various points of the series. The South Africa-born duo have been steady performers in the middle order in very different ways though. Trott has played with unalterable composure and confidence. He, like Cook, has demonstrated all the mental characteristics required of a top class number three. He scores off the balls he feels comfortable to score off and is always completely assured of his own game. This appreciation of his own strengths and weaknesses allows for him to limit his own errors and maximise his talents. Pietersen, on the other hand, has played with the class and flair we all know him to be capable of. His double ton helped him to silence doubters and since then he has looked in fantastic form, even if he has failed to make the big scores.

Bell has looked every inch the great technician that people have always said he was. He has been unfortunate to be stuck at sixth in the order but when called upon he has added valuable runs and has done so in elegant style. Prior too has chipped in with big runs while also having an almost faultless series with the gloves. While the tail, although it has rarely been needed to score runs with any great importance, has also shown itself capable of helping to exacerbate the misery of the lowly Australians.

The bowling has been perhaps even more impressive. While the Aussies have seldom looked like being able to claim twenty English wickets, the English attack has been menacing in nearly every innings. The English scores may have made the Australian pitches look flat and batsmen-friendly but the English bowlers have responded by teaching the hosts how to take wickets in their own backyard.

Anderson has answered any remaining questions over whether he could be dangerous in the conditions Down Under when the ball did not swing as much. He kept the ball at a good length and exploited anything the conditions or the wicket offered. When there has been nothing on offer he has remained disciplined and accurate.

He has been admirably supported by all the fast bowlers who have accompanied him, namely Finn, Tremlett and Bresnan. They too have understood the conditions and pitches and successfully got the most out of them. Moreover, they rarely gave the Aussies easy runs. They were relentlessly dangerous. As an all-round attack they could not have been much better and their bowling coach, the Australian David Saker, must take a large amount of credit for this.

Swann meanwhile, the man who many predicted would make the difference in the series, has not been called upon nearly as much as many assumed. When he has though, Swann was able to tie-up an end, providing valuable rest for the seamers. He did take wickets but he was simply not required often due to the stunning performances from the rest of the attack.

In the field England continued the level of excellence that has been characteristic of the side's emergence as a great team in all forms of the game. This is again a testament to the hard work and effort that the side puts in.

A quick word on Paul Collingwood. The ginger-top from Durham announced his retirement from Test cricket before Day four of the final Test as he believes now is the time for him to make way for new talent to emerge in the Test side. He may have struggled with the bat in the series but he has been an invaluable member of the team for the last five years. Let us not forget his gritty, match-saving innings at Cardiff that ultimately won England the last Ashes. Or the fact he averaged 57.33 in England's difficult tour of South Africa last year. He scores big runs at crucial times, can take wickets (or at least be an option in bowling rotation) and has for a long time been considered one of the finest fielders in the sport. Furthermore, he is also has excellent work ethic, leadership and mental toughness. He is a fantastic all-round player. His medium pace cutters and somewhat ugly batting style may never gain him the plaudits he deserves but his contribution to the team warrants due recognition.

So there you have it. In reality I could have done a post on each of the players in the team and still not done them justice. It may have been a long and unashamedly patriotic post but these moments are to be savoured by any follower of the England cricket team. They went to Down Under, crushed the Aussies and retained the Ashes in style. Now all that is left to do is enjoy it.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Talent Versus Luck: How fine is the line dividing the good from the great players?

2011-01-05T01:45:00.000Z

Polly's Pause for Sport was recently awarded the honour of being named on the Guardian's list of 100 football blogs to follow in 2011 (this is not, by the way, meant to be an ego-inflating, own-back-patting introduction). I am well aware that there are very good blogs with very good writers around which did not make the list just because they were not spotted. With that in mind I wanted to look at an idea that has troubled for a little while now and see what people thought. This idea is the balance between talent and luck in football.

Over the past couple of years I have had an ongoing debate with a number of people about just what it takes to become a professional football. We as football fans often make the mistake of assuming that the best players always rise to the top while those of a lower pedigree remain with the smaller clubs or in the lower division. But is this always the case?

My argument has often been that some footballers, and some is the important word here, are where they are due to good fortune rather than their own talents. Moreover, if a player considered to be little more than average were to move to a much better team then they could suddenly look much improved. Before I begin though, I would like to make a two things clear. Firstly, as I have just stated, I am referring to a minority of players. I fully accept that great players or the majority of players applying the trade at the best clubs are simply far more talented footballers. Secondly, I accept, of course, that all professional footballers are very talented, I am not suggesting that some of these are actually bad players.

To clarify the point I am trying to make in this post I will use the example of Sergio Busquets as Spain and Barcelona's holding midfielder epitomises my views. Here is a player who is certainly talented. The question is though, is he anywhere near the same class as his team-mates of club and country?

Busquets performs a role and does it well. I would not try and deny that. Again to stress, nor is he a bad player. My point is that he, in my opinion, is replaceable. His job is made easy by the fact he is playing in one of the greatest teams of modern football who are unparalleled in their ability to keep the ball and also have an excellent defence. I cannot help but to feel that there are other midfielders in the world who could perform the same role just as well. Could other players, themselves not great, like Fabrice Muamba, Michael Carrick or Barry Ferguson not play a similar way with similar success in such a side as Busquets does?

To put it another way, if Busquets were to swap places with Muamba, for example, would he shine out as a world-class central midfielder playing with Bolton in the Premiership? If Busquets came through the Almeria youth system (assuming he emerged at the same quality as he did through the Barcelona youth system), would he ever rise to the top of world football as he has done? I have my doubts. I am aware that this is a controversial point. That is why I this debate has been ongoing for so long.

Likewise, a player like Darren Gibson is a well utilised member of the Manchester United squad. However, he too fails to inspire. He may well capture several Premiership Winner medals through his career if he was to stay at Old Trafford but if he were not so lucky it is not a long stretch of the imagination to think he could spend a career as nothing more than a decent player at a decent club.

Supposedly great players can sometimes move from a great club to a worse one and often be found out to not be as great as many once thought. A player like Xavi, Gerrard, Ronaldo or Messi would always stand out as a different class of player to the rest of players on the pitch, regardless of the level they were playing at. These kind of players are a whole different kettle of fish. It is the players who are part of great teams but themselves are not players who could be called remarkable in any way. Could Stephen Warnock from Aston Villa, to pluck a random name out of the air, be switched with Alvaro Arbeloa at Real Madrid and look anymore out of place? How much does the team make the player and how much are these players really superior to their fellow players?

To reverse the way we look at it, could players who may not be thought of as anything special move to bigger clubs and look a lot better? The better teams keep the ball more, create more chances and are, of course, more dominant. As such a player who is struggling to make a name for themselves at a small club could secure a move to a big club and look like a better play than they are.

The underlying point here is that there is an element of luck that can override talent when it comes to making a career as a professional footballer. Busquets can emerge through the Barcelona youth ranks and be embedded in a superb team and make a career winning titles. Yet could he not be replaced with Lucas at Liverpool or Mikel at Chelsea? Busquets is not at Barcelona because he is the best in that position. Nor is he fantastically talented. He is there because he has talent and was fortunate to be put in a great team that allows him to perform his role far easier than it would at any other club where he might look far more average.

Many, indeed most, players will rise through the ranks if they are good enough. Some now are promoted ahead of their talent while others around them are left shackled to poorer teams, unable to shine.

I am sure this will split opinion so I would very much like to hear what people think about the debate. Who playing in great teams around the world is replaceable? Who could play in these great teams and not look out of place?

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Football is a Results Business: Why managers losing their jobs is an understandable part of the modern game

2011-01-02T15:32:00.000Z

The celebrations are over, the hangovers have just about faded away, 2011 is up and running. And with the new year comes the inevitable resolutions for self-improvement. They are often unrealistic targets and are usually abandoned before we enter February. With that in mind, I thought it would be apt to look at the life of Premiership managers who live their lives attempting to meet the high targets set for them and who, like our new year resolutions, are often abandoned as swiftly as they came.

At this time of the season everyday is filled with mounting pressures and increased speculation for Premiership managers. In a season when two managers, Hughton and Allardyce, have already been released by their respective clubs in baffling circumstances it seems as though the next casualty is not far away. With half the season completed and the transfer window reopened the question must be asked, when is the right time for changing managers?

Obviously, each case must be judged on its own unique merits. In my opinion though, and I said it following the Hughton sacking, patience will usually prove more beneficial than knee-jerk reactions. The old cliché may say that it is a results business and ultimately that is true. What chairmen must remember, however, is that managers need time. Every manager comes with their own football philosophy, style of play and certain types of players they like to utilise. It takes time for these managerial preferences to be implemented. If they are allowed the time then the results can often follow.

With all that being said, we cannot and should not be surprised when a manager is given the proverbial and unceremonious boot out the door. Football is a business. It is therefore no surprise that it is run that way. Targets are made and faith is placed in certain individuals, namely the manager, to hit those targets. When clubs fall below expectations or the faith is lost in the manager then a change is to be expected.

