So after another week of twists and turns in the Championship, the last remaining automatic promotion place comes down to the final weekend after all. Yet let’s get one thing clear, West Ham cannot beat us to second place, we can only lose it.
After being in the top two positions for the entirety of this season, the thought of finishing third after the final round of matches is a horrible one, and I do not share other fans opinions, who say that finishing in the play-off places will be ok, because we would have taken that at the start of the season.
But let’s not dwell on that too much, I have every confidence that the job will be completed on Saturday, and in style, and at approximately half past two we will once again be a Premier League club.
Although sides that have nothing to play for can be dangerous, I think we will have too much for them, and with two wins against them already this season (both at the Ricoh) we should have nothing to worry about.
There have been some classic home games against Coventry over the years, and in the eighties the two clubs were involved in two 10 goal thrillers. In 1982 the match ended in a 5-5 draw, yet two years later Saints would run out 8-2 winners, something like that would be fantastic on Saturday, just not the 5-5 draw, I do not think my heart could take it.
Obviously, being realistic we are extremely unlikely to score 8 goals on Saturday, but so long as we are more than 1 goal ahead going in to the final minute I will be happy. The amount of late goals we have been conceding lately is a worry, and it will not do Saints fans pulse rates any favours knowing that West Ham are winning handsomely at home to Hull, and that a late Coventry equaliser would swat us down to third place.
On Saturday morning I will take comfort from knowing that when it usually comes to a big final day game where we need to get a result, we usually do (2005 excepted). But going into the final game of the season, knowing that a win will see us promoted is a new experience for a lot of fans who still have fresh memories of all those final day relegation scraps at The Dell.
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To me, this forthcoming match does seem to feel almost like a playoff final in itself, and whatever happens, one way or another, the Saints players know that they will be making headlines on Saturday.
This week saw Roy Hodgson’s 23 man England squad for the upcoming European Championships announced. This has been a hot topic across the press over the last 24 hours, but is it possible that this selection just highlights a lack of talent on our shores?
Social networking website Twitter, just minutes after the squad announcement saw Stewart Downing trending across the country. It’s fair to say this wasn’t for the right reasons. The 27 year old Liverpool winger has played 36 games for The Reds this season, and with 0 goals and 0 assists, many were outraged as to how Hodgson had the audacity to call him up to represent the country in Poland and Ukraine this summer.
However, in the surprise selection of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, we see a young, exciting talent that many fans were happy to see included. In his press conference, Hodgson stated that he was particularly impressed by the 18 year old’s performance against AC Milan in the Champions League tie at The Emirates.
Let us go back to England’s 2010 World Cup exit. Fresh from an embarrassing 4-1 defeat by Germany, fans everywhere were calling for a complete overhaul of English football. Starting from grassroots and ending with the International team, there were cries for a turnover; out with the old and in with the new. People wanted to see young, exciting players who would give everything for their country; providing what it takes to make England into a force to be reckoned with. Alex Oxlade Chamberlain is surely an example of this. A talented, passionate individual who can strike fear into opponents. Arguably there are further examples of this in Danny Welbeck, Ashley Young or Phil Jones, all who have impressed with Manchester United this season.
But beyond that, there is very little cause for excitement forEngland fans ahead of Poland and Ukraine this summer. Stewart Downing is precisely the kind of player England fans were not in favour of post World Cup 2010. The spine of the team also remains the same. John Terry, Ashley Cole and Glen Johnson still remain in the first choice back four, and the fostering of English talent comes in one example of Phil Jones. Is 1 example in 4 enough to suggest that there is talent in this country? Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Gareth Barry remain in contention for midfield, and Wayne Rooney and Jermaine Defoe are two strikers still being called up.
Whilst there is obviously reason to suggest that these players are good enough, and they are more than capable, there has been cause for concern in the past. Hodgson has not been prepared to give youth players a chance, and whilst he isn’t relying on all of those previous England managers have called up, such as Emile Heskey, Stephen Warnock or Matthew Upson, the squad selection is something of a mish-mash of those old and new.
