goodfootballerornot

Come on, admit it.  Anyone who saw Rooney go over said or thought the same.

That we are seemingly so reliant on one player for an England result is testament to this site (yes it is).  The players are not as good as the press makes them out to be and certainly not as they all seem to think.  There is a big hole in the squad for the world cup should Rooney miss it.   With others doubtful (Ashley Cole in particular) we are going to be reliant on Gerrard who despite his claims at being able to “turn it on” whenever he wants has been poor this season.  Lampard played in the right way has been brilliant for Chelsea, all be it sporadically.  All is not lost.  But there’s still some bum flexing to do while we wait for the news about an ankle.

If you get a ban extended for your appeal against a ban being frivilous and you then appeal against the extention, is that frivilous or just taking the piss trying to get away with elbowing someone in the face?

Depressingly its business as usual for the Prem.  All of the “top 4″ won, with scary good score lines for Chelsea and Man U.

Boro were spanked in the second half and although Chelsea were fortunate for a couple of them Boro had no response apart from capitulation, loosing 5-0 at home is not very good is it. Man U also turned in a far superior second half performace than thier opponents, doing West Brom 4-0.  Everton should be rather annoyed at converting a 1-0 lead at half time to a 3-1 loss, but it does fit thier current form.  Liverpools run of playing badly and winning, with some luck in the form of a Wigan red card, continued with a late 3-2 win over Wigan.

The teams with a shout of breaking into the Champions League spots, Villa and Portsmouth, managed a fairly rubbish draw together, hard fought it might have been but a win is required for the top 4.  Villa who have looked at times like a top 4 team, until they got rolled over by Chelsea, will regret thier lack of scoring here I’m sure.   Jermaine Defoe showed why he won’t get a start for England, we have better play makers and more accurate shooters.   By the end of today Hull, of all teams – come on be honest your thinking the same, could be in the top four with a draw against West Ham and frankly they have a very good chance of doing so.

Later today Spurs play Stoke for Ramos job and anything other than a win must spell the end for him.  Loosing will leave Spurs deep in the shit with only 2 points, no confidence and the players wondering who will be managing them in a couple of weeks.

So John Terrys red card for one of the most outrageous tackles ever seen was rescinded. Regardless of the interpretation of the rules of the game the problem is the FA were pretty much cacking themselves at the thought of the England Captain being branded a thug. Pity as he is.

Despite it only being a 2-0 win for England, with the obligatory boos at half time from the morons who seem to think we have some given right to win these games 10-0 and so should be at least 5 up first half, it was telling for me that Capello had to have a go at Rooney and Cole for not playing as they were told to. Rooney in particulalr doesnt seem to have a great brain, although Joe Cole is hardly GCSE material, but the fact that two of our top players can’t follow simple instructions probably explains quite a few things.

For years now it has been often suggested (and an observation of my own) that Lampard probably can’t play to a set of orders. Hes too fond of going forward and thus removing the support that Gerrard needs when going forward himself and then Gerrard who is the type of player to track all the way back to his own area finds himself even further out of position to compensate which is why players like Barry, Hargreaves and Carrick are deemed essential to England being successful.

That Rooney feels the need to play so deep is worrying and also makes a stark case for not playing him as a striker, if at all. If he and Gerrard are our best and most creative players then yes they should probably make up the attacking midfield and play one or even two proper strikers up front. Sure you have to drop Lampard but many people have been saying that for a long while now and it seems there is a good tactical reason for doing so.

Unfortunatly we wont get that situation I would think, which is a shame as it might pay off with Walcott & Cole wide.

Lets see what happens in the proper match, England do play better against better opponents and hopefully the players wont be too intimidated by the supposed England fans and past recent history and make a mess of it.  But lets remember Croatia are ranked fifth in the world, England fifteenth, a draw is a good result frankly.

So Keggers has gone, again, and Toon are a shambling wreck of a club unlikely to attract top managerial talent. I mean really, look at them.   8 managers over the past 11 years, not to mention the timings of some of the sackings, a football director or two in London, madness.  This time for Keggers the issue seems to be a similar one with many managers and clubs now, who has control of bringing in or selling players?  Lets face it some managers have wasted millions on some right dross, Newcastle being a prime example of having a string of managers who filled the club with players best left on the dole.  Mike Ashely, who it transpires brought the club before waiting for a due diligence report (that’s checking the books to you), found himself unexpectedly several more million quid out of pocket.  That he wants to keep an eye on the cash and perhaps not make the mistake of previous owners and keep the managers purchasing of the crippled and the talentless in check is understandable, but why Dennis Wise?  In London?  He was a marginal manager at best and as yet seems to have done nothing in terms of bringing in some talent to Newcastle.  That the choice came to Keegan or Wise and Keegan lost is surprising to say the least.  Curbishley also went this week citing similar circumstance, players being sold when he wanted to keep them etc. while the club have said quite the opposite that he was told in all circumstances, but the complaint is the same.  Benetez also appears to have had problems with getting players he wants, and he doesn’t have to deal with dross being brought in by a sporting director, he can buy his own dross, if the owner lets him.

