Hello and welcome back to the blog which does to sport what Ryan Giggs does to his family. So much has happened since I took a two week break to try and focus on exams that it's hard to know where to begin. I have given my reaction the breaking news today as well as some of the stories which were massive a few days ago, but seemed to have gone slightly off the radar.
It's been an interesting few weeks for Manchester United fans - they lost the Champions League final, they have seen their star midfielder become embroiled in disgusting sex scandals and sexy ginger Paul Scholes has retired (something which I will comment on later). I am often accused of showing bias against United fans and I admit watching them win can become frustrating, so I will try and be a bit kinder. Except for Giggs, he deserves everything he gets.
As I sat here at 5:30 am, having been woken up (again) I was in need of something to do as I avoided trying to revise, although I am sitting here once more on Saturday night exhausted, having completed another year of education. Just for the record, after Friday, I have finished on 4/4 with regards to getting 'stay on your feet' in my exams, although how I managed to compare it to the Hundred Years' War, the Cold War, Alfred the Great and seventeenth century rebellions is still beyond me.
There has been so much going on the last few weeks that I have tried my best to entertain you in as wide a variety of topics as possible, with the first one being mostly centred on football and the second one which will follow soon after containing other sporting matters. As the football season has finished I should add that most of my blogs from now on will focus less on things to look out for in the week and more my weird obvservations on anything to do with sport. But for now, see if you can work out how many times I make a disparaging comment about Giggs in this entire article. Let the Giggs, see the sister-in-law (too obvious?)
Sporting articles and recap
Managerial and player merry-go round (spot the fakes)
I was a couple of hours away from posting this blog, when news of Billy Davies and Alex Mcleish filtered through, so of course I have had to make last-minute changes. It's hard to know where to begin, but I suppose I have to start with Davies. My opinion of Davies has never been massively high, although his record in the job is impressive. He saved us from relegation then mounted two play-off campaigns in the following two years.
By anyone's standard this is an impressive effort. But there was so much more to his reign than just the facts. Forest had been the biggest spenders in the Championship for their first two years since gaining promotion from League One, but this was never enough for Davies, who always demanded more and more millions spent on big-name signings, instead of looking for cheaper recruits. He bought lots of strikers, would not play Rob Earnshaw enough, then refused to buy players for other positions. He always said the squad was too small, but he was willing to let players leave and not play others (such as Mcgugan in his first season then Mcleary, Anderson and Majewski this season). Our away record was woeful as we averaged less than a goal a game. And even if we had gone up, I could only see us coming straight down. As for Schteeve Mclaren? I will give him my backing for now, but obviously would prefer O'Neill if it was somehow possible. Hughton would be my second choice.
If my opinion on Davies is mixed, then my view on Mcleish is much more clear; I have never rated him and I think getting Birmingham relegated is an indicator on his ability as a manager. Yes, he won the Carling Cup, but this was more to do with West Ham and Arsenal imploding than any great tactical nous. He waited until the second half against West Ham to bring Zigic on when everyone knows the Hammers can't defend set-pieces at all. And if he goes to Villa Park, then I hope he gets what he deserves for his loyalty.
With regards to player transfers, it has not been a good summer so far, with legend Dele (Pele) Adebola going to Hull and the likes of Rob Earnshaw and Guy Moussi looking like they will also leave. The fixtures come out on Friday, which marks the end of one season and the start of another. Of course I am looking forward to finding out when Forest are playing Derby and Leicester, but I cannot wait for my trip to St Andrews and a reunion with Marlon King (and the classic "she said no Marlon"). Here is a link showing the one game where Marlon actually did something decent for us, coming the game after the death of Brian Clough. For other clubs, it is an exciting period full of transfers, some of which I have predicted here, probably not with much success:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahEVI0VQ1oYWith
Peter Crouch - QPR
Mrs Redknapp - Tottenham
Carlos Tevez - Chelsea
Wayne Rooney - Man City
Fernando Torres - Man Utd
David Beckham - Leicester
Emile Heskey - Leicester
James Milner - Aston Villa
Gareth Barry - Aston Villa
Sergio Aguero - Real Madrid
Managers:
Sven - QPR
Alex Mcleish - Aston Villa
Billy Davies - Birmingham City
David Platt - hopefully Derby
Jose Mourinho - Barcelona
Fabio Capello - Real Madrid
Pep Guardiola - Arsenal
Arsene Wenger - England
You never know...