How is it that England are still relying on the same individuals when since the last major tournament, anger was shown towards the who team? Maybe there just isn’t enough talent in the country to threaten the current squad.
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Is this a rather pessimistic view of Hodgson’s squad selection? I would to love to hear what you make of it: @ultimate_dav
When I look back at Chelsea’s Champions League heartbreaks over the last nine years, I have often suggested to anyone who will listen that that last gasp defeat to Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in 2009 was the worst of all the near-misses and gut-wrenching disappointments. That was, of course, until about 10.27pm last night when it hit home that Chelsea were once again on the verge of losing the Champions League- Europe’s richest club prize- on penalty kicks.
Juan Mata had missed a third consecutive spot kick in Chelsea colours and Bayern, in front of their home fans, had established a 3-1 advantage in the penalty contest. Surely, after all the brushes with death in this year’s competition, could be no escape this time. And like a romantic who has had his heart broken one too many times, the memories of 21st May 2008 came flooding back.
Four years ago I sat in my student house on the eve of an ill-fated Land Law exam, having already convinced myself that 2008 was going to work out to be Manchester United’s year. I am not, as you might gather, the most positive of Blues supporters.
Back then my negativity appeared justified. United had toppled us in the league and in Moscow, dominated the early exchanges, scoring early through a Cristiano Ronaldo header before dominating the rest of interminable fist half. Frank Lampard, somehow, was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to level things up just before the break but you couldn’t feel positive about Chelsea’s chances.
Strangely, the Blues had the best of the rest of the game- hitting the woodwork twice in extra-time- before the bitter taste of penalty kicks and THAT slip from John Terry. In fact when Ronaldo failed to beat Petr Cech from the spot, I managed to break a broom in two in my excitement. Alas, these advantages are fragile and within five minutes Clive Tyldesley cried: “van der Sar saves it, United again!” and the dream was over.
The rest of the night was swallowed up in floods of jubilant Facebook messages from United fans, the most poisonous BLT sandwich I have ever tasted and the sudden realisation that in my football obsessed state I had neglected to study at least 70% of the syllabus for the Law exam only seven hours away. It was not my best night.
Fast forward four years and in a not dissimilar haze I came across the very same grey tracksuit that I had worn that night in Moscow. Well, OK, not that I was in Moscow in 2008 but in any case it felt prophetic. How about wearing the same clothes to help break the hex and see Chelsea over the line? Stuart Pearce I was not but at that moment the decision to dig out those old garments seemed the least I could do.
As in previous years I had been invited to a friend’s house to watch the game but I knew if the match was tight, which it was surely destined to be, I may well not have been palatable company. So, a solo trip to a pub where I knew no one inside was the answer. Anti-social, yes, but in those moments you feel that everything you do needs to be right if your side are to come out on top.
The decision to watch games of this sort on my own have often been my policy, particularly since I had to explain to a then paramour that the Argentine television graphics of Chelsea’s last 16 defeat to Inter Milan in 2010 did not mean that Didier Drogba was going to be playing in goal.
My establishment of choice was pretty quiet. In fact the sterile atmosphere of the game was reflected only in the seeming indifference of the publicans. The only moment of passion seemed to come when I let out a frantic gasp at David Luiz, who had slipped out of position, and one middle-aged gentleman asked, quite threateningly, if I was a Tottenham fan. Obviously not.
When Thomas Muller nodded in Bayern’s opener with little over seven minutes on the clock, I felt much like how Arsenal fans must have felt after Juliano Belletti’s late winner for Barcelona in the 2006 final. Their ‘destined’ triumph was cut off at the death- surely the German forward had just done the same to Chelsea.
Of course, if there was to be a way back, it had to be Didier Drogba to save the day and halt the celebrations of Bayern and Tottenham fans everywhere. His blunderbuss header was, in truth, Chelsea’s only real clear-cut opening of the match but it came in the nick of time.
Even as we entered extra-time, the docile pub dwellers may have written the game off as a Chelsea moment of destiny, but I was climbing the walls. As Drogba gave away his second Champions League penalty in two games, a bearded man from a table of bemused French watchers waved a nonchalant hand at my pained cries and simply said: “Messi, Messi!”
