The Outsiders' Edge

Sorry for the slight delay in contact since the last update from the city where if you have a ridiculous name and are a bit northern, you think the roads are paved with gold. I’ve been on holiday you see. The biggest disappointment was that despite driving down most of the 101 in California, I neither found Jim Rockford’s trailer nor the house where Dr. Mark Sloan lived with his ethnically sensitive bunch of friends and 45 year old man-child son.

All I wanted to do was invite them out to play volley ball on the beach”

Despite my absence, the Premiership has continued to trudge along while spewing out its cavalcade of fun. Suspensions, bankruptcy, odd results and gossip are all once again rampant, as are unfortunately injuries to my fantasy football team. I love it when my defence is so ravaged that they have to be underpinned by Titus Bramble. I only took him as an inside gag with a friend, and now I actually have to hedge my points on him. Want to know how bad he is – my friends and I refer to any sportsman having a bad day at work as ‘suffering from a case of the Brambles.’

Anyway, that’s quite enough of that. To business…

I think the biggest disappointment that the Premiership so far is that the top of the table is so ‘as expected’. The top three are Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United while Arsenal are, as ever, still up there. Likewise, Spurs are around and abouts (based on their end of season form last year, it really isn’t a surprise) as are The United Arab Emirates State of Manchester City. Sunderland too are in this little mixture, which I suppose could be attributed to the fact that Steve Bruce is by far the best of Sir Alex’s ex-players who have tried their hand at management. That, and Darren Bent is just scoring for fun, as highlighted in their 5-2 trumping of Wolves. The alternate theory to Sunderland’s success is that they are revelling in being the area’s only Premiership team and are succeeding just to add further misery to Newcastle United.

The bottom of the table, however, is a bit more interesting. Portsmouth, West Ham, Fulham and Hull appear to be early season relegation favourites. Now, I’m not writing any of these sides off, as years of playing the Football Manager series has taught me that you don’t know where you are until 10 games are played, and don’t know who you are in a position battle with until there are 10 games to go. However, it is quite interesting that all of these teams are down there. Except for Hull. How they stayed up last season is beyond me. They are a good example of a team who would probably benefit from being relegated, getting the ‘parachute payment’ aimed at helping clubs deal with the loss of TV revenue and then giving promotion another shot.

But Pompey, West Ham and Fulham are all a little odd to be down there. West Ham and Fulham were the darlings of last season, with Roy Hodgson and Zola being publicly masturbated by many in the media. In all reality, Hodgson should probably be a much more lauded manager than he actually is, but I fear the fact he looks like a coach driver who takes his job too seriously probably acts against him. But what he has done with Fulham is quite remarkable.

After pulling off ‘The Great Escape’ and steering Fulham clear from relegation in his first season, last year he guided them to European competition thanks to a strong 7^th place finish. This year though, the cracks appear to be showing. Fulham have always had a bit of a reputation of not scoring any goals and conceding a few. When Hodgson came to Fulham he actually did quite a genius thing, he didn’t pour a lot of money into panic bought strikers. He put his time and effort into producing a very respectable defence. Now, however, it might be time that he did go for that one player who can make a massive difference attacking. I’d give much the same advice to Zola, who had such a tremendous season last year that there was quite some talk of him taking over at Chelsea. However, nothing came to that and now his West Ham side are looking rather mediocre.

The big problem with teams that have a bit of a bubble season is that they then just try to stay the same, using the ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ philosophy. That works fine with a teapot, however the big problem with the Premiership is it keeps evolving. What worked one season may well not work the next.

Portsmouth, on the other hand, are taking this years title of ‘Rotten Team’. They are skirting bankruptcy, pinning all their hopes on some less-than-above-board foreign investor and although playing with a lot of heart, just not getting results. It is so hard to do anything with them, as the club are in such a flux. However, above all of their issues, the main problem is they have sold all their good players and are just fluxing awful. If you know what I mean.

“Who wouldn't trust this man? He looks so nice dependable...

