It’s a funny old game...The Premier League returns

With the Tottenham V Everton game postponed due to riots in Tottenham you just knew that the opening day of the premier league would be as unpredictable and controversial as well, another riot in Tottenham. Luiz Suarez kicked off proceedings at Liverpool by completely missing a penalty and firing the ball over the crossbar into row Z. Eventually Suarez went on to redeem himself by scoring the first goal in this season’s premier league. Not to be outdone Sunderland’s debutant Seb Larsson scored what must already be the goal of the season with the sweetest volley to make it 1-1 the final score at Anfield.




(Barton Sqaures Up to Arsenal's Debutant Gervinho)


Mean while down in West London QPR’s welcome party was soon in tatters as they were given a 4-0 beating by the 'mighty' Bolton Wonderers. But perhaps the most controversial game of the day has to be between Newcastle and Arsenal. Where not only were there some appalling haircuts on display by Joey Barton & Alex Song. But Joey Barton then decided to take it upon himself to lift Arsenal’s Gervinho off the ground (after he had appeared to have dived in the box) and then ferociously shake him. Gervinho responded by giving Joey Barton a well deserved slap round the face, which saw him sent off and Joey Barton fall to the ground in impeccable theatrical fashion. It goes without saying that a mass bar room brawl between the teams then occurred. This leads me to conclude that if these football players were doing it live on TV in front of millions worldwide, then no-wonder these kids are rioting in the streets... Just take a look at their so called role models.

Are West Ham really better off with Sullivan & Gold?

Today West Ham face a battle for their premier league lives. Regulation looks a given unless they win today.

But could this have all been avoided?

When Sullivan and Gold arrived at their 'boyhood club' it was hailed as a 'homecoming'. They basked in their new found spotlight and they promised to bring immediate changes for the good of the club.

Their first change was to axe Gianfranco Zola a perfectly capable manager who not only kept them in premier league but had the dressing room on side. Indeed Zola is a man well respected in football and in a world full of prima donna's and big ego's he has managed to endear himself to the public as a good, honest nice guy

The hasty decision to replace Zola with Avram Grant has certainly come back to haunt them. You could say that the omens were always there as at glance Avram's C.V doesn't make for good reading, as if West Ham get relegated they will be the second team he's taken down in back to back seasons.

Sullivan and Gold may have had perfectly good intentions when arriving at West Ham. But if they carry on like they are they might find it hard to fill up their brand
new, shiny Olympic Stadium






An Empty stadium awaits West Ham if they get relegated.

Is John Terry really the right man for the job?

Strong, brave, passionate, vocal it’s a no brainer he’s perfect for the job right? However this is also the man who will happily sleep with his fellow team mates girlfriend, which is hardly an attribute that will unite the England dressing room.

As much as we all like a Roy of the rovers captain that will pump is fists in the air and throw his body on the line. This is surely a terrible decision by Capello who Less than a year ago removed the captaincy from Terry due to his off the field antics and now he seems to giving it straight back to him on a plate.

All this has come at the expense of Rio Ferdinand, who in the last few months has endeared himself to the public due mainly to his mass presence on social networking site twitter. As at present he has a following of 659,179 fans. With many admiring him as he comes across as a down to earth, calm and responsible guy. Surely this is the man we want at the helm? Granted he was banned from international football for missing a drugs test, but he has served his ban and gone on to become the Man United captain and is very much respected figure in the game.

With many fans and pundits still fuming after England’s shambolic exit from the World Cup Fabio Capello would be wise to reconsider his current candidate of choice.

Arise Sir Redknapp?

I must confess that when Harry Redknapp (above) first came to Spurs I wasn’t exactly doing back flips with celebration or hailing the new messiah. On the contrary I felt that we could have maybe found someone with more winning credentials and a higher success rate in terms of winning trophies. Not to mention the fact that he comes across a bit dodgy and the term ‘brown paper bag’ is a phrase often coined when our ‘Arry is around.

However this all changed within two minutes when I saw his first press interview at Spurs. The passion and enthusiasm shown was something I hadn’t seen in a Spurs manager since Terry Venables and like Venables he came across as someone who can motivate players and get the best out of them.


At the time of his appointment Spurs were looking like relegation fodder, languishing at the bottom of the Premier League and to quote a typical Harry phrase

‘We had just 2 points from 8 games’

Within two weeks of his arrival we had beaten Bolton, dragged ourselves out of relegation and came back from 4-2 down to draw 4-4 against Arsenal in an epic game at the emirates.

Fast forward on to today, Spurs have progressed on to the Quarter Finals of the champions league. Having knocked out AC Milan and beating the champions Inter Milan in the process and in turn cheeky chappy Harry has become the first English manager to get this far in the worlds best club tournament. This feat has brought on heavy speculation that he will be the next England manager and although I’d hate to see him leave the lane, I think that he fully deserves it

Now this is by no means an ‘Ode to Redknapp’ but surely he deserves some sort of acknowledgment for what he has done so far. As nowadays good English managers are a dying breed and what Harry Redknapp has done at Spurs has put him up there with the best of them.

Crazy Italian pundits

If this isn't bias jornalism then I don't know what is.

The reaction to Tottenham's Goal and Milan's disallowed goal is priceless

and desereves an oscar!

Enjoy!

Gennaro 'The Clown' Gattuso

Before I watched Tuesday night’s game I held the view that Italian football was
Classy, technical, sophisticated and even as Ruud Gullit would say ‘sexy’ but after Gattuso’s performance against Spurs this view has quickly been diminished.