The problem is often that a board sets their targets too high or do not give a manager a suitable amount of time to try and reach their assigned targets. Nevertheless, there is no room for sentiment in football. There are people who do harder jobs for much less money who live their lives by the same rules. If you do not perform as expected or desired then you can expect to lose your job and they don't usually receive the kind of pay-off that many managers are handed as they pack their bags.

Incidents like those at Newcastle and Blackburn this season were, of course, all together different. Both managers had their clubs over-performing and yet still lost their jobs, hence the widespread indignation at the decisions by friends and foes of the respective clubs alike. These are cases when the owners of a club clearly did not have the faith, rightly or wrongly, in the manager to take the club in the direction they wanted. Alternatively, there may have been a breakdown in relations between manager and board and we are all too aware that a manager will never win such a conflict. Of course they wont, they are not the ones who own the clubs.

For all those who follow football it is impossible to separate our own passions from the game. That is why we usually do not like to see managers sacked. A love for the game, attachment to certain clubs or feelings about particular managers or individuals can cloud the unavoidable fact that football is also a money-making machine. Premiership survival or European qualification is a matter of well-documented, massive financial gain for the owners. They do what they believe is best to help them achieve their targets.

Roy Hodgson may be a nice man who has done great things in the past, but he has proven himself unable to help Liverpool to progress. In fact, they have got worse this season. Blame can be directed at Rafa Benitez but Roy Hodgson has a squad that ought to be much higher than ninth. Liverpool have been unconvincing even when they have won and have given little reason to inspire hope. Thus it is no surprise that his future at Anfield looks so bleak, even with a 2-1 win over Bolton. Other managers like Gerard Houllier, Mark Hughes and Avram Grant are also yet to convince at their new clubs. They may be 'good football men' but that means nothing when your team is at the wrong end of the table.

As hard as it is for many of us to accept, myself included, football is run in a cold and heartless way by many clubs. It is a question of making the club successful to make money. Giving managers long tenures at a club or playing attractive football is very much secondary. Admirable performances, like Villa's at Stamford Bridge today when they should have taken the full three points, count for nothing come the end of the season. The notions of hope and trust we as fans may place in a manager's ability does not mean that he ought to be given another six months. When a board loses the faith they once had in a manager then they will quickly look elsewhere. If a business loses money week-in-week-out then changes will be made, that much is obvious.

Let me reiterate, this does not make it right. Nor is it always beneficial to replace a failing manager. If allowed time to bring in the right players and implement their own style of play at a club then Houllier and Hodgson may yet prove to be very successful for their respective clubs. For the record, I would like to see Houllier and Hodgson given to the end of the season rather than judging them too soon. As I have touched upon before though, It is part of the modern game, and although many of us strongly dislike the way football clubs are run, it is simply the way it is.

Twenty games have been played and now boardrooms across the country will be debating whether changing the man at the top could help them make a surge in the second half of the season to try elevate their league position. Owners may have friends out of work who are looking for a job, they may think that their club should be doing better than it realistically ought to be doing or they may think that the man in charge is not right for the job and then react accordingly. That is the way businesses are run and that is the way many football clubs are run.

We may sympathise, we may not think it is right but it is, unfortunately, just part of the modern game. There may be rare examples of smaller clubs who have a much stronger sense of loyalty to managers but in the Premiership if you fail to deliver then expect the repercussions to be swift and damning.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The Worst XI of 2010 Premiership Signings

2010-12-27T13:59:00.000Z

Right, just a quick one in this busy Christmas period. As a follow up to my best XI of this season's Premiership signings a couple of weeks ago, I thought that I would go to the other end of the spectrum and compile a side of the season's worst XI from signings in the 2010 summer transfer window. So here it is in all its glory (playing in a 4-4-2 formation):

GK: Brad Jones (Middlesbrough - Liverpool)

DR: James Perch (Nottingham Forest - Newcastle)

DC: Jerome Boateng (Hamburg - Manchester City)

DC: Winston Reid (Midtylland – West Ham)

DL: Paul Konchesky (Fulham - Liverpool)

MR: Stephen Ireland (Manchester City – Aston Villa)

MC: Ranieri Sandro (Internacional – Tottenham)

MC: Christian Poulsen (Juventus - Liverpool)

ML: Joe Cole (Chelsea – Liverpool)

ST: Mario Balotelli (Inter – Manchester City)

ST: Mauro Boselli (Estudiantes – Wigan)

So let's have a quick run through the team and see why each of the players had the displeasure of making such an elite squad.

Goalkeeper. Brad Jones was chosen by default really. He is the only goalkeeper that was signed who has failed to impress at his new club, obviously through a lack of playing time, so he got the gloves. Not too much to read into there though.

Defence. James Perch, on the several occasions I have seen him, has looked a quite terrible player in the Premiership. He is an example of a player who belongs in second tier football. Boateng has, in my eyes, been relatively disappointing since going to Eastlands. He has failed to live up to the hype but, to be fair, he is yet to have an extended run in the team and he may well prove to be a good signing in the future. But so far he has not seemed worth his hefty price tag. Winston Reid may be a name you don't recognise and with good reason. He has played just three times for the Hammers this season and looked largely out-of-sorts. Konchesky, despite being foolishly mentioned for my 'best signings of 2010 team', has received huge amounts of criticism from Liverpool fans since his transfer from Fulham. Maybe a disproportionate amount of blame. Nevertheless he has been the poorest left back signed.

Midfield. The midfield foursome was quite straight forward. Ireland has been in dreadful form after moving to Villa as part of the James Milner transfer. Sandro received a large price tag and has not looked worth a fraction of it. The Brazilian has struggled with the frantic pace that comes with being a central-midfielder in the Premiership. Poulsen and Cole make up the rest of the Liverpool quartet in the team. When the season was about to kick-off I said these were both good signings for the Merseysiders but how wrong I was. Both have been impressively poor in the disturbingly below-par Liverpool team.

Strikers. Boselli came from Argentina with a good reputation. He had scored 32 goals in 56 games for Estudiantes but has failed to score in eight for Wigan. His partner up top, Mario Balotelli. Big transfer fee, huge wages and even bigger ego. He may have masses of talent but his attitude and constant need to take long-range pot shots have not impressed many. His bad boy reputation has only been enhanced at Eastlands and despite his superstar attitude, his selfish play has been anything but.

So there it is. Some big-money-flops, some has-beens and some never-will-bes. What do people think of the team? Who doesn't deserve to be there? Who should have been there? Let me know what you think.

Thoughts, comments and opinions...

Is Welsh Football Flying High?: Paul Fisher examines the current state of the Welsh game

2010-12-24T11:16:00.000Z

Polly's Pause for Sport has one more post just in time for Christmas. Paul Fisher has kindly written a piece examining the current state of Welsh, and to an extent Scottish, football. Paul can be found writing at steakheed.wordpress.com and you can follow him on Twitter. I hope you all enjoy it and have a Merry Christmas...

Cardiff and Swansea are flying high at the business end of the Championship and, as we enter the New Year, both will now be hoping to progress to the top flight of English football. Yes, English football.This of course begs the question of whether or not these teams should be playing in their own country or be integrated into the English leagues. If Cardiff and Swansea can do it and succeed, why can’t the other Welsh teams, Old Firm clubs or any other Scottish team do the same?

As it stands, the Welsh game has become polarised. While Cardiff and Swansea have both grown as teams in the second tier of English football, the rest of Welsh football has been left stagnating in their own leagues. The highest attendance in the Welsh Premier League this season being a lowly 1,030 for Bangor City versus TNS compared to Cardiff’s last home match at over 21,000 and Swansea’s more paltry 13,500. This just shows you the gulf between the other clubs in Wales.

The almost comical fact is that the winner of the Welsh Premier League has a chance to play European football while their counterparts, that play in the bigger league, would have to win the F.A Cup for this to happen.

So who is having the last laugh? Undoubtedly the big two are far superior to any other team from Wales and if they keep playing the same way then they will go on to achieve greater things. This year could see either or both clubs promoted, thus bringing Welsh football into one of the world's leading football leagues. This, in turn, would further polarise the standard of the Welsh game.

None of the current Welsh National team ply their trade in the Welsh Premier League and only ten players play with either Swansea or Cardiff including former Manchester City and Celtic striker, Craig Bellamy. One of the most famous former players who played in the Welsh League was Cliff Jones; part of Tottenham Hotspur’s 1960/61 double winning side played with Bangor City towards the end of his career and is still Wales’ 6th top scorer of all time.

The situation is mirrored in different sense north of the border as Celtic and Rangers rarely get a challenge for the league title, the same as it would not be a challenge for the big two Welsh teams against their smaller counterparts. If the money was available, what stops other Welsh and Scottish teams playing in English leagues?

A select number of Scottish clubs have participated in the FA Cup since the end of the 19^th Century. Perhaps allowing British clubs to enter the FA Cup would be a good means of integrating the different leagues in one competition. This would also help to bring extra money to the clubs outside of England.