That is all there is to sum up really. The season is young, and more story lines will evolve. Now lets look at some more important things, shall we…

Chelsea Transfer Ban

This was a late breaking story when I first appeared on here with my début article. However, since then a bit more has come out. Seems as if Chelsea have been found guilty of getting a young French player by the name of Gael Kakuta to break his contract and join them. For this they have been banned from signing any new players until 2011.

Now, my first thought when I heard this was ‘What on earth is a young promising French\African player doing moving to a club other than Arsenal?” After that though, I started to think a bit more normally. Youth transfers are always a bit dodgy. Just look at another Chelsea acquisition in John Obi Mikel, who signed a contract with Manchester United, then signed one with Chelsea. In the end, the Blues had to give United some £12m to go away and not kick up a fuss. Another player who moved very young, Frederico Machaeda, made a massive impact for Manchester United last year scoring two winning goals. He apparently only moved to United from Lazio because the Manchester team could offer him a professional contract at 17, something Lazio couldn’t.

In the short term, I fail to believe that the Chelsea transfer ban will hold up under appeal. I sort of hope it doesn’t too, because there are a number of other top clubs who are under investigation for similar charges and it would be boring if the summer wasn’t full of transfer rumours. It also stinks of FIFA\UEFA trying to curb the English dominance of European football. If it does hold up, it will be a bit like a driver loosing their license over one speeding ticket. Everyone speeds, just most people are lucky enough not to get caught.

More long term, something needs to be done to better regulate youth transfer. I have no idea what though. Neither do the people who run the game. This is a little bit of an issue.

Home Field Advantage

Playing at home is always nice. You have a warm and fuzzy familiar stadium, lots of nice loud fans cheering for you and you are a bit more settled. However, recently it has seemed to mean you get an advantage with things such as marginal offside and penalty calls.

Home field advantage came into the forefront again when Manchester United took on their cross town rivals Manchester City. I really wish that I had seen this, however jet lag rendered me immobile so I had to make do with the full match replay. Watching sports when you already know what has happened, or even when you just know it isn’t quite live, is absolutely rubbish. I don’t know why. I can watch the same movies and TV shows over and over again. But ask me to watch sport on a 5 minute delay? Forget it.

Anyway, in the 95^th minute of 94 minutes of injury time, Manchester United scored. Michael Owen put a delightfully placed shot under heavy pressure past Shay Given, who up until that point had been having a far better game than the scoreline showed. Now of course the boo boys all said “Well it’s Old Trafford, of course they carried on until United scored.’ But I would just like to use this as a place to argue that it wasn’t just home field advantage and referee bias that let United score that goal. But it was actually done all legal and stuff.

There were 4 minutes of added time. Between Bellamy scoring on the cusp of the 90 minute mark to kicking off again was 56 seconds. Another ‘mandatory’ 30 seconds were added for a United substitution. Meaning in reality, 95:26 of injury time needed to be played. United scored the winner after 95 minutes and 27 seconds. I think giving the ref a one second cushion is fair.

Now, these rules are hardly ever enforced, in all fairness. I suppose its a lot like the infamous ‘tuck’ ruling after Tom Brady was planted on his behind against the Raiders a few years back. It was a decision that was utterly slaughtered, but it was based on an actual rule.

Ryan Giggs

Seeing as everyone else in the British sporting world has been falling over their own two feet to give Ryan some love, I thought I would too. Its only fair. Who can resist loving a hairy old Welshman?

Ryan Giggs is absolutely defying physics, logic, biology, maths and pretty much any other rule you can think of. His hips should be checked to see if they are actually two little perpetual motion machines. He has emerged, even as players such as Ferdinand and Rooney battle around them, as the true heart and soul of Manchester United.

The simple fact is players at his age (goalkeepers are exempt from this, by the way) should not be as good as he is. They should not be able to play the amount and quality of football which he does. Father Time should have taken it away. He tried really, really hard to take it from Ryan as well – both of Giggs’ hamstrings have exploded before. But he is still where he is. He has adapted his game, adapted his role and he is still the driving force behind United.

Point in case is this. Giggs’ most famous United moment undoubtedly was against Arsenal in the FA Cup where the then young, rubbery legged and sprightly Welshman ran down the side line, skinned about 4 players then scored a massively important late goal. He then ruined it all a bit by raking his shirt off, revealing that despite looking rather baby faced he had a chest rug that could rival anything that an especially manly Scandinavian could muster. But we will look past that.