And by the beard of John Spencer he was right. Arjen Robben bottled a penalty kick when at Chelsea during the 2007 semi-final shootout against Liverpool at Anfield, and the Dutchman hadn’t learnt any greater composure in the five years that had since slipped by. Cech fell to his left and made a relatively straightforward stop.
“Everyone stay calm!” I shouted, not realising that I, of course, was the most animated of the swelling crowd. The spectre of penalties, I reminded myself and everyone within earshot, was not one Chelsea were likely to respond well to.
“Remember Charlton!” I bellowed- a reference to a Carling Cup penalty exit in 2005 that I’m not even sure the players involved in remember.
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As an English Chelsea fan the shootout was the first to go the way I’d wanted- two League Cup campaigns aside- since Rafael Nadal’s uncle, Miguel Angel, failed at Wembley for Spain during Euro 96- it has been a long 16 years.
Thankfully I couldn’t hear Gary Neville do his best to jinx Drogba as he made his way to the penalty spot for his moment of truth else I might have flown to Munich and throttled the newest member of the England coaching staff. Still, I was convinced there was to be a sting in the tail. Mercifully, there wasn’t.
Within seconds I was involved in a seven man hug with a set of complete strangers before leaping around like a Jack-in-the-box on hallucinogenic drugs. Football shouldn’t mean this much, but it does.
On my way out I popped into a 24 hour shop to pick up some food. This time, I am pleased to report, I ignored the strategically placed BLT and went for something a bit harder. And the tracksuit? A bit like Drogba, it might have some life it in yet.
Theo Walcott was delighted with his contribution from the bench and hopes there is more to come from him in this tournament.
The Arsenal winger came on in the 60th minute to replace James Milner with the brief of injecting life into an England side that had just surrendered their lead at the start of the second half and didn’t disappoint, as he scored the equaliser within a few minutes of coming on before a surging run set up the winner for Danny Welbeck.
Walcott said he has been disappointed that he hasn’t been involved from the start but conceded that this is a squad game and he was determined to take his chance when it was presented to him:
“I wouldn’t say I was the game changer. We felt from the first game we wanted to pick it up a bit more offensively and to score three goals is the main thing – it’s always nice to come off the bench and show what you can do.
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“I’ve obviously been disappointed that I haven’t played, but I’ve been training hard and it’s not about the starting line-up, it’s a whole squad thing, we’re a family – I was sharp warming up and you need to be sharp on the pitch because at this level it’s really, really tough.” (Sky Sports)
With Leeds United’s takeover seemingly imminent, it has been refreshing to see the fans with renewed optimism and belief.
Who knows, by the time you read this we might already have new owners, but what does that mean for Leeds?
Financially, will we have the backing to make the club a name in Europe once again?
We have been told to “dare to dream’” by the chairman of the supporters trust, so we shall.
Amongst all the dreaming, we have to make sure we don’t lose focus on what this really means. When the takeover goes through, Ken Bates will be gone. There’ll be no more lies, no more court cases and our name wont be dragged through the mud time and time again. If the group that takes over Leeds has the clubs best interests at heart with the financial clout to make a real difference to our fortunes, the sky really is our limit.
Oddly, amongst some fans it appears that the faith in Neil Warnock has faded a little.
Whilst I can understand that the end to last season wasn’t exactly one to fill us with much hope, you have to question how much motivation any manager could get out of a team with nothing to play for. Even though some of the players were playing for their futures it was quite clear that Warnock was looking for something of an overhaul of his playing squad.
Throw in how the key players, Snodgrass being the most obvious, faced the prospect of another summer of the usual lies/excuses that are reeled out to justify a lack of ambition, it is a little easier to understand how finding motivation may have been a little harder than normal.
However, I’m confident that Warnock is exactly the right man to get Leeds promoted. His record speaks for itself, he’s a promotion specialist who knows the type of player needed to get out of this division.
As fans, we need to make sure that if we do indeed get taken over by a group with money to throw around that we keep faith with the players that Warnock chooses to bring in. By that, I mean that if you’re expecting Buffon and we sign Paddy Kenny, try not to be too underwhelmed.