If and when the SPL gets reformed then I think this will give us the answers and maybe bring more money to the Scottish game. It depends on what happens to the Scottish leagues as there are many different ideas flying about. If the changes to help the SPL, or whatever it will be called, to become more competitive than the current format then the Old Firm will surely stay and show their worth, but if it changes make it just as easy for the Old Firm then surely they will want a bigger and better challenge.

Whether or not the Welsh or Scottish leagues can or will be integrated into the English leagues remains to be seen. But one thing is certain. Welsh and Scottish football need it. Each country have two clubs who reign supreme over the rest, such a system is not cohesive with creating the necessary strength in depth to help the respective football in both countries.

Good luck to both Cardiff and Swansea and if they realise their dream of reaching the Premiership then maybe it will spark a revolution but for anything major to happen in the near future it will need strong backing from many different sources. Money being the source of many problems and the answer to many questions is the key to success and failure as we have seen and will see again many times. Is there the financial opportunity there to make it worth certain people's time?

Thought, comments and opinions please...

Why Write About Football?

2010-12-21T12:50:00.000Z

Sunday saw the 100^th post put up on Polly's Pause for Sport. I would firstly like to thank everyone who has taken their time to read any of the previous hundred pieces that have been put up on this site. It has proven to be an extremely enjoyable venture for me personally and I hope that it has provided at least some enjoyment to those of you who have followed it. Also, a special thanks to the guest writers who have chipped in from time to time, there promises to be more of them in the very near future.

For this, the post to celebrate the blog's centenary, I have chosen to address a question that seems perfectly apt for the occasion. It is, perhaps, a question I should have answered back in February when I started this blog but there we are. The question - why write about football? (The answer, I will forewarn you, is quite a lengthy one but justice could not be done to the subject with only a brief response.)

It is a question that is posed to me on a regular basis. As someone training to be a journalist, people often assume that I should be applying my time to a more worthy or noble cause. To a higher art form. To a more meaningful subject. After all, as the critic would say, 'it's just a game'.

It would be too easy to dismiss such sentiments on account of my passion for the subject. That would be to miss the point. In its simplest sense, football is indeed 'just a game' and yet there are hoards of websites, publications and media outlets devoted entirely to it. Why have we as a community here in Britain become so largely fixated on football? Not that I am suggesting that the entire community shares a love for the sport, I am simply saying that football has become a corner stone of modern British culture. It walks hand-in-hand with our society's love for celebrity gossip, cups of tea and the weather.

Conversations in pubs, Saturday afternoons and children's playgrounds are spent talking about, watching or imitating what twenty-two men do on rectangular patches of grass across the country. Large portions of society read the newspaper from back-to-front. 'Real' football fans will keep at least nineteen weekends a year free on which they can spend their hard-earned money to watch a collection of players from around the world, who are getting paid ludicrously large sums of money, kick a ball around while they, the loyal spectators, cheer these strangers on purely because they wear the right colour shirt.

There is something counter-intuitive about the whole thing. This is the reason some people declare a resentment towards a society that worships at the feet of individuals who, in their eyes, do so little. A society which uses these men, who are so often shown to lack a moral compass, as role models. Football has become more than a game, more than sport, it is a way of life. It consumes people's time, money and emotions and yet when one attempts to rationalise the game of football and assess why it holds the gravitas it now does, they will often be found wanting. Thus are we to say that we are all fools for loving the sport? No.

Let's start by examining why we love football.

Like all sports, it appeals to a very primitive, humanistic instinct - competition. The desire to test ones strength against another and to see who will prevail as the victor. This is why football in its most pure and basic form captivates so many. It is the same reason why nearly all societies around the world, both now and through history, have contained sporting competitions in one form or another. Such competitions have comprised predominantly of men which may well explain why the followers and competitors in such sports today are too predominantly male, but this is a whole other matter for discussion. Nevertheless, the instinctive appeal of football alone explains why it achieves such universal attention. It justifies why we would go to a stadium or sit in front of a TV and watch 'twenty-two men run around and kick a ball', because in reality it is much more than that.

But football is more than this. It would be wrong to portray people's love for football as being simply our instinctive desire for competition. There is also admiration to be taken from what can be seen on a football pitch. Football is a game of flair, technique, fitness, teamwork, tactics, physicality and finesse. There is joy to be had in watching greats like Pele, Maradona, Cruyff and Messi do things that an standard person could only dream of. People love the sport because of the intricate nuances and glimpses of what ought to be called 'genius'. When played the right way, by the right team, football does become an art form. It is not a collection of Neanderthals grunting around a pitch as many would dismiss it as. Football has the potential to be the 'beautiful game' when played right and many appreciate it as just that, in much the same way as others appreciate classical music or the ballet.

Football has, of course, grown beyond just ninety-minute matches. It is more than merely a game insofar as its influence extends beyond the chalk lines of the pitch. I have commented before on how central football is in within society, using the comparison with religion. From a functionalism viewpoint, football performs an important role in British community. It unites people, it offers them a sense of belonging. The support of a team is passed down through generations and brings together neighbourhoods. The African spirit shown at the South African World Cup illustrates this point perfectly. Localities come together to watch their club or country. They stroll to their stadiums, the focal points of their passion, and pass the iconography of past greats with their like-minded brethren. Beyond the enjoyment to be taken from the competition between two teams, football and its teams have become part a city, region or nation's identity. It must be accepted that football is not just a game but also a universal cultural phenomena.

This is not to say that football is not a sport without its faults. It would be wrong for me to ramble on about how great the sport is when it has so many flaws. We are all too aware of them. It is subject to much criticism and some of these must be addressed.

Overpaid, misbehaving players. Short-sighted, money-hungry chairmen. Brands and advertisers attempting to suffocate every opportunity for financial gain. These are all undesired bi-products of the globalisation of football, collateral damage of an ever-expanding sport being driven by the capitalist West. FIFA's recent escapades are all too indicative of these problems. Furthermore, violent and occasionally barbaric fans often give football a bad press. These, however, remain an uncondonable minority that ought not to distort people's view to make them see the stereotypical football fan as an uncivilised yob.

Another major flaw of football is its coverage. So wide-spread is the media attention that it receives, the quality of the coverage fails to remain at a consistently high standard. In the battle between quality and quantity, the latter seems to be winning. You only have to watch the punditry on Match of the Day, which lacks insight and interest in equal measure, to see how the media's coverage of football often fails to do justice to the sport. So too, in the mass of material readily available for world-wide readership, does the quality of the writing produced do a disservice to the sport and, moreover, to the industry of journalism. I am well aware of the fact that as a blogger I have, from time to time, contributed to this problem. Ultimately however, none of this ought to detract from football as a sport. It may be part of the sport but it is not representative of the sport. It is, rather, a reflection of our own social and economic culture. To criticise the sport of football because of the media's lens through which it is often distorted would be the equivalent to saying that you dislike singing because of the X Factor.

Finally, an increasingly worrying problem within football is the role of journalists who cover it. Namely, the way that the attitude that 'dog doesn't eat dog' seemingly rules supreme in the industry of sports journalism more so than any other. Sports journalists rely heavily on a list of contacts, be it managers, players, FA executives or chairmen, which they use to produce their articles. The fear of alienating said contacts often means that a blind-eye is turned to suspicious activities. The investigations that have been launched into corruption or dodgy dealings in football have been done by journalists who apply their trade in other sectors. Andrew Jennings' various works, the Sunday Times exposé and the documentary 'Football Dirty Secrets' did not predominantly involve sports journalists. As such, sports journalism often receives a hard time. It is labelled as 'lazy'. The role of journalism, as well as reporting the news and informing its audience of what is going on, is to hold the unaccountable to account. Matt Le Tissier's autobiography explicitly outlined how he had taken part in an incident of spot fixing, FIFA have been shown to be corrupt on numerous occasions while managers and agents are known to take their own illegal cut from transfer deals. Yet often sports journalists often take the easy approach of leaving such matters to others or accepting that it is part and parcel of the game.

Now I am well aware that it is all too easy for me to sit on the edge of the industry and make such criticisms with only limited experience. Nevertheless, this ideological stance of wanting to address these problems that lie within sports journalism is another reason for why I wish to make a career out of being a sports journalist.

So, to conclude, why write about football? Because it is something that is both psychologically and now sociologically a fundamental part of British culture. It has become more than a game, more than a sport. It has the ability, contrary to what some people may say or think, to be a beautiful art form. Furthermore, the criticisms that are levelled at the industry of sports journalism act as motivation to attempt to do things differently, even if that is hopelessly ideological.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Cactus Carter and Magic Rich: A look at the dramatic player trades in and out of the Orlando Magic

2010-12-19T03:56:00.001Z

It has been a startling and dramatic 24 hours in the NBA. Thankfully, Andrew Gibney has written this great overview to bring us all up-to-date on the latest revelations...

It was announced today that the Washington Wizards, Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns have made moves that will see eight players wear different jerseys come next week.

Former All-Star Rashard Lewis has moved to the Washington Wizards traded for bad boy and trouble maker Gilbert Arenas. The headline making move though comes from the six player trade between the Magic and the Suns.

