Premiership Managers I’d have dinner with…

In this new feature I plan to list a group of six Premiership managers that I wouldn’t mind going out to dinner with – decent blokes who would have stuff to say of footballing and general interest and hopefully enjoy a pint or two before the meal and a little brandy afterwards…Of course this group can change, based on their latest comments/interview, and that’s why I will also have a reserve list of eight managers, one of whom could step in if invited…The final group of six managers will really have to re-think their behaviour if they ever want to be asked along on this football and culinary feast…

Currently on the guest list are…Martin O’Neill – a good bloke to have at any dinner table, Gianfranco Zola – a lovely fella and footballing gentleman, Harry Redknapp – for a ‘bit of this and that’, Roy Keane – passionate about his football and can handle his drink, Arsene Wenger – to select the wine, and Gareth Southgate – very “nice” and ‘cos he’s my mate…

Waiting anxiously for the postman to arrive with a possible invite are…Roy Hodgson (was in the top six until his refusal to admit that A. Johnson should have been sent off this past weekend against West Ham), Steve Bruce (he’d have to accept my many comments during his years as a BlueNose etc), Scolari – must improve his English,  Ferguson – must improve his English, someone from Spurs, Phil Brown – needs to stop smiling so much, David Moyes – needs to smile occasionally, and Newcastle’s latest sucker…

And these six very unlikely to get the nod…Raffa Benitez – would he say anything we could believe?, Paul Ince – boring, Gary Megson – doesn’t seem to understand the game, Mark Hughes – enough of the excuses, Tony Mowbray – Yorkshireman, Tony Pulis – can’t wear a baseball cap at dinner…

As I wait for my half-time curry, chips, and a pint…

Derby, I like; too bad about the manager…

Paul “Big mouth” Jewel, current manager of Derby County, had this to say during his teams awful season in the Premiership last year…”The pain we are suffering now, I will repay next season with promotion. I have managed in the Championship for four seasons and been promoted twice and finished seventh once, so I am very confident we will get promoted.”
Jewell took Bradford into the top flight in 1998 and repeated the trick with Wigan in 2005.
He is anxious to put last season behind him and try to bring the same success to Derby.
“We have got 19,000 season ticket holders for this season,” Jewell added. “All I can say to them is that we will get promoted this year. I am not going to hide behind anything, the results have been rubbish since I have been here.”

He’ll get no argument from me. Let’s not forget that he took over at Derby in November and, although it was not “his team”, he was in at the helm of a side that steadily got worse if anything. This season they have lost one and drawn one of their first two games. I have always liked the club, ever since the Clough and Taylor sides of the early 70’s which were the Midlands’ most entertaining and successful team. I wish them well but I am no fan of Jewel and have a sneaking feeling that to return to the top flight they may have to wait until he is no longer in charge…

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What was that England performance all about on Wednesday? Pathetic. We have a major problem with Capello’s current goalkeeping choices, the full backs are average at best, the midfield was poor (but at least capable of much better), and what on earth is Heskey doing back on the international scene?…I could go on in more detail but why?…It’s 42 years of hurt with no end in sight…

As I wait for my half-time chips, curry sauce, and a pint…

Thursday, April 24th, 2008…

So both of the European Cup (E.C.L.) semi’s are finely poised it would seem. I wouldn’t write off either of the away teams in next week’s return legs but Chelsea and Man U are the surely the favourites. Liverpool should have won the first game against The Pensioners by a couple of goals but for the first time in years their ‘Euro Luck’ deserted them and now I believe Chelsea will edge them out. Meanwhile Benitez’ post game comments centered on the perceived poor refereeing decisions against his team. He should shut up. In the previous round against the Arse, the two crucial ‘penalty/not a penalty’ decsions went very fortuitously in his favor and as a result he gets very little sympathy from me this time round…

As for Man U, they were not very good on Wednesday but back at Old Trafford I expect them to be a different team and Barcelona’s apparent satisfaction with the first leg home draw will come back to haunt them…Man U v Chelsea in Moscow for the Final…

Somewhat at the other end of the spectrum, I see that Paul “Cocky Bastard” Jewell has guaranteed a swift return to the Premiershiop next season for his Rams. I would not be so sure. Although he was handed a tough situation whjen he took over, he has done very little positive since his arrival at the Baseball Ground and his negative comments and defesatist attitude, not to mention not a win in more than twenty games, would have me very concerned if I was a Derby fan. I’ve not liked the bloke ever since I hit him with the ball, accidentally, when returning it to the pitch for a Villa throw-in at Villa Park a couple of seasons ago when he was at Wigan. He’s a bit of a tosser and I can’t help but think he will end up on the scrap heap of managers along with the likes of John Gregory, etc…