Hacking up players willy nilly and almost foaming at the mouth Gattuso behaviour was more like one of those crazy Looney tunes character rather than a critically a acclaimed football player. Indeed wearing his red and black jersey comparisons to an overgrown Dennis the Menace from 80’s comic ‘The Beano’ would not be far off the Mark. His final display of petulance came with a flying head butt to Tottenham’s assistant manager Joe Jordan which to be fair probably did more Gattuso damage than Joe as Joe didn’t even seem to batter an eyelid.

Albeit Gattuso’s has gone on to apologise, can Michel Platini and his cronies at UEFA HQ really tolerate this sort of behaviour? As if this was to happen in the terrace or even the streets Gattuso could have found himself up in the dock on a GBH charge.

Premiership Phycho

Now, I don’t normally do book reviews, but when I stumbled upon Premiership Psycho by C.M Taylor I thought what hell. A fantastic book, which had me hooked from start to finish. What I liked the most is that it was not the usual rags to riches tripe that we have become accustomed to in football books\films


On the contrary, far from being a 'Roy of the Rovers' type good guy, the main character 'Kev King' is an arrogant, paranoid serial killer who also happens to be a top footballer living the highlife in his cosy Essex pad. His girlfriend is a celebrity wag and his agent is a dodgy as Arthur Daley.

A very, funny and clever book that manages to expose the nonsensical, celebrity lifestyle of a top footballer while at the same time revealing the dark inside thoughts of a serial killer

A must read for football fans and will have you howling with laughter on your daily commute

Transfer madness

Ah the January transfer window. It never fails to disappoint with a total of 215 million spent in just 31 days, this could have helped George Osborne get us out of this financial mess that we are in. Alas the money was spent on overpaid footballers

Shock buy of the window has to be the 35 million quid spent on Andy Caroll. But perhaps even more shocking is that he arrived in Merseyside in a chopper which is something that Barack Obama would have been proud of.

While Andy Carroll was getting out of ‘ze choppa’, Fernando Torres was bombing it down the M1 to wrap up his ‘dream’ move to Chelsea for a bargain price of just 50 million! Abromovich, again flexed his financial muscle by splashing a further 21.3 million on David Luiz taking their total spending up to a mere 71.3 million.

Not to be outdone the sheiks at Man City Spent another 20 million on Wolfsburg hit man Edin Dzeko, while Spurs had a cheeky bid for Phil Neville rejected.

Whether these players go on to prove themselves and help their teams win the league is remains to be seen, as currently the top two teams in the premier league Manchester United and Arsenal haven’t spent a thing. This may go to show that spending ridiculous amounts of money on marquee players won’t necessarily win you the league.



(35 Million Pound man Andy Carroll with new manager Kenny Dagliesh)

Keys takes a hike

With Andy Gray gone, Richards Keys (above) has followed his old pal and left Sky Sports...To be honest it was about time too as had this saga continued any longer it would have surely ruined what little integrity there is left in the game.

Listening back to the comments about Female Referee Cian Massey and seeing some of the footage. I got the impression that these two had become complacent and somewhat caught in their own hype. Granted they have done an excellent job, but this doesn’t give them the right to have such an abhorrent attitude towards women in the game. The comments were like something from the 80’s …..50’s even where men were men and women stayed at home and ironed

Only 20 years ago we were having the same debate about race, black football players were seen as incapable, lazy and too aggressive and faced torrid abuse from the terraces, but they continued and persevered and went on to prove that they are just as good as their white colleagues and players like Ian Wright, John Barnes, Paul Ince
and Andy Cole have gone on to become house hold names and hold legendary status at their respective clubs.

The comments from Keys and Gray were no different from what we were hearing 20 years ago and I know some may argue that this is just a bit of banter, but if these guys had stayed at sky sports then it would have sent out a statement that this sort of behaviour is accepted. Don’t get me wrong this is not a crusade. But times have changed and sky sports who have moved on with their all singing and dancing technology (3D Broadcasting) need to do the same with their attitude towards women.

The Magic of the FA Cup

Ah the FA cup, that quirky, old fashioned, cup competion that gives hope and a day out to all clubs that take part in it.

This was certainly the case for Charlton Athletic fans. The N-Power league 1 outfit had a F.A Cup clash against their London rivals Tottenham Hotspur and they were going to enjoy every minute.

Running late for my train to see the game I jumped on the first carriage available at Liverpool Street which was packed full of Charlton fans in Party mode.Their optimism was sky high and the banter was thick and fast with one fan claiming that the score would be 5-0 while another shouted excitedly ‘ there’s only one team in London’.

To be fair Charlton gave a good account of themselves in the first half of the game.
This I believe was down to the downright loyal support of their fans who managed to out sing the spurs fans. Every time a Charlton player had a shot on goal the Charlton fans were at a delirium. And the half time score of 0-0 had Charlton fans singing there hearts out

10 minutes into the second half Charlton were 3-0 down but this didn’t stop the Charlton fans oh no, chants of Charlton ’til I die were relentless and the fans never lost hope. 10 minutes later it was 3-0 to Spurs. The Charlton didn’t even batter an eye lid at this and proceeded to sing ‘we gonna win 4-3’


Alas Charlton went on to lose 3-0. But as they Charlton fans clapped off their team with a standing ovation it dawned on methat this really what the FA CUP and supporting your team is all about just enjoying the experience for what it is win or lose

Up the Addicks!

Bent to Villa

Now When I heard about this I nearly knocked over my cup of tea, not only because it came from completely of the blue but the fact that someone was actually willing to pay 24 Million! Darren Bent will indeed prove to be a good signing for Villa and may yet prove to be a shrewd move for Gerard Houller. But the question is … If the premier leagues most in form player (Rafeal Van Der Vaart) was brought for 8 Million is Darren Bent really worth 24?



The Million Dollar Man