The Suns have sent forward Hedo Turkoglu, guard Jason Richardson and second year forward Earl Clark to Orlando for forwards Vince Carter, Mickael Pietrus, centre Marcin Gortat and a future first round pick plus cash.

Turkoglu has moved back to the team where he played his most successful basketball, reaching the NBA finals in 2009 with the Orlando Magic. It is thought that the Suns have been disappointed with the Turkish forward’s play so far this season. Thoughts were that he could play the Power Forward role combining his size with his superb ball handling and shooting skills.

The failure to click with talisman Steve Nash and with Goran Dragic seemingly losing his spark since Hedo’s arrival will soften the blow for Phoenix fans worried about this trade.

Earl Clark had a bright reputation from his college days at Louisville but had yet to show this potential in a Suns shirt. He could have a great career ahead of him in the league but with Jared Dudley, Josh Childress, and Hakim Warrick ahead of him in the rotation Clark was never going to get time on the floor to develop.

Losing Jason Richardson is a big loss to the line-up. He is currently the Suns highest scorer with an average of 19.3 PPG. However, to make these type of trades work you would never pick up an All-Star like Vince Carter without giving up a large piece of the puzzle. The question is can Vince Carter regain the scoring abilities he showed at New Jersey and Toronto or have the Suns taken a gamble on a falling star?

The Magic line-up will look vastly different once all the trades go through. Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson joined with Hudo Turkoglu and old Golden State buddies Gilbert Arenas and Jason Richardson could be a very exciting set of starters. The problems could come when they have to turn to the bench.

Currently sitting in ninth place in the Western Conference the Suns needed to change things to get their season back on track. With a 12-13 record this season it is not too late to go on a charge, the trades are quite risky but might just work in their bid to revitalise their campaign.

The biggest question is whether Vince Carter still has the talent to play at a high level. If Coach Alvin Gentry can resurrect the Carter we all know and love from his New Jersey Nets days then it could be a phenomenal move. If the Carter we saw at the Magic arrives then it could make the move a disaster. There is a safety net that Carter’s contract is only guarantees $4 million next season after the $18 million paid this season.

Vince Carter this season is averaging 15.1 PPG, a massive 7.6 points down on his career average. Not since the Nets days has he averaged over 20 PPG. At New Jersey Carter excelled in a team that saw him link up with Jason Kidd. Steve Nash could prove to be the catalyst that gives Carter the ammunition to bring a spark to the desert.

Marcin Gortat adds much needed size to the Suns inside game; the 6’10” centre has been muted in the past as the “best back-up centre in the NBA”. He got rewarded with a new $34 million contract after his performances in the 2009 Finals. He may not become a scoring threat for the Suns but he is a much needed defensive option and rebounding threat.

At Orlando Mickael Pietrus, like Gortat, played his best basketball in 2009 but has been plagued with injuries since then. Averaging less than 9 PPG at first glance he doesn’t seem like a good offensive option. With Mickael shooting nearly 40% from the 3-point line this season and the Suns shoot-on-sight policy philosophy there is a chance he could flourish though.

The Suns now have a strong 10-man rotation. Nash, Carter, Grant Hill, Channing Frye and Robin Lopez will likely start most games. Dragic is the natural replacement for Nash. Pietrus and Jared Dudley could come off the bench and add the shooting fire power.

Hakim Warrick and Gortat would be fantastic back-ups for Lopez and Frye and give a much stronger presence near the basket. Coach Gentry could link Gortat and Lopez together for a formidable inside combination. With Dudley and Pietrus on the perimeter the Suns haven’t had a stronger perimeter defence since Raja Bell and Boris Diaw were in the line-up.

There are quite a few ifs and buts’ about this trade from a Suns point of view. The squad looks stronger, add to the mix Josh Childress who is also averaging 17 minutes a game and the Suns look an impressive eleven men deep.

Reaching the play-offs is a must for the Phoenix Suns; if the moves work it will be seen as a master-stroke by President of Basketball Operation Lon Babby. If they finish outside the eighth play-off spot the decision to trade the team’s top scorer will in this dramatic trade will come under heavy scrutiny.

You can find Andy over at the Gib Football Show, for which he does a fantastic, award-nominated, football podcast and you can follow him on Twitter.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The Best XI of 2010 Premiership Signings

2010-12-17T12:46:00.002Z

On the day of the Champions League draw, this post may seem to be somewhat of an oversight. That being said, there is plenty of time to reflect on some of the mouth-watering ties at a later date, as I don't doubt I will. Instead, I have opted to do something different.

An interesting suggestion I had for a new post was to compile a best XI of new Premiership signings and, with the transfer window set to reopen in a fortnights time, I thought I would give it a go. So, here is my side comprising of the 2010 summer transfer window's finest acquisitions.

GK: Ben Foster (Manchester United – Birmingam)

DR: Nedum Onouha (Manchester City – Sunderland)

DC: Laurent Koscielny (Lorient – Arsenal)

DC: Titus Bramble (Wigan Athletic - Sunderland)

DL: Carlos Salcido (PSV - Fulham)

DMC: Yaya Toure (Barcelona – Manchester City)

DMC: Cheick Tiote (FC Twente - Newcastle)

AMR: Moussa Dembele (AZ Alkmaar - Fulham)

AMC: Rafael Van der Vaart (Real Madrid - Tottenham)

AML: David Silva (Valencia – Manchester City)

ST: Marouane Chamakh (Bordeaux – Arsenal)

Danny Welbeck, Paul Konchesky and Raul Meireles were the other main players who almost made the cut.

Now, I think the one thing that should become abundantly clear from looking at my team is that the last transfer window was a particularly poor one. The majority of this team are bargain purchases or players that have exceeded expectations with their performances so far this season.

As I have commented on before, the recession has unquestionably impacted upon the Premiership, but we all know that. Excluding the signings by Manchester City, no other player in this team cost more than £10 million. Ultimately, this best XI acts as a clear indication of the fact that the quality of the players entering the league is certainly not what it once was.

Nevertheless, I would like to hear who other people feel deserved, or did not deserve, to make the team, so please let me know.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Part II and a contents page for the last week

2010-12-13T11:41:00.001Z

It has been an extremely busy week and so, with that in mind (and to offer a very brief respite from blogging), here is a round up of the various pieces that have been on Polly's Pause for Sport and also some of my appearances elsewhere.

Starting with last weekend. Pardaad Chamsaz gave us his poetic insight into modern football.
I wrote a piece about the trouble that was seemingly brewing behind the scenes at Manchester City for backpagefootball.com. (City fans did not like it).
There was my post on here about the role of technology in sport and whether football ought to follow suit.
Then, following the shocking sacking of Chris Hughton, I offered my reactions over at backpagefootball.com.
I went on to develop that piece with a post I did on here about the same incident.
Over the weekend Dan Sabato kindly wrote a very interesting piece on the changing role of politics and wealth in modern day sport.
I, meanwhile, wrote a piece about Jimmy Hogan, the forefather of total football for lesrosbifs.net.
And finally, yesterday I did a piece for soccer-portal.org about the Carlos Tevez transfer request saga.

I would not be as lazy as to leave you with just that list, though. So I have also compiled part two of the video series 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'. This time the theme for the clips is goal celebrations. Enjoy.

The Good - Here is a montage of all the celebration from the inspired choreographers/Icelandic football team Stjarnan FC.

The Bad - This is a video of what, in terms of goal celebrations, can only be described as, in a word, fail.

The Ugly - Now this last clip could well have featured as the good, the bad or the ugly but I have gone for the latter. Bolo Zenden celebrating like a uncle at a wedding.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The Changing of the Guard: Politics, wealth and influence in modern day sport

2010-12-11T11:19:00.001Z

After having time to reflect on the dramatic events of nine days ago, Dan Sabato has written this piece about the globalisation of sport and the price at which it comes.

December 2^nd, 2010 - the day the nation of Qatar was catapulted from their position of sporting anonymity onto the world stage by the decision of FIFA’s 22 executive members. Sepp Blatter’s revelation that awarded football’s flagship tournament to a nation ranked 113 in the world represented more than just the unveiling of a new era in world football, it hammered home the idea that many were already full aware of; money and influence breeds success.

In truth, football is late to the party.

The globalisation of world sport is not something that is new or extraordinary. The focus of sport has been changing for several years, in line with the changing nature of political and economic power-broking. The man leading the exodus from tradition has been Formula One’s diminutive but astoundingly powerful President, Bernie Ecclestone. The F1 landscape, one steeped in history and tradition, has been subjected to a dramatic upheaval during the last decade. Comparing the 2011 calendar to its 2001 counterpart gives you some idea of how far the sport has evolved. Gone are the traditional Grand Prix at Imola, Magny Cours and Austria, replaced instead by circuits in Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and for the first time, India.

Formula One – part sport, part marketing extravaganza – brings with it immense prestige alongside astronomical costs. Fortunately for the Formula One brand, the global economic spectrum shifted in such a way that it naturally fostered suitors with the financial clout and insatiable thirst for personal reputation. These backers were symbolic of the changing nature of world politics and economics, which allowed vast amounts of money to be invested in the sport and allowing Formula One to exploit previously untapped markets.