As I wait in line for my half-time curry, chips, and a pint – Wednesday, April 9th

It just never ends…Birmingham City, the Second City’s only unsuccessful club, have once again hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. You just have to laff!. As reported on the BBC Football page…

Blues bosses arrested by police
Birmingham City co-owner David Sullivan and managing director Karren Brady have been arrested and questioned by police.
City of London Police investigating alleged corruption in English football said they arrested a man, 59, and a woman 39, on Wednesday.
The pair were questioned in connection with allegations of false accounting and conspiracy to defraud.

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So, the semi-finalists in the European Championship League are in place and two fascinating ties lie ahead over the next month.

Liverpool v Chelsea

Chelsea – a simplistic analysis would be that, as predicted by many when Abramovich’s millions began to troll in, they will play as a team of individuals and success would come purely based on having a squad of world class players and thus have limitations. How much success this would mean was debatable. Under Jose Mourinho they reached a very high level of effectiveness and efficiency and it resulted in two Premiership titles. However, as time passes and the unimpressive Avram Grant-era grinds forward, the philosophy of money buying top players and thus success, has become somewhat skewered. They still have loads of money and all those top players but increasingly they play as a team of individuals and their style is duller than ever to watch. As a result, this philosophy and style is perhaps shown to have a limited shelf-life and, although they are still pursuing two major trophies, May be that simplistic view of world class individuals not playing as a team, and thus ending up short of the ultimate goal, is correct. I cannot help but feel that they have just about gone as far as they can expect to go and their trophy cabinet will not be added to this season.
Liverpool under Benitez just seem to raise their game and believe they can achieve anything when the E.C.L. games come around. They are a different team from the one we see in many of their domestic games and they really have no hope of challenging for the Premiership as long as their league form prevails. However, despite being slightly on the back foot with the second leg of the semi being played at Stamford Bridge, I expect the Red Scouse to survive two very close games and reach yet another final.

Man U v Barcelona

Another cracker with perhaps this tie being a less cagey affair than the all-English match-up and a few goals being scored. Man U are the best team I have seen this year and with so many weapons, coupled with Barcelona’s inconsistency, I see Man U coming out on top and giving us a Lancashire Champions League Final!

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So David James has announced that he wants to be England’s keeper for the World Cup in 2010. I hope not. Although he is in-form at the moment it is only a matter of time before he reverts to “Calamity” James once again. It was a well-deserved nickname and one that far too many England fans for my liking seem to have forgotten from his last disastrous and at times ridiculous spell in the team. Surely at least one from Kirkland, Green, Carson, Robinson, or Hart will develop a high level of performance and consistency in the next year or so and not put us through the inevitable once again…

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At the top of the Premiership goal scoring chart the only ‘Homey’ (English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish) player is Tottenham’s Robbie “Look at me, look at me!” Keane who is 4th with 14 goals, five behind the 3rd placed Adebayor…Ronaldo on 27 and Torres with 21 are first and second…The next Homey is in 9th with 12 goals and it’s Defoe followed by Rooney in 11th with 11 and tied for 12th it’s Gerrard and Lampard with 10 goals each…England for the World Cup!!??

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The Savage Besat update…Gobby Cabbage, currently on the bench for the relegated Derby team has garnered 8 yellow cards in his 23 Premiership appearances this season. That is a little off his usual rate of “success” in the category that he has owned for many of the recent seasons and he has slipped to a tie for 15th. However he is only two yellows out of 5th place and surely has a chance to regain his former “ glory” confirming once again that Savage is a wanker – trust me on this…

Four of eight…and three from nine…

Liverpool never reallly looked in danger of not making the E.C.L. Quarter finals against a very disappointing Inter Milan team yesterday. Now they join Man U, The Arse, and Chelsea in the last eight along with Barcelona, Roma, Fernebace, and Schalke…Depending on Friday’s draw, obviously, the odds are looking very good on an all-Premiership final wouldn’t you say?…

Battle at the Bottom…As I waited in the never-ending line for my half-time pint of lager and chips and curry sauce, I had plenty of time to study the remaining fixtures for the bottom nine teams in the Premiership…With, in my opinion, Derby and Fulham out of the race for survival and already doomed to play in the Championship next season, I came up with the following final point totals for the other seven…