Worse for these owners who are seeking to protect their cash and reign in bad managerial purchases is that the game is full of sporting directors who aren’t really up to the job.  Comolli at Spurs appears to be a bit of a comedian, 16 million for Darren Bent?  Come on!  There also appears to be questions asked of his failure to sign another striker before the transfer deadline and the list of attempted signings is farcical.  There are others but the point is that many are just not doing any better than the managers.

Whatever the situations managers & clubs appear to need a reality check.  Theres too much money at stake to allow most managers free reign on who they buy and for how much.  Players often want to move and there’s naff all that can be done about it.  Players who look a good prospect turn out to be a bit shit, no matter why buys them and worse a class player is brought but has left his magic boots at his old club.  It happens, a lot.

Worryingly for English managers, what are the odds that an English manager will be offered either job?  Blackburn took the bold and pretty much unprecedented step of appointing Paul Ince, a manger who did at least have a good record at a lower level.  If English football is lucky maybe another young English manager will be given a chance and maybe one day the England team will be managed by and Englishman, or will we have our clubs and country managed (badly) by italians?  Im looking at you here West Ham, the only managers linked with your club appear to be Italians?  Why?  While there is no doubting the credentials of some of the Italian talent saying they are interested in coming here, why not look to the Championship, there are some talented English managers who, if given the chance, could well prove themselves.  Is there really such a risk?  Same for Newcastle, who are you going to appoint?  Dont drag out the still twitching corpse of failure that are the unemployed ex preimiere league managers, pick someone who hasnt had a chance at the top level.   The clubs already have Sporting Directors to stop them making expensive mistakes and the coaching staff is in  place, unless the new guy comes in and really changes everything the team at least should be able to continue on wards without a dramatic drop in performance even if they are a bad choice.  Hell Avram Grant got Chelsea to a Champions League final and he apparently didnt do anything at all! Neither are top 4 anyway and now Man City appear to have limitless fund they are unlikely to be able to be top 4 without the sort of money the owners dont seem to have.  Realistically they can only be expecting mid table mediocraty now and maybe a fight for a UEFA cup spot which has just got one place harder to get.   So whats stopping you?  Newcastles last choices of Reoder and Allardyce were sound in this way at least, trying to give a fairly proven manager a chance at a bigger place.  Ok so they failed, but there are no certainties in life and both Newcsatle and West Ham hardly have the worst squads in the league or anything to loose right now.

Uniteds hugely dodgy signing of Berbatov looks to go unpunished, what does the Premiere League do exactly?  What are the rules there for?  Shame on United for their bullying brazen behavior, shame on Spurs for taking the money and shame on the PL for letting it happen.  Every contract is now worthless, every club should feel no compunction to follow the rules of transfers.  After whinging about Madrid all summer and then tucking up Spurs for Berbatov in the same way, if not worse, Man U deserve some form of punitive action.   In fact if I was a manager who wanted a player, just go to their current clubs training ground and ask if they want to join.  Give back the fines to Chelsea for the Ashley Cole affair, what does it matter now?

The Gain, possibly, is for City.  Robinho is a world class player, a world class player who may well find himself a touch surprised to be playing for Manchester City, not United and in the UEFA cup and not the Champions League.  Its unlikely to happen this season but we could certainly see a large gathering of top players at City next year.   As for their new signing, lets see if he actually wants to play for them or not.  Since he has yet to be displayed by the club and considering the clubs status right now you have to feel there’s a good chance he might not actually want to play for them.  The new owners are going to have to pay him a lot of money to get the best from him.

The Pain is for all the clubs not owned by rich backers now.  With City throwing down a massive gauntlet which is grasping a platinum (that’s solid platinum as well, not just some plastic painted thing) billionaires credit card, the rest are going to find life very hard indeed.  Spurs have spent an awful lot of money aiming for the top four and are having a bad start already.  Next season they are going to have an even harder time of it getting into the Champions League, unless Liverpool and Arsenal implode.  Liverpool and Arsenal have stadium issues, one cant get the cash to buy one it needs and the other is struggling to pay off the debt for theirs, what future for them without some extra backing now?