Seemingly, everyone was a winner.

It is perhaps symbolic of Formula One’s new global era that in the last four weeks of the season, the constructors were scheduled to race in Korea, followed swiftly by races in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. Air-miles indeed.

Have Sepp Blatter and Co followed in the footsteps of Bernie Ecclestone and his cronies? At this juncture, the answer, by awarding the 2022 World Cup to a nation that intends to dismantle any development (and legacy) come the end of the tournaments, appears to be yes . We have been told to “Expect Amazing”, but what we can really look forward to is the searing temperatures (up to 50 degrees celcius in the Summer months), a nation where alcohol is illegal (I’m not saying that this makes or breaks a World Cup) and a remote chance of the host nation even scoring a goal if recent evidence is anything to go by.

FIFA followed the money trail; that much is clear. The decision to award the tournament to Qatar was based on nothing less. Sepp Blatter justified the choice by preaching the lasting legacy that the tournament will produce by hosting the tournament in an Arab nation. Additionally, FIFA's private members club were won over by the promise of new stadia being transported to third world nations. In truth, the decision reinforces the idea of sports evolution along more political and economic lines. Qatar represents another Arab nation with money to throw at a pet project and a thirst for greater respect on a world stage. For the Qataris, the opportunity was there to announce themselves to the world, and in that respect they succeeded. On the other hand, FIFA’s blatant pursuit of wealth and influence has brought disgrace and suspicion on the much maligned organisation.

This is where Formula One and football differ. The heavily criticised extravaganza that has become of Formula One has identified the future of global political and financial influence, incorporating these pockets of support into the sports annual calendar. In doing so, Bernie Ecclestone has ensured the long term stability of his brand. In stark contrast, FIFA’s attempts to infiltrate new markets and guarantee long term stability may well have turned into an unmitigated disaster. Simply put – those that felt wronged; the traditional protagonists of world football, notably the English FA – are all too willing to restore the status quo.

Bernie Ecclestone successfully adapted Formula One to the current political and economic climate. The power behind the Formula One brand is now truly global.

Capitalism and sport are now intertwined. The events of the 2^nd December served purely to highlight how chances for money-making come very much ahead of idealistic concepts such as fans' love for the game in FIFA's list of priorities. This is not to say that World Cups in Russia and Qatar do not have their merit. I think it is fair to say though, that FIFA's motives for making such decisions were based more in their capitalist hungers than sense of obligation to take football to new pastures out of a duty to 'try new things'. As such, the credibility of football’s governing body is once again being questioned, and rightly so. When a sport is being run out of a thirst for money and profit, the true essence of the sport itself can be lost. When winning bidders are chosen on the principle of 'where can we make the most money', then the integrity of the game is under threat. The now seemingly vague notions of fairness, equality and loyalty are discarded in favour of the chance to expand the game for the economic benefit of those who run it.

FIFA’s attempts to globalise their brand may prove to be their most destructive and divisive decisions in their history.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

"Sack The Board!" : Some thoughts on the shocking events at Newcastle United

2010-12-08T11:30:00.005Z

Betting has been suspended, the rumours are gathering momentum and BBC Sport reports the announcement will be made within 24 hours. This is, of course, the news that Alan Pardew is looking almost certain to be named as the new Newcastle United manager. With that being the situation I am going to jump the gun and offer some thoughts on the unjustifiable madness present in the St. James' Park boardroom.

I wrote a piece over at backpagefootball.com on the news of Chris Hughton's sacking (apologies if you read that, there will be some overlap). To paraphrase that article, Ashley's treatment of Hughton was shocking, disrespectful and disloyal. Hughton took over the club when it was at its lowest, lead them to a Championship title and now established them at 12th in the Premiership table. All of which he has done with unfaltering dignity and with next to no money to spend.

Some of the results and performances Newcastle have shown themselves capable of this season were far beyond expectation. 5-0 smashing of Aston Villa, 6-1 hammering of Sunderland, 1-0 win over Arsenal at the Emirate and a 1-1 draw against champions Chelsea, who they also knocked out of the League Cup. Newcastle's next four games are Liverpool (home), Birmingham (away), Manchester City (home) and Tottenham (away). These are the sorts of games that Hughton had the team doing so well in but the team would do well to salvage any points from these games now.

Hughton had the squad united and had the big names (Nolan, Barton and Carroll) playing at their best. As Sol Campbell came out and said after Hughton was so unceremoniously given the boot, he had the respect and admiration of all the players and they have understandably taken the news badly. The motivation of the players will be at an all-time low and it would be surprised in performances did not suffer heavily.

Most importantly though, Hughton gave the club the one thing that it had been so desperately lacking for the best part of a decade. Stability. Newcastle had a calm assurance about it which it had been without since Bobby Robson's reign. But one mindless decision has underdone all this.

Ashley and co. have stated that they want a manager with more experience at the top level. And yet they seem certain to appoint Pardew as their new man. It is a ridiculous illustration of the short-sightedness by chairmen up and down the country that is plaguing clubs. They want managers with more experience and yet are unwilling to allow managers to stay on and gain it. Hughton had done all that could possibly be asked of him, he was always going to improve further with time in the top flight but the board did not see it fit to award him the chance to do so.

Hughton's win percentage at Newcastle was 55.71%. Alan Pardew's highest ever win percentage as a manager is 53.13% while managing Southampton down in League One last season. His highest ever Premiership finish was 9th with West Ham back in 2005-06 season. He then led the club to their all time worst run of defeats before being sacked, after which he went to Charlton - whom he got relegated.

It is, by all accounts, a truly baffling decision. Pardew, although he may have more experience in the Premiership, is no more a top class manager than Hughton. Moreover, Hughton had the support of the players and the fans, something that Pardew will have to work very hard to capture, very hard indeed. With the progress the team had been making it seems ludicrous that Ashley would want to undo that by replacing the manager. If he wants the team to grow and improve then surely a shock decision to remove a manager who has been performing so well and had the backing of the entire squad with a manager who can be described as little more than average is counter-productive. Perhaps the mass snow in the north-east has forced the tubby owner to lose all sense of logic and reason.

Some say that Ashley and Pardew are good mates and that Pardew was looking for work. The two supposedly spent a lot of time together as regular frequenters of a London casino. Now, like two drunk idits at a roullette table, they are gambling with the future of Newcastle United Football Club. I hope for football's sake that this is not true. This is one of the biggest football clubs in England and yet Ashley is reportedly treating it like an accounting firm he owns, through which he has got his washed-up mate a job doing the filing.

There is little more I need say. Football fans across the nation have been united in their disbelief of how the events of the last two days have unfolded. The unfathomable actions of Ashley are there for all to see and justifiably rant about. A part of me hopes that Pardew is not appointed in favour of someone else, even if makes this premature post largely pointless. At least if a big name manager is surprisingly drafted in then there will be a little more vindication for sacking Hughton. Another part of me wants Pardew to appointed later today as hopefully this will spark a backlash by fans. Indeed, it would appear as though plans of protests and boycotts already seem in place and quite rightly so.

The Toon Army ought to march on the streets, united by their familiar chant 'Sack the Board!' Ashley continues to make a mockery out of the club and the line must eventually be drawn. Loyalty is hard to come by in football and, amongst chairmen, it seems so too is logic. The last forty-eight hours have shown a disgraceful amount of disrespect towards a loyal servant of the club and an outstanding ignorance of what is in the team's best interests.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

Technology in Sport: It is time for football to catch up with the rest of the sporting world and implement technological assistance in the game

2010-12-06T11:44:00.011Z

*You can also see my post on the shocking news of Chris Hughton's sacking over at backpagefootball.com*

Technology in sport is something that I have seldom touched upon since starting this blog. However, following the dramatic incidents at the end of today’s Ashes Test, I thought now would be a good time to ask if technology should be used in the refereeing of football.

For those of you who are not following the Ashes, let me explain what happened. With the final delivery of the day, part-time spinner and double-hundred-scoring Kevin Pietersen took the potentially match winning wicket of Michael Clark. The umpire initially made the decision that Clark had not touched the ball with his bat and thus was not out. After review, which was called for by England (as one of the two reviews allocated to each team), the decision was overturned and Clark was sent back to the Pavilion.

Upon such decisive moments are sporting competitions won and lost. The referral system in cricket is a prime example of how the use of technology can be used in an effective way. So too is rugby, in both forms of the game. NFL uses challenges and the NBA reviews last second shots to decide if they were taken in time. Tennis now uses hawk-eye. Even snooker uses technology when re-spotting balls after foul shots. What it does is simple; it helps eradicate human error where possible and offers valuable assistance to referees.

Humans will make mistakes. As Rob Marrs wrote during the referee strike in Scotland, people must accept that rather than chastising wrong decisions. Implementing technological assistance will allow for the areas of uncertainty over crucial decisions to be dramatically reduced. It would also help to stop the repetitive ref-bashing that takes place in almost every post-match interview.