Giggs antics
Whenever there is any sporting scandal, the first place to go is to Facebook for all the witty groups which pop up immediately. So far we have - Ryan Giggs: Famed for putting in deep balls. Shamed for being balls deep and Giggsy, happy to take them from Big Brother or little brother. All we are waiting for now is - "That man is a family man." "Umm, Nan, that's Ryan Giggs." (Having fun keeping up with all the slurs?)
There are great parrallels between Giggs and the man most famed for getting it in the hole, Tiger Woods. Both were seen as model professionals, had incredible fitness (now we know why he is still playing football, yoga my ass) and had a medal chest as covered as, well, Giggs' actual chest. Many people will be wondering why both men did it when it was obvious they would be caught. But I have two questions: Why does every woman wait to announce their affairs at the same time? And, what will happen next season? We all saw what happened to Tiger when he was caught out and there's an obvious risk that the same will happen to Giggs. It's not like Wayne Rooney who was young and had ages to recpature his best form; Giggs will eventually start to decline, although it may not happen for a while. Maybe Sir Alex is wise to try and buy Ashley Young, just in case Giggs is no longer able to put in those deep balls which he is so famed for.
If both Giggs and Woods were so good when having more action than Arnold Schwarzenegger, it makes you wonder what is happening with the footballers who are a lot worse. I'm not talking about the ones who were never good enough for the Premier League, but the ones who clearly were but never fulfilled their potential. Maybe Mario Balotelli made a mistake dumping his incredible girlfriend (see last week's blog).
The timing of Giggs' indiscretions coming out came just before the retirement of Paul Scholes, the one man who has stood above the rest in the Premier League. Nothing I can say would do justice to Scholes' ability, but the biggest tribute I would give him is that he is the only footballer I would trust to actually be a decent person. That's not to say that others aren't, but nobody will ever be sure again. As for his tackling, well it proved he was human after all. After watching last weekend's draw against Switzerland, you just can't believe Scholes was stuck on the left to accomodate Lampard into the team. Next they will drop Bent to get Heskey in, although even he would have probably scored that sitter. Probably.
Counting down to the new season
You may think after that painful defeat to Swansea (where we would have needed £40,000 and Mohamed Bin Hammam as the referee to actually get a penalty for a change), that I would be having nightmares all summer. Instead, despite contemplating putting in a mitigation request citing play-off hangover as the reason for my poor exam results, I have been trawling the internet looking for any rumour I can get on potential signings and to find out whether our manager is actually staying or not (which he isn't).
Football is without doubt a relationship which never ends, with its ups and downs from August until May, followed by a two month holiday which for the average supporter is just as intense. Still, it is difficult to get enthused by the raft of meaningless friendlies, more so as some are played abroad. Pre-season must be like being engaged, as you prepare for the big day in August and the rest of the year with a mixture of uncertainty and excitement. Inevitably, most fans will have Liverpool syndrome, that 'this is the year', but more often than not, the season ends up like a Katie Price marriage - big hype, lots of drama, all over the media, but finished by May, only for a new one to start a few months later.
With ambitious Chairmen, who are not used to losing, more determined than ever to see their clubs rise to the top, the normally calm summer months are becoming even more exciting than the the actual season as the thought of seeing your club's new signings in action gets ever closer. But if you don't fancy waiting until August for competitive football, then the U-21 European Championships has already begun in Denmark. I suppose a two-week break without live football was too long after all. Let's just hope England don't win the thing, otherwise the hype before Euro 2012 will be as unbearable as, well, a Katie Price wedding.