Transfer rules are being ignored and the Premiere League is doing nothing. Contract and transfer chaos looms, at least I hope so.  I certainly hope to see Man U loose some players next season, maybe City can do a Ronaldo and Berbatov double?  We can only hope for a massive shakeup around transfers unfortunately.  Clubs are being brought by backers who will want thier money back, with some serious interest.  Abramovich might just love the game, but he still has only loaned the money to Chelsea.   I suspect Citys new owners are also going to go into this with a harsher deal than what Chelsea are under.

So the great Italian hope has gone and picked Terry as “permanent” captain. Bugger. There are fewer examples of a more obnoxious football personality than him, Rooney and Cashley Cole are probably worse, so why pick him? Ferdinand is the better player by far in defense and Gerrard is also an example of one of our few more versatile and tacticaly aware players, but he chooses the clogger. Baffling. I can only think that hes got such poor material to work with that its going to need a dressing room bully to sort some heads out, god help us. The Captaincy is a joke anyhow and should just be given to the most capped player, now Terry can’t be dropped. So if he has a bad season then what? I had hoped Capello would be picking players on merit to fit a system but this Captaincy malarky has put paid to that idea, not to mention he hasn’t picked farther outside of the squads McClown did. Again baffling. I had great hopes for Capello, but frankly this is a dismal choice. His squad selection for a meaningless friendly is totally uninspiring and stale. I can understand not wanting to return to Svens method of just giving out single caps like sweets but we have a fair few exiting new untried or barely tried options and some others who deserve a look-in. Instead we get the same old players who have proven they cant hack it. Granted Capellos a better coach and tactician than the ginger clown was but it would have been nice to at least try some other players.

Also thanks to ITV screwing themselves up and loosing football coverage, with help from the BBC who refused to deal with them and share, thanks. Now we now have to pay an extra subscription for Sentanta to watch games, England as well as PL. The chuckle heads in the competition commission and the government might want to think that if they want competition it should at least be made available to non subscription channels. Theres more than enough money in the game, the players can take a pay cut and have less paid for their contracts if the money is tight, better that so the fans can watch the game without being screwed over.

So a few ramblings and rants about the first weekends games and TV coverage.

Man U:

Does Fergie really hope to win the Champions League again while still holding onto Scholes and Giggs? Even the League? Those two were looking out of touch, if not their depth at times last season. Very much on last legs, yet both still didnt have the sense to retire. Darren Fletcher is not a world class midfielder either, but this is the core of thier Midfield! They will undoubtedly do well enough in the league, maybe even 2nd considering how bad Liverpool look to be right now and Arsenal only a couple of injuries away from Disaster. Frankly if they get past the quarter finals of the Champions League then they will have done well. Euro 2008 showed how to contain Ronaldo, it was made to look quite easy in fact. If Ronaldo gets as many goals again this year then it will be an embarrassment to suggest the Premiere League is the best league around, all the best defenders certainly aren’t here if he does. Rooney is still a petulant child with a lack of end product, hes a striker so where are the goals? Greatest of his (or any) generation? Balls! If hes going to be a play maker then move him into midfield otherwise hes a striker with potential. Hes actually looking like a gifted young player with nothing left or the brain or ability to carry it though. Although I was moderatly impressed with his lack of swearing (so far).

Spurs:

WTF does Ramos think hes doing? Did he think that Borough were going to be an easy 3 away points? They have signed a bunch of midfielders, attacking ones, no real striker of established quality to replace Kane and a probably departing Berbatov and have no true defensive midfielder apart from Zokora, who played at right back?! Modric is a playmaker who will need someone covering the defense while he pushes forward, Huddlestone could do that, are the defenders to rubbish they cant consider player 3 at the back and packing the midfield? Its not like they are short of them!

Everton:

No transfers in. You what? Is the squad really that good? The squad that lost 4-2 to Cambridge United pre-season? Don’t know about you but I’d be really rather concerned about that if I was manager. While they are a solid side (good footballing term that) they are not going to get top 4 without some decent players in. If they get a top 4 it will be because Liverpool implode and stuff things up and/or Arsenals injuries mount up. While either are likely it doesn’t do much for the notion of the best league in the world does it.