Purists and traditionalists may argue that technology would ruin a sport. They may claim that human error is part and parcel of the game and that the use of replays and reviews would hinder our viewing enjoyment. Ultimately, if done in the right way, I wouldn’t think that it would. That is, of course, crucial though. It must be done it the right way.

In rugby, technology is used after a try is scored to ensure that there is no reason not to award a team the points. This is a natural stop in the game. The match does not have to be put on hold mid-flow for this process to take place. Likewise, cricket is played in short, sharp bursts with breaks in between. A ball is bowled, a shot is played or not played and then the subsequent fielding or retrieval of the ball takes places. Then there is a pause. Thus, it is easy for a review to be called for after each of these sequences without disrupting the flow of the game.

Within football it may be more difficult to use technology in such a way. There would have to be clear rules and criteria put in place to specify when a referee could use the technology at his disposal to prevent the game being altered or becoming fragmented. Allocating a set number of referrals to each side would not be an option. It would cause too much confusion and allow for the game to be disrupted too readily. Nor could the reviews be used over smaller incidents within a match. For example, it could not be used to see who to award a throw –in to or decide if it is goal-kick or a corner.

Also, I would question whether it should even be used for offside decisions purely because if it were to be used in such circumstances, the game would have to be stopped far too often. These may be important decisions but they are too common to use technological help for. I think here, most would agree, the referee can be entrusted to make a decision to the best of his ability and we can live with the consequences. I would accept that this is where the line becomes blurred, though.

Instead, technology should primarily only be used in a select number of incidents that directly impact upon the outcome of the game. The first and most obvious of these is goal-line technology - to simply check if a ball has or has not crossed the line. These are decisions that are too important to get wrong. With the TV cameras already available it would not be difficult to do either. The fourth official could have a monitor, watch a replay and inform the referee.

Secondly, it could be used for penalty decisions. Play could be stopped to check if a foul was committed, if there was a handball, if a player dived or if an infringement took place just in or outside the box. Again, this a critical moment in a match and if technology can help ensure that the right decision is made more frequently then surely it should be made available.

Thirdly, for off-the-ball incidents. Flailing arms that leaves players on the ground clutching their face can often result in red cards being shown or not shown at the wrong times. When one of these moments takes place, the event can be reviewed and the guilty party, whether it be someone throwing a sly elbow or someone rolling on the floor following a pat on the head, can be duly reprimanded. Putting these things on review for a panel to address at a later date seems somewhat unfair.

Players may be handed suspensions after the match but what consolation is that to the team who just played them and should have had a one-man advantage? It would also help in fighting the art of simulation that is becoming increasingly commonplace in the game. The guidelines would have to created and fine tuned but why not trial it in a select few leagues or competitions across the world and then FIFA can set about implementing it on a wider scale.

These are merely some brief thoughts on how technology could be utilised in a way that would not tamper too heavily with the fabric of the game. If it was only called upon for specific, game-changing moments then it would help prevent both the game becoming disjointed and wrong decisions at crucial times. There are working examples around the world of sport of using technology to help officiate a sport. It seems foolish for football to lag behind. If it is only brought in for two percent of decisions in a match then so be it, games are won and lost on such fine margins.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please…

Polly's Pause for Poetry: Part I

2010-12-04T19:21:00.002Z

'Variety is the spice of life', or so the saying goes. With that in mind I am happy to say that Polly's Pause for Sport is offering something quite different for its latest post. While I have been writing a couple of pieces for backpagefootball.com and lesrosbifs.net (those posts, or links to them, will follow later this week), Pardaad Chamsaz has been on hand to offer us the first in what will hopefully be a series of poetic insights into the game of football. Whilst you may gasp at the concept of poetry and football, I would hope that we are all able to stray from the stereotypical view of the football fan as a primitive creature... at least for long enough to read this piece. Enjoy.

The fur-coated dictator peers out onto the smooth green-felted surface he has just acquired.

He thinks of the nights of gambling ahead, the dollars, yens, roubles he will throw down – and how much he will leave with.

Through the window he sees the cameras staring back from the opposite side, hundreds of them, focused on the empty green below.

The line of cameras divide the thousands of empty plastic seats from the rooms above, like the one he is in.

I need more, he thinks.

More.

In front of his reflection, the front-page star adjusts his appearance hair by hair.

He has never, and never will, employ himself better.

He will retire soon after all. Not long now, he thinks.

He dreams of his emancipation from the production line, the release from the 3 – 5 on Saturdays. He packs his uniform in his leather hold-all and heads for work

– his driver has just arrived.

Like an academic, the “tactician” loses himself in piles of paper and reads his scribblings by lamplight.

He studies the back pages and throws down the paper, the rest blow to the ground, where they stay.

They are all untouched anyway, untouched templates, untouched formations of that familiar game.

Everything sacrificed for profitable reputational gain.

Instead he picks up the newspaper once more.

The weekend has arrived for the regular – he is there every week.

Handing over what remains of his pay slip at the gate he enters his second home and heads to the bar.

It is midday.

Four hours later he stands inside and watches the spectacle. It is not a game any more, he says.

He sits down for the rest of the hour and looks at his half-arsed heroes play.

The pitch lights up with the sporadic sparks from the cameras.

Adverts dominate his view.

This used to be real, he says.

Now he watches a show, an episode of a long-running show that has no longer any semblance of what it was before.

He leaves.

They won.

England's Failed 2018 World Cup Bid: The true failure will be if England does not now finally pursue the truth and expose FIFA's corruption

2010-12-02T18:16:00.001Z

So, now we know that England has failed in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup. The tournament was awarded to Russia, a decision that has left English football fans screaming blue murder. England's failure has inevitably been met with contempt amongst cries of FIFA's corruption being the reason for Russia's victory.

It is difficult to make assumptions about any untoward reasons for why Russia and Qatar succeeded in their bids, although evidence would suggest that there are secretive payments behind the majority of FIFA's decisions. Such is the well documented level of corruption within FIFA that is almost impossible not to jump to the most cynical conclusions.

If England had won the bid however, would we have been wondering how much David Cameron or Prince William had slipped into Blatter's pocket? It would be overtly Anglo-centric to assume that England had the best bid by default and thus should have won. Personally, I think that, even though I would have loved a World Cup in my own country, a World Cup in Russia or Qatar will offer something new and interesting. Although their facilities cannot match those in England presently, their proposals, if realised, promise to make for great tournaments.

In the build up to today's decision there was a wide ranging debate over the impact of the attempts of Panorama and the Sunday Times to try and expose some of FIFA's corruption. Many labelled this as 'unpatriotic' and 'detrimental to England's chances'. I don't know if it was. But, more importantly, if that was the case then we should re-evaluate our own priorities in this country.

Some would have preferred the BBC and the Sunday Times to refuse to broadcast the investigations of their journalists, at least until after today's announcement had been made. This would have been merely playing into FIFA's hands. Such is the sway and power of football's governing body, people have always feared tackling its corruption.

Exposing FIFA's corruption was, and indeed is, in the public interest. This is critically different from what the public is interested in. The public may have wanted for the Sunday Times and BBC not to realise the respective works damning FIFA but this would not have been in the public interest. The bidding process touched upon a more fundamental weakness within the British media, namely an unwillingness to stray away from what Cheryl Cole had for lunch to attempt to pry into the expansive corruption and illegal activity of the otherwise unaccountable individuals who serve in the most senior positions of football.

It is a self-governing authority. As such it is not accountable to anyone but itself. Such organisations are always going to be open and prone to dishonest dealings. This problem has grown though. Corruption is a cancer that is eating away at football's governing body. FIFA is now rife with it. So much so that it has become an accepted facet of the organisation itself.

The work of the Sunday Times and Andrew Jennings in his Panorama documentary were at least indications that there are people in England that are willing to take on the 'devils' (to quote Blatter himself) within FIFA. If that means jeopardising England's World Cup bid, so be it. The age old debate concerning journalism is whether it functions as a watchdog for society or a lapdog for bigger corporations. Too often, when it comes to football, it is the latter.

FIFA's corruption is one of sports worst kept secrets and yet attempts to expose it are rare. Perhaps a true blessing in disguise from England losing in their bid will be that the country's media will now be free to pursue the truth and uncover the dirty web of lies constructed by the overlords of football. It is an idealistic view but the primary objective of a journalist should be to tell the truth. Knowing the truth and not telling it is surely as bad as lying. Now there is added motivation and nothing stopping English journalists from digging into the murky darkness of FIFA's corruption.

From a financial viewpoint losing the bid may not have been the worst thing. Could we afford the economic burden of hosting the tournament in our currently fragile state. The bid alone cost the country £15mllion, a sum of money that it is being reported as having only won England one meagre vote in Zurich today. This is money the country could ill-afford to lose and yet, as with the London 2012 Olmpics, no journalists wanted to comment on this. It suited them for England to succeed and so the too 'backed the bid'. What they and the public were interested in once again overruled what was in the public's interest, being honest and pursuing the truth.