In all seriousness, we do deserve the good times that seem almost inevitable now, but as the great prophet Ali G once said, we also need to ‘keep it real’.
The last thing we need is to get ideas above our limits, we’d all love to see Leeds back in the Champions League in 2 years, winning trophy after trophy, but before we even get into the Premier League we’ve got a long hard season ahead and promotion is by no means a given. Confidence is key, but making sure we don’t get over confident is too.
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The odds on Leeds getting promoted have steadily fallen since talk of a takeover began, as I write this we are currently second favourite to win the league, despite only signing 3 players. I’d imagine in the next few weeks, that might well change again.
Anyway, I’ll let you get back to dreaming of a return to the glory days!
Matt Jarvis has become the latest Wolves player to attempt to force through a move away from the midlands club after a bid was rejected from West Ham for his services this week according to the Daily Mirror.
Relegated Wolves will kick off their season amidst mass speculation regarding their key players’ futures and although the club have no need to sell financially, it seems the players will seek to return to the Premier League in this transfer window.
Steven Fletcher has already confirmed that he has handed in a transfer request after Wolves rejected a big money offer from Sunderland for his services and it seems Jarvis is taking the same route.
Winger Michael Kightly joined Stoke this week and so it seems the exit door is gradually opening at Molineux with Jarvis and Fletcher seemingly the next two out of it.
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We’ve now enjoyed a wonderful 20 years of Premier League football since it’s inception in 1992/93. In that time we’ve seen wonderful foreign players ranging from the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo to Thierry Henry, not to mention the English stalwarts of the division like Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney. Manchester United have inevitably dominated during the modern era, overhauling rivals Liverpool’s record of 18 league titles and Arsenal have been their main rivals from an early stage.
However, we’ve seen challenges from certain money rich clubs to the dominance of those two sides, with Blackburn initially spending Jack Walker’s millions to land the title before Roman’s Russian revolution of Chelsea saw them catapult their way into the upper echelons of English football. However, Manchester City have now joined the elite, winning their first Premier League title thanks to their oil rich owners. In two decades, England’s top flights has seen tons of goals, assists, bookings, saves, corners and all the rest and to celebrate 20 years of Premier League football, we bring you the best 20 Premier League stats.
Click on Alan Shearer to unveil the top 20 stats from the Premier League
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There was an almost macabre element to endure as you sat back and watched the Robin van Persie transfer story unfold. It wasn’t anything to do with the ambitions of the player nor even the acceptance of the club to sell to one of their greatest rivals. It’s more the simple principle that Arsene Wenger has been perceived to have done the best he could, to squeeze £24million out of his star acquisition.
Because even if circumstances dictated Van Persie’s sale was inevitability, it still doesn’t mean it’s right. Sir Alex Ferguson personally intervening to make the sale stick, felt akin to the school bully walking over and nicking Wenger’s lunch money. Wenger was powerless and even though he may view the avoidance of a beating -in this case, a potential RVP Bosman- as something of a victory, the truth is he’s still been forced to give up something he so dearly wished to keep.
Wenger achieved the best possible deal he could for the football club and time may even dictate Van Persie’s sale to be something of a masterstroke, given his injury history. But even if it does turn out to be a blinder, it’s one that should never have been played.
As the Gunner’s failed to net in their Premier League curtain raiser against Sunderland on Saturday, the hacks of Fleet Street probably couldn’t believe their luck.
The Sun took it upon themselves to spell it out as bright as day for Arsenal fans with the overzealous “NO RVP = NO GOALS,” hammered their back page, adjacent to the rather apt image of Arsene Wenger burying his head in his hands. The task of replacing 37 goals may have started in earnest during the weekend, but it’s clear that the replacement duo of Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud are going to be under massive pressure to perform from the off this season. Foreign signings need to be allowed a fair period of adjustment to bed into the trappings of English football. The stirring has begun and it feels as if it their purgatory period may have already defined by the shadow of their predecessor.