Chelsea:

So fantasy football manager with all the money cheats on is looking to pay off. Yes I know one game isn’t enough to decide anything, but looking at an already impressive squad with a much better coach than they have had so far you would have to put money on Chelsea winning the title and Champions League this season and maybe throw in an FA or Carling cup win just to buff things up? Although I do hope they don’t do an unthinkable quadruple, they are obnoxious enough without managing that.

Newcastle:

Go Keggers. Personally I don’t rate him that highly as a manger, he lacks tactical nouce and has a proven record of bailing out if somethings not right or following up by showing he can get better. However as a manager who quit the England job when he knew it was going wrong and without hanging on for the sack and a big payout I rate him, very highly indeed. I would love it, love it if Newcastle were to do well and maybe even, dare I say it? Ok I will, win something!

Match Of The Day:

Ye gods it gets WORSE! To rant against MOTD is too easy, but so necessary. We pay a license fee and they spanner god knows how much on Lineker to sit there, be smarmy, pretend that the so called pundits are saying something insightful and wise, give me a break. Oh and can they not find a better writer for his “jokes”? Hansen has become a cliché of himself but does on rare occasions say something thats moderately intelligent and actually analyses the game.

Who has decided to keep that barely literate, no-insight, no-talent commentator Shearer on? Hes useless! Does Shearer really expect to manage a Premier League team? Based on what we hear on MOTD the day he is appointed, at whatever level, the rest of the managers in that league will be pissing them selves at the prospect of playing a side coached by him. Man most likely to never win a game as a manager, ever.

Having Martin O’Neill do stints on the show only make you realise how piss poor the rest of them are.

Sky:

Jamie Redknapp, from the latin name – thick twunt, who should stick to producing a stupidly expensive exclusive magazines. His brain is also exclusive, so much so it doesn’t do public appearances. Despite what I said about Shearer above, Shearer is an erudite genious compared to this chucklehead. In fact Sky should prise Shearer off the BBC and make them their dream studio team for Super Duper Sunday or whatever ridiculous title they give it now. Until then the sooner him and Shearer have a go at management the better to give us all a good laugh, so long as its not at my club!

Despite some of the more tedious and farcical transfer sagas yet, Ronaldo and Barry in case you dont know who I’m on about (actually add Berbatov to that as well), there has only really been 4 teams who have done some interesting business, Fulham, Liverpool, Tottenham and Sunderland.

Spurs and Sunderland:

Keano has obviously decided that the best thing to do is to buy up all the Spurs players who wont be getting a game now they have some better talent coming in, apart from thier lardy and suspect keeper. Probably a sound move. Chimbonda, Malbranque and Tainio are good players. Spurs have been talked about to breaking into the top 4 for a few seasons now and while they havent done so the players Keano has got from them have been core to a half decent Spurs side. Sunderland probably only have ambitions to stay up and maybe a cup run and Keano has the players now to do this. Comfortably I would think.

Spurs, well Spurs have gone a bit mental really. Although if they had spannerd 15 million on Ashton then they deserve relegation! Modric, Bently and Dos Santos are good purchases and certainly indicate exitiing football at the Lane. Berbatov may yet stay, and really is vital to them now Keane has gone to Pool. Good business for Spurs but a real loss as Keane is a touch of class. So really I think its going to depend on the Striker situation at Spurs, if Berbatov stays then they do have a very serious chance for getting a top 4 slot. If he goes then its going to depend on who the get as a replacement. Dean Ashton? Carling cup will probably be the best they can hope for. And this year Chelsea wont be as east to beat in that, not that they were last season but Grant was, well his talents are better used elsewhere I think.

Liverpool and Fulham:

Fulham, who need all the help they can get, are really just an advert for chopping a couple of extra teams out of the PL. Relegation? Proably only saved by Hull, Bolton Stoke and Wigan Borough & West Brom all fighting for the chance to play a thier level. You can add Toon to that list as well I would think. A manger who doesnt convice he knows what hes doing and an owner who has taken the slightly unusual tactic of aiming for a top 4 slot by not actually improving a dodgy squad.

Liverpool is an odd one. They have Keane now, who with torres could produce a wealth of goals, but is Barry really the right player for them? If they do buy him they could benefit from a Gerrard and Barry partnership, which should signal the end of Lampard as a first choice for Englands starting lineup. So theres is something to be said for it afterall. But the rest of the players are going to have to make thier mark as Im not as convinced as some about the teams supposed depth of quality, they were 7 points off third last season, thier only comfort being the 11 points between them and Everton. The good news is Rafa did shift some right dross out. Team most likely to loose a top 4 spot?    Probably not, Arsenals lack of purchases smacks of arrogance rather than just confidence.