No one will deny that it is a genuine shame that England lost the bid. This ought not to diminish from the chances handed to Russia and Qatar to shine under the world's spotlight, though. Moreover, if the English press' attempts to uncover a fraction of FIFA's had a negative impact on the bid, then surely this is something we should be proud of. It shows that some at least have chosen not to play by FIFA's game of secrecy. If losing the bid gives journalists the incentive to try and expose the corruption within FIFA, that fans are assuming accounts for Russia's victory in Zurich, then something has been gained. Only when consisted and thorough investigations take place will there be any chance of change within FIFA.

The self-governing body responsible for running football has been a force for dishonesty for too long. Perhaps when the dust settles from England's disappointment, journalism can once again serve the role of watchdog against the unaccountable and corrupt.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

A Glance Across the Atlantic: A look at the NBA season so far

2010-11-30T18:56:00.000Z

There is certainly plenty happening in the world of sport right now. I was spoiled for choice today when choosing what to write about in this post. I thought that an attempt to reflect on Barcelona's breath-taking 5-0 demolition of Real Madrid last night would almost certainly do no justice to the quality of their performance. More posts about the Ashes are almost guaranteed so I decided to refrain from writing about that for know. And a piece on the latest attempts to expose FIFA's corruption will be written after we know the fate of England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup, the announcement being made in two days time.

Instead, I have opted for writing a more general post about my thoughts on the new NBA season so far. It always proves very difficult to dip into a sport that I write about so infrequently as there is so much scope for things that I could talk about. For now though, I will look at the struggling form of the Miami Heat and the developing two-horse race for Rookie of the Year.

The Miami Heat had been labelled the team to watch long before the season began. When it was announced back in July that Lebron James was joining Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh on the east-coast, shock-waves were sent through the basketball world. With James, the league's best player, joining the tremendous talents of Wade and Bosh in Miami, it was assumed that a period of unrivalled dominance would follow. The reality has been quite different.

After 'The Decision' (when James revealed he was going to join the heat) there were drastic changes in the Heat squad. Some were forced out to balance the books, some because they were surplus to requirement and others because they were unwilling to settle for a season sat on the bench. Many left and many came in. The Heat's performances thus far this season have been little more than what could be expected of a team in their position.

Miami still have a winning record at 10-8. In many people's eyes, however, this is an abject failure from a team containing a triumvirate of all-stars. The team are struggling with teething problems. From the several matches of theirs that I have watched, they seem unclear of how they are meant to play, both as individuals and as a team.

Wade and James are having to adapt to sharing the role of primary play-maker and point-scorer, roles they had previously held uncontested. Bosh too has had to make this adaptation. He no longer receives the amount of attention as an attacking option as he had been used to in Toronto. The fringe players seems unsure of their roles coming off the bench, all of which has contributed to the confused and clumsy performances that have characterised the Heat's season. These weaknesses have been exposed by the Boston Celtics on two occasions already this season. The Celtics illustrate perfectly how meaningless it is to have numerous big names on the court if they are unable to play effectively together. It is a lesson they ought to have taken note of.

They will not be panicking though. Each of their big three are warming to challenge of altering their games for the good of the team and their individual stats have been steadily increasing. The defensive intensity still seems to be somewhat lacking but this will probably come with the increased understanding that more time playing together will bring.

No one would argue that they have failed to meet the expectations that most had for them. This is probably more a result of unrealistically high expectations than of their own failings. People, myself included, expected too much too soon. They are still managing to win matches despite being disjointed and frustratingly inefficient at both ends of the court. Needless to say, they will only improve as the season progresses and by the time the playoffs come around, which they will be part of, they will probably be hitting top form. When this happens they may well prove to be as dominant as some hoped and many feared.

Aside from the faltering Miami side, I have been very interested in the progress of the league's two finest rookies this season. Blake Griffin was the number one overall draft pick back in 2009 by the LA Clippers. However, Griffin then missed all of last season with a knee injury he picked the day before the season was due to start, thus making this his début season. Now, after a year on the injured list, Griffin seems determined to make up for lost time.

His rival in what is seemingly a two-horse race for the Rookie of the Year title is John Wall. Like Griffin, Wall was the first overall pick in the 2010 draft when the Washington Wizards snapped up the young point guard. He has suffered some minor injury set backs himself this season but when he has been available for selection he has not failed to excite.

Both Griffin (left) and Wall (right) are making names for themselves as stars in failing teams. Despite the Clippers' dismal record of 3-15 (the worst in the league), Griffin is averaging 20 points and 11 rebounds a games so far this season. He has been producing spectacular, high-flying dunks on a regular basis and, despite a year without being able to play, is beginning to show why he entered the NBA with such hype.

Wall's Wizards are on an ever-so-slightly better record of 5-11. Yet he too has been one of the league's stand-out performers in the opening two months. The 20 year-old has averaged 18 points and 9 assists per game. His electrifying pace and ability to find a way to the hoop has boosted the solid reputation he brought with him to the NBA. The point guard position is often recognised as being the most difficult to play in the sport and yet his scoring and passing has shown a level of both talent and maturity beyond his years. It will be very interesting to see how this race for Rookie of the Year develops and to see if the two emerging stars can reverse the fortunes of their failing teams.

There are various other things that I would like to go on to write about and I am sure I will revisit some of them in due course, in particular the prevailing older squads in Boston and San Antonio (if it continues), the emergence of Derrick Rose as the 'real deal' in Chicago and the success of the league's new 'Respect the Game' initiative.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

El Clásico: The world's finest take to the stage

2010-11-28T12:15:00.002Z

El Clásico. One of the rare moments when a domestic match holds the gaze of world football. Barcelona face Real Madrid at the Camp Nou tomorrow night and I thought that I would throw my proverbial hat into the ring along with many other sports writers by looking ahead to this special game.

On the simplest level, it is the biggest collection of world-class footballers you can witness in any match outside of the International arena. This is a match-up, however, that is anything but simple. It comprises of numerous intricate battles and sub-plots.

The first of these, which has received predictably large amounts of attention, is the showdown between indisputably the two greatest footballers in the world right now, Messi and Ronaldo. While the debate over who is better rages on, this match offers fans the opportunity to see the two compete for the headlines on the same pitch.

Either Messi or Ronaldo are able to change or win a game with one moment of brilliance. We all know this. Nevertheless, there are tactical complexities that perhaps warrant greater consideration. To allow ourselves to become preoccupied by the Ronaldo versus Messi battle would, of course, be doing a disservice to the spectacle that is El Clásico.

Another fascinating battle will be on the sidelines. Mourinho will take part in this historic derby for the first time tomorrow and all eyes are on him to see how he approaches the match. Can he mastermind a performance to put an end to Madrid's four-match losing streak in this fixture. When his Inter Milan side knocked Barça out of the Champions League last season, the majority of the footballing world applauded 'The Special One's' tactical masterpiece. Needless to say though, his current Madrid team does not in anyway, shape or form resemble that of Inter Milan.

Madrid, as ever, are defined by their attacking prowess rather than Mourinho's well documented approach last season which was to stifle opponents. Some have questioned whether Mourinho will adapt his tactics for this match. He may abandon his use of four attacking players in the 4-2-3-1 formation, usually using Di Maria, Özil, Ronaldo and Higuain, and replace one of them with another deep-lying midfielder to play his more common 4-3-3 formation, with the option to revert it to a 4-5-1.

It is hard to see who he may drop though. Ronaldo, maybe not. Higuain represents their genuine striker and Di Maria has been in good from cutting in from the right wing while Özil has adopted the role of puppetmaster, pulling the strings in the Madrid attack. Nevertheless, he may choose to play Lassana Diarra, Xabi Alonso and Khedira to attempt to try and combat the threat of Xavi and Iniesta's creativity.

Attempting to second guess Mourinho would be foolish. One thing does remain certain though, he will have worked on extremely specialised tactics for this game. These will probably revolve around preventing Xavi and Iniesta the opportunity to run the game while stopping service to Messi as much as possible. He is the world's most prominent tactician and his preparation for this match will have tireless, all of which makes this El Clásico all the more exciting.

His opposite number, Pep Guardiola, rarely strays from Barcelona's trademark style. With Busquets sitting in front of the back four, Xavi and Iniesta will push forward and act as the lynchpins in the Catalan side's formiddable attack. Messi, Villa and Pedro will rotate and push more narrow as the wing-backs, Maxwell and Alves, provide the width outside of them. Describing their likely approach is one thing, stopping it is quite another. With each attacking player being so comfortable on the ball and so adapt at beating their man or playing the killer ball, it becomes almost impossible to stop them creating chances.

The tactical battle that seems certain to unfold tomorrow night adds a new dimension from the usual 'we will score one more than you' nature of the game. How will the respective defences cope in trying to contain the other side's numerous attacking threats? Who will dominate the midfield and thus have the greater possession with which to breakdown their opponent? Will either manager change tactics or personnel for this match? These are all questions which add an intriguing depth to the all-star cast of El Clásico.

Through all this intrigue though, there are fears. The game has made for such a spectacle in the past because it was often both sides playing all-out attacking football. As sublime as Mourinho's treble winning achievements were last season, if he takes the same defence-minded approach tomorrow, many football fans will be left unsatisfied. The saving grace remains that with the number of fantastic players on the pitch, the match rarely fails to excite.