Why do we go gaga for celebrities?
When it comes to the celebrity culture, I am normally the first person to dismiss it as a waste of time. Sure, I like to know what famous footballers such as Wayne Rooney get up to even though it has no relevance to me, but I don't think that makes me shallow. However, being the hypocrite that I am, I am really just as bad as the next person. As somebody who can spend a whole day watching sport, I took the opportunity to go down to the Aegon Classic at the Priory Club last week as some of the world's best and most promising up-and-coming players were in action. Yes, I wanted to see some of the British players play and it was encouraging to see the performances of Heather Watson, but let's face it, we were all there for Ana Ivanovic.
Ivanovic is a Serbian stunner who won the French Open in 2008, but since then has dropped in the rankings to 19th in the world. Still, that didn't stop us rushing over to the practice courts to see her train the second we saw her. And we weren't the only ones, as a chorus of men lined up alongside us to get a rare glimpse of Ivanovic in person. After watching her practice for a while, we managed to snag a couple of pictures which, of course, found their way on Facebook the moment we made our way back. Obviously she is still clearly a good player, but would we get so excited over watching the 19th best player in the men's game? And would we automatically like him on Facebook (as we all did for Ivanovic), follow him on Twitter and go back to see him again a couple of days later? Sepp Blatter may have been wrong to say women footballers should wear tighter shorts, but his only mistake was that he said it as President of Fifa and not as the marketing executive. Because let's face it, whether we snear at celebrity-obsessed people or not, we are most probably just as bad as them, as my latest Facebook album proves.
Fifa turns into Britain's Got Talent, except without the sob stories
We've had the corruption stories, we've seen Jack Warner threaten to set the fires of hell on Sepp Blatter before endorsing his bid to become President, we've seen photos of bribes being offered to Caribbean nations and we've seen the whole world blame England for everything. But, could we have ever imagined that Henry Kissinger would be brought into try and save the game from evils within its head organisation. For those who were unfortunate enough not to study the Vietnam War in history, Kissinger was President Nixon's foreign advisor during the conflict which saw thousands of innocent Vietnamese citizens being bombed for no reason, whilst at the same time, totalitarian governments in Russia and China were treated as equals. I suppose it will help him in his new role at Fifa, where we have the ultimate sporting dictator and his bunch of cronies.
If Kissinger has been recruited for his diplomacy skills, then why do we have an opera singer as well? If they ever re-start Big Brother then I would like to see Blatter, Kissinger, Domingo, Warner and Bin Hammam all stuck in the house and made to look even more ridiculous than George Galloway. Now, that would be enjoyable.
And while we're talking about football
I suppose it is only right to continue my catch-up on all football related matters before moving on to other sports by looking at the national team's performance against Switzerland. Yes, we drew, but as a country of pessimists we should remember that this is a team who beat Spain and managed to keep a clean sheet against them. It does annoy me when a team can score two speculative goals and suddenly be praised for their great attacking threat, when we created so many more chances than them and many more than Spain managed. Yes, Darren Bent missed a sitter which Mrs Redknapp could have buried, but it is hard to criticise someone who in the last few years has a goalscoring record matching that of Torres, Rooney and Drogba, whilst playing for inferior teams.
The rest of the match just emphasised the point that Frank Lampard should retire from internationals (alongside Gareth Barry) and that Capello was crazy not to start Young. Seriously, can anyone name one game for club or country where Milner has put in a match-winning performance? The big debate for the last couple of weeks has centred on whether Jack Wilshere should have gone to the U-21 Championships or not. But, looking at the squad we have assembled for that tournament, shouldn't be wondering whether our U-21 team is actually better than our first team? Let me give you some names from those who are likely to play in Denmark and those who have started recent England internationals:