Because they’re not just replacing any run of the mill striker. It feels very clichéd to describe Van Persie as irreplaceable but how do you go about replacing a player who at times last season, almost dragged his team kicking and screaming back into the top four? Talismanic is one thing. Scoring 30 league goals, creating another nine and urging your team on as club captain is quite another. You may not be able to put a definitive value on those traits, but £24milion certainly doesn’t cover it.
However, the sale of Van Persie was dictated under the looming circumstance of his rapidly expiring contract. The Dutchman had one year left to run on his deal at the Emirates. The reality was of course, that should Wenger refuse to sell his prize asset now, that he would go for nothing the following summer. Barring an absolute catastrophe, it’s hard to envisage that he’d have had a lack of clubs to pick from with a non-existent transfer fee. He wanted out and he had to go this summer.
And considering the situation, Wenger did a cracking job to get the amount of money he did for his skipper. At 29, Van Persie is at the wrong end of his twenties, had a contractual situation that drastically effected his transfer fee and most prominently, had only managed more than 28 league games in a season for the first time in his career last term. He represents a substantial risk to Fergie, but should they win a Premier League or a Champions League off the back of his mercurial left foot, the fee is all but forgotten.
But the point is that the elements of risk in this deal would be a hell of a lot more prominent, had he not cost £24miilion. And if his deal had say three years left to run as opposed to one, there’s no way he’d have left the Emirates for a penny under £30million, at the very least. As a simple matter of risk management, would Manchester United, Juventus or any other club for that matter, have been willing to risk a potential £35million plus on a striker of Van Persie’s age and with his injury record? It doesn’t matter that he’s nearly 30; he was arguably the best out-and-out striker in Europe last season. If Wenger didn’t want to sell, clubs would have had to cough up that sort of money.
But the length of his contract distorted the circumstance and however you frame the £24million, it could have been so much different. It feels like Groundhog Day again at the Emirates. Similarly with the Samir Nasri deal to Manchester City in 2011, no one can deny that £25million was a good bit of business. But yet again, it was dictated by his contract situation; Nasri had one-year left to run on his latest deal.
It remains to be seen what their North London rivals attain for their prized asset, but as we are seeing with Luka Modric’s protracted move away to Real Madrid, no one is pushing Spurs chairman Daniel Levy around. His philosophy has been to regularly top-up Spurs’ players with new deals when their stock has incrementally risen. You can’t prevent the likes of Modric and Van Persie from wanting to move, but you can ensure that the club remains in a degree of control. However you may critique their transfer activity, Spurs have ensured everything has been done to ensure they get maximum value out of their players.
But as Alex Song becomes the latest Arsenal player to jump ship, following his £15million move to Barcelona, it feels like something of a tipping point has emerged. Here was a player who, according to recent reports, showed a lack of professionalism in training towards the end of last term and the club has subsequently been happy to let him move on. But conflicting stories have suggested that Song was in fact, desperate to commit his future to the Gunners and his advisors initiated contact with the club in January, in the hope of renewing his £55,000-a-week deal that had three years left to run.
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It’s difficult to make a staunch analysis on such conflicting reports and who you believe will greatly determine what viewpoint you take on Song’s departure. As immoral as footballers wages may be, was Song really asking too much in looking for parity with the club’s top earners? A salary of £55k a week for a man who chipped in with 11 league assists as arguably Arsenal’s second most influential player last season, doesn’t seem particularly reflective with the rest of the market. Have Arsenal flogged a greedy, unprofessional player to Barcelona and avoided the next Nasri/Van Perise? Or is this transfer the legacy of having their fingers burnt for two summers on the trot?
The term watershed season is wheeled out a little too often this season, but it feels like it could definitely be slapped on Arsenal’s term this season. Arsene Wenger is trying to run the football club in the mould of sustainability, not reckless investment. But as important as it is to acquire new players, he equally needs to find a way to keep the ones he already has. Next up is Theo Walcott. Let’s hope the script isn’t already written.
How can Arsenal buck the departures of their finest players? Are the club right to not hand new contracts out like confetti or does something have to change quickly at the Emirates? Tell me how you see it on Twitter: follow @samuel_antrobus and bat me all your views.