Then there was this week, where Giggs was brought on by Sir Alex to replace Nani, who was just absolutely dire. I mean really bad. Epic Fail. Just because you occasionally hit the odd screamer, it does NOT mean that you can ignore a wide open Wayne Rooney. Anyway, Giggs came on and promptly used some great skill to set up an ‘Even He Can’t Miss That’ goal for Berbatov before placing an expert free kick onto the head of O’Shea. Completely random now, but did you know John O’Shea has now made 350 appearances for United? Insanity.

Anyway, after both goals each player ran straight up to Giggs. Berbatov didn’t even bother to try to celebrate, knowing full well that a sack of potatoes could have finished his goal. Everyone involved wanted to thank Giggs. Sir Alex thinks that the fear of a life without football is driving Giggs, and to a lesser extent Scholes, on. All I know is I want it to carry on.

Arsenal Finance Club

Last but not least, lets have a little pop at Arsenal because that is always a hoot and a half.

Today Arsenal recorded a record profit. They have also all but said ‘Yeah, you know our club captain? That young Spanish wunderkin Cesc Fabregas? Yeah he is leaving.’ They are also, assuming the Man City match doesn’t change, going to be 6^th in the title race and 6 points off top (albeit with a game in hand).

My hatred towards Arsenal has reduced recently. A few years back, they were the sworn enemy. However what with Terry\Lampard\Cole\Drogba all being so punch-you-in-the-face-if-I-saw-you-walking-down-the-street hate-able and Liverpool just acting like some spoilt little brat, Arsenal aren’t all that bad. Wenger has become much more warm and fluffy recently, and frankly his little stunt against Manchester United earlier in the year where he literally went and stood on the roof of the dug out after being ordered to leave it fully endeared him to my heart.

But at the end of the day, as much as he is a great man manager, master tactician and opposition manipulator, he is one thing above all. An economist. He has a bloody degree in it. And where as it worked wonders as he built Arsenal up, it is now starting to become his downfall. In his mind it is perfectly logical to sell a player that cost (I’m just using arbitrary figures here, FYI) £2m and whom then invested a further £3m in for a transfer fee of £12m. They are getting a great return on their investment. They can then take £2m and get another young player and build them up.

Except that really does suck in the whole ‘trophy winning’ business they are in. You don’t sell your crucial players and replace them with younger versions who are still 3 years away from their prime. Sometimes, you do need to open the cheque book. Arsenal aren’t a team like Chelsea or Man City who have a never ending pit of money. They are more like Liverpool or Manchester United who operate in the really real world.

The reason Manchester United have been there or there abouts for the last 15 years is that along with a good youth development scheme and buying younger players, they also aren’t afraid to splurge a bit. Sometimes it works brilliantly (Ronaldo for under £13m, van Nistlerooy for £19m or Carrick for £18m) and sometimes it is one horrible mess of awfulness (Veron for £29m, Berbatov for £32m or Saha for £14m). But there must be something to it.

I just sort of think that Wenger has gotten to the stage with Arsenal where he is too scared to spend £40m on two players. If he had £40m he would build a football academy somewhere and take the best 16 year olds from there. Its just how he thinks. But thinking like that won’t drag Arsenal back up the table. I really, really think that Arsenal will be the first of the ‘Big Four’ cracked and not get a Champions League place. They simply are not in Premiership contention either, and just have to hope for a solid FA Cup\League Cup run to get some silverware.

Wenger, at this stage of his career, is not the right person for Arsenal. They need someone willing to mix a strong youth policy with a cheque book. Wenger would make one of the finest International managers, where player development IS everything and finances are diddly squat, or Directors of Football going. But even though he is one of the greatest managers of his time, I really don’t think he can pull Arsenal back to number one contention.

And on that controversial note, I’ll go and hide under my sofa until the bricks stop getting thrown through my window.

Article Courtesy of Ballz in London:

~ by globalcorrespondent on October 3, 2009.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Chelsea, EPL, Portsmouth, Ryan Giggs, Wenger