It is a clash between two of the most recognisable clubs in the history of world football. It is the duel between twenty-two of the most talented footballers on the planet, two of which reign supreme in a league of their own. It now has the added edge of being a tactical battle between two of the premier managers in the game right now. Under the spotlights, on the stage of the Camp Nou, the greatest domestic football match will be played out once again tomorrow night with the footballing world intently watching open-mouthed.

Thoughts, comments and opinions...

The State We're In: Why the latest criticism levelled at the Premiership needs to be acknowledged not ignored

2010-11-26T13:59:00.000Z

There are two articles that have particularly caught my eye over the past couple of days. There is this one about the levelling out of the quality of the Premiership and this story about Carlos Tevez once again threatening to quit football in his prime.

To save you having to read them to understand what I am going to go on to talk about, here is, in my opinion, the essential parts of the respective articles. These are two quotes concerning the state of football in England (which is ultimately what each article is concerned with).

Zeljko Petrovic, Avram Grant's No. 2 at West Ham until he was sacked: "Everybody has great words for the Premier League but it is a myth... The Premier League is a crap league, it is nothing. In truth the level is shocking. Every team has just three good players. If you take those players out of the teams, then there are only players left who would not be playing in the bottom team in Holland. The Bundesliga is far better."

Carlos Tevez: "Football is only about money, and I don't like it. There are so many agents with really young footballers... it's awful, as these young players are not interesting in winning titles, they only want money. The young players think that they have won something in football because they have two mobile phones and a house."

Now these views are, of course, not representative of the footballing world. They are, however, indicative of the waning reputations of both Premiership football and footballers in the Premiership.

Petrovic's less than favourable view of the Premier League is undoubtedly distorted by his recent dismissal by West Ham. To put the quote in context, the Guardian's Paul Hayward was writing about how the Premiership has become far more open due to improvements from smaller combined with a faltering big four.

Ultimately, the big four no longer exists. With Tottenham and Manchester City now bridging the gap, Liverpool struggling and teams like Bolton exceeding expectations, the league, thankfully, no longer conforms to the predictability of just four teams competing in their own elite league while the other sixteen are left fighting for scraps.

The recession unquestionably impacted upon Premiership clubs. The money was no longer available clubs to draw in the the star players when needed and this has, to an extent, taken away the advantage the big clubs held over the rest of the league for so long. Whereas they once could afford the better players now they, like the rest of the clubs, are having to make the most of what they've got. The rather uninspiring strength-in-depth of many squads, as highlighted by the untested youngsters now making their way on to the substitutes bench, reflects this trend.

The new found fallibility of the big four comes as a welcome relief to most Premiership fans. Nevertheless, it illustrates Petrovic's view that the quality of the Premier League is in decline. The big teams have lost their dominance over both domestic and European competitions. Big name signings, excluding Manchester City's spending sprees, have largely dried up and the thinning number of ageing stars are being replaced by, as Tevez says, young players who “are not interesting in winning titles.”

Tevez's criticism too is almost certainly a little harsh. Like Petrovic though, he touches upon a genuine problem in English football, namely, the attitudes of the young up-and-coming stars. It is something I wrote about back in October when Ryan Giggs shared a similar sentiment. The money and fame that is thrust upon footballers still in their teenage years can only be of detriment to their growth both on and off the field.

The preoccupation that young players reportedly have with securing bigger wages and sponsorship deals detracts from their focus on what really matters – winning football matches and winning titles. Andy Carroll and Jack Wilshere, too of England's brightest young talents, have both faced police action this season for their behaviour off the pitch. They are not necessarily to be blamed though.

They are the products of a new footballing culture that has been created in England. A culture that places the tag of 'celebrity' on footballers and the attention, money and fame that this in turn brings is often too alluring for players to resist. Cameras are shoved in their faces and ludicrous sums of money are deposited into their banks accounts having a negative impact upon them as footballers and as human beings. This is, whether we like it or not, part and parcel of the modern game and the disillusioned words Carlos Tevez epitomises the problem.

This culture hinders England's ability to produce players of the required quality in the necessary quantity. With the big names no longer coming in and the new stars not emerging at a rate that the FA, or any England fan for that matter, would be content with, it is easy to understand why England's stronghold over European football five years-or-so ago has come to an end.

It need not be all doom and gloom, however. The example of Aston Villa's emerging core of young and exciting English talent is reason for genuine hope. Moreover, the very fact that the quality of the so-called big four is not what it once was has resulted in the Premiership being more exiting than ever as, to use the old sporting cliché, the playing field is becoming far more level.

The Premiership still remains in the top tier of world football, even if it is no longer at the very top. The current lack of excessive spending could be to the advantage of English football, too. If the media and fans in England can learn not to create and then destroy the reputations of young players with such speed and ease then green-shoots could appear.

There is a lesson to be learned from the quotes of Petrovic and Tevez which have prompted this post. Although they may be overtly critical, they ought not to be ignored. Their views are based on elements of truth which English football, whether it be the FA, clubs, press or fans, should acknowledge and attempt to correct. The climate, from my viewpoint, is becoming increasingly suited for these changes to take place or at least gain recognition. In the aftermath of the World Cup the inquiry has begun and these are just a few of the issues that now need to be addressed.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Part I

2010-11-24T18:48:00.008Z

Here is the first in what is likely to become a series of posts which show the latest videos of the good, bad and ugly sides of a range of sports. For part one, football.

This post contains a sublime overhead-kick from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a blatant display of unsportsmen-like time-wasting from Real Madrid's Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos to earn themselves deliberate red cards and then a clip of everyone's favourite Uruguayian, Luis Suarez, performing his own version of the 'Mike Tyson bite'. Enjoy.

The good:

The bad:

The Ugly:

Thoughts, comments and opinions please

Bolton's Face Lift: Under Owen Coyle Bolton have a new, more attractive appearance to go with their good-looking league position

2010-11-21T13:14:00.003Z

Last week I wrote about the great work that Chris Hughton has done as Newcastle United manager. The Toon have subsequently lost two and drawn one of their last three games, the latest loss being a 5-1 hammering by Bolton yesterday. Nevertheless, these losses should not detract from Newcastle and Hughton's success so far this season. Yesterday they were quite simply outplayed by probably the Premiership's biggest over-achievers.

Bolton are currently fourth in the table. What is heightening their praise is the manner in which they have reached such a position. The type of football that Owen Coyle has got the team playing is a long way removed from the stereotypically unglamorous approach they are often labelled as playing. Like Hughton who he defeated yesterday, Coyle illustrates what can happen when a manager successfully instils a footballing philosophy at a club.

Under Sam Allardyce Bolton epitomised the concept of route one football. They were gritty and aggressive in defence and predictably direct and physical in attack. Now, under Coyle, there has been a dramatic transformation. He has shown a great appreciation of tactics and personnel to know how to best use the squad he has available to make Bolton contenders in pretty much any match they play. The team has a great balance and work-rate that stems from a humble acceptance of their own abilities and a lack of egos.

While they remain extremely hard working without the ball, they have begun to play a far nicer brand of attacking football. They keep the ball on the floor and play short, sharp passes off and around their two front-men. Crucially, Davies and Elmander have both hit form for Bolton this season to add goals to Bolton's industrious and creative team-play. Elmander is now joint top Premiership goalscorer along with Andy Carroll on eight goals, one of which was this beauty against Wolves.

The midfield combination of Holden and Muamba, meanwhile, has been one the most under-rated success stories of the season. Their play may at times appear unremarkable but they have the highest successful tackle count in the league. They are a working example of how the 4-4-2 formation can still be used successfully. They both willingly get back to break down attacks and then link the play with the striker or the wingers, Lee and Petrov, with simple passes, thus allowing the more creative players to use the ball in the final third. They have an understanding as a pairing of who will join the attack and who will hold which has offered Bolton a core around which the team can function.

In defence they have the highly-sort-after Gary Cahill who, along with the giant figure of Zat Knight, has been in domineering form so far this season. Behind them there is the always consisted and seemingly never-ageing Jussi Jääskeläinen.

Bolton are now becoming one of the most talked about clubs in the Premiership. Their rise to prominence has been as surprising as it has been rapid. It is the style of play, however, that remains the biggest talking point. While bigger teams like Manchester City and Liverpool struggle to understand what brand of football they ought to be playing, the likes of Bolton, Newcastle and Blackpool play with unusual confidence and reassured character.

Like Alex McLeish did with Birmingham last season, Coyle has created a footballing philosophy that shows both a great understanding of the players he has at his disposal and the value of building a strategy around doing the simplest things in the game well.

In 2005 Allardyce led Bolton to qualification for the UEFA Cup. Now, although I am aware that I am almost certainly getting too far ahead of myself, Bolton could be on their way to repeating this feat but in very different footballing style. In a Premiership season where the saying 'anyone can beat anyone on the day' seems more true than ever, Bolton have emerged as the real surprise package, both in terms of their results and the attractive manner by which they are achieving them.

Thoughts, comments and opinions please...