Both FIFA and UEFA have an obligation to safeguard the future of football. The European governing body’s plan to regulate the spending of its constituency members is an admirable, and necessary, step. There are other areas though where UEFA could potentially step in to regulate certain parts of the sport. For example, player transfers. It is so interlinked with the problems facing the sport at this present time that for many it seems like the next logical step for Platini to take.
Such an exercise would undoubtedly come with challenges but it could be a valuable opportunity to stamp out certain, less favourable elements of the sport. Attempting to do so would not come without opposition but providing it received the backing of the clubs it could prove worthwhile.
The primary benefit of having a UEFA regulated transfer market would be that agents would become, for the most part, redundant. There would be no need for agents to act as a mediator if that mediator was a centralised governing body.
At a time when money’s stranglehold of our sport is ever increasing so is the power that agents are able to wield over clubs and footballers. How many players have been persuaded to move from their clubs as a result of their agents? How many footballers’ dream moves have never materialised as a result of their agents’ financial demands?
Sir Alex Ferguson admitted to having cancelled transfers as a result of the demands of the agents. There is a fine line between having the best interests of your client at heart and simply trying to extort as much money out of a club as possible. The vast majority of agents in today’s world have crossed that line.
To rid our sport of agents would also, you would hope, encourage a culture whereby footballers are taught to think for themselves. The commercialisation of football has taken so much from the game that it is important that the players themselves are still able to analyse and appreciate their moral responsibilities and act accordingly.
In theory, if UEFA regulate the transfer market there will also be less of a possibility for corruption. The allegations made by the BBC towards a number of Premier League managers, coaches and agents could be a thing of the past. There would be no opportunity for corruption to go unnoticed if UEFA had an active role in every transfer.
It’s not just bungs that are the issue either. Anybody who read or watched the recent reports on the trafficking of young African footballers to Europe will understand that a more intensive focus is needed on the transfer market, especially when players have come from deprived areas where they may be manipulated and abused.
There are, however, downsides to implementing an initiative like this. The first is that, just because we allocate the responsibility to UEFA it wouldn’t necessarily mean that corruption could not take place. After the revelations of the last two years associated with FIFA, trust for football’s governing bodies are at an all time low whilst having UEFA regulate transfers could stamp out elements of lower level corruption it is far from guaranteed.
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The main issue for UEFA would be the sheer scale of the task. Would it actually be possible to closely monitor every single transfer made throughout Europe? And, even if they could do it, would it be painfully inefficient. On the whole, centralised governing bodies are always slower to act than local, devolved governing bodies. Were this pattern to be mirrored in football it could spell the end of last minute deadline day signings and transfers of this nature. Sometimes it is essential for transfers to be conducted quickly and it would appear unlikely that such transfers would ever be possible.
Lastly, while it’s important to remember that some agents do serve some sort of purpose in some cases, it is obvious that UEFA should attempt to create some extra regulating bodies to monitor the transfer market in Europe. The power of certain incredibly rich clubs is becoming dangerous, as is the influence that agents hold over their players. What those necessary next steps are, however, is up to Platini.
Roberto Mancini and Mario Balotelli are said to have had another bust-up after Manchester City relinquished their lead to draw 1-1 with Arsenal on Sunday.
The temperamental Italian forward was left on the bench for the crunch fixture, with Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero starting for the Premier League champions.
Balotelli did get a chance to enter the play after 85 minutes, replacing Aguero towards the end of the game.
The pair have had clashes before, with Balotelli getting sent off against Arsenal last season at the Emirates Stadium and feeling the anger of Mancini after the dismissal.
It is believed that Balotelli confronted his trainer after the game on Sunday, and Mancini pushed the striker in the tunnel, but the City manager has refused to exaggerate the incident.
“I don’t remember what happened after the game,” Mancini is quoted as saying by Mirror Football.
“I don’t know if he was asking me something. That’s not important. Mario thinks it was important, probably. I don’t know. Tomorrow I’ll ask him.”
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Balotelli has recently returned to action after laser surgery on his eye, but is by no means guaranteed a place in City’s line-up due to the strength in depth the squad have in attack.