Newcastle 37,
Middlesbr’o 37,
Reading 36,
Sunderland 35,
Bolton 34,
Wigan 34,
and, in the final relegation spot it’s…..The BlueNoses on 33…..Fingers crossed…

Surviving on the Tyne, haircuts, and a brilliant Arse…

Greetings from the slow-moving line for my half-time ‘refreshments’ – a styrofoam container of ridiculously hot chips, liberally smothered with some of Birmingham’s finest curry sauce, all to be washed down with a fine pint of Carling Black label lager served in a plastic cup. Now if we can just win the match, life indeed would be good…
Meanwhile, as I stand here, my thoughts meander to other aspects of The Game…

I just took a quick glance at the remaining fixtures for Newcastle – three home wins against Fulham, Reading, and Sunderland may be all the points they get the rest of the way!…If that turns out to be the case then The Messiah-on-the-Tyne will be wishing he’d never returned to lead “the fanatical and windswept 52,387” to the promised land of Premiership survival…Having said that, due to the existence of numerous even poorer teams beneath them I think the Geordies will survive by about four points or so…

Crap Hairstyle of the Week goes to The Arse’s goalkeeper, Alumnia, whose bleached blonde look resembles Alan Smith if he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards…Willliam “Crybaby” Gallas, whose ‘do’ looks like he’s been trying to pull his hair out, is a close second, and full-back Sagna, with his peculiar blonde bits, fully deserves third place for his ludicrous efforts…(Note to self –do not go to that barber shop near to The Emirates Stadium, a.k.a The Library)…Rounding out ‘The Other Big Four’, I have West Ham’s Dean Ashton who looked like he was playing a sickly, ghoulish character from a B-horror film – and when you perform like he did on Saturday against Chelsea perhaps that is what he should be doing rather than playing football…

Over the past couple of weeks many people, including myself, have doubted The Arse. Their tame effort at Man. U in the Cup followed by a first leg home draw against A.C Milan in the E.C.L. and further draws in the League at the BlueNoses and at home against the Villa suggested thir pursuit of various trophies was going to fall short on all fronts. I mentioned that the Wenger Boo Boys would soon be out in force and had already seen a couple of comments from them about how his lack of signings in the transfer window had left the squad lacking in depth and therefore vulnerable down the home stretch…Well, lo and behold, Arsene and the Arse have hit back in the best possible way. Their fully deserved victory in Milan yesterday meant that the two excellent matches concluded with the correct outcome and once again, for what is about the 317th time, Wenger proves his critics wrong – bastard!…

Wenger, Alan Smith, Lucky Liverpool, and the League Cup Final

Greetings from the slow-moving line for my half-time ‘refreshments’…

…Today at St. Arthur’s in Birmingham, the BlueNoses’ Martin Taylor breaks Eduardo’s leg with a terrible challenge – one of the easier red card decisions of the season for the ref, I’m sure…But for the Arse’s Wenger to suggest that Taylor should never play again is ridiculous. Perhaps he had nothing else to say following the Gunners’ very disappointing result in a game they should have won easily…

…Why does Newcastle’s Alan “Nasty Bastard” Smith repeatedly return to his bleached blonde hairstyle…He’s been sporting this look off and on for many years and for much of his career it has been the most notable thing about him on the pitch, along with the never-ending series of yellow cards he receives…

…Liverpool’s loss at home against Barnsley in The Cup brought me great joy and then on Wednesday in the E.C.L., with less than ten minutes to go, it was 0-0 as they struggled to break down ten-man Inter at Anfield… Again I was smiling, a result of my recently found desire to see the Scouse Reds fail in their Europe games, the opposite of my feelings for the other Premiership teams in those competitions. This was borne about two seasons ago after many years of listening to the Liverpool fans who seemingly believe their team has some sort of right to win everything… Liverpool then scored twice against Milan to leave them with a good chance of going through to the next round and once again I had to endure the cocky comments of the Red Scousers I know…For a team without a domestic Championship for many, many years, and currently experiencing another season of huge under-achievement following another pre-season spending spree, their fans seem to be missing the fact that Benitez is not as good as he/they think he is and the club has now fallen well behind the ‘Big Three’…

…Chelsea or Tottenham in the League Cup Final?…I wish they could both lose but I do like the fact that Spurs have such delusions of grandeur and therefore another season, which promised so much, of futility would be just fine with me…Having said that I can’t possibly wish for a Pensioner’s victory…I can’t win either way so I’m supporting the ref in this one…My head says 2-1 to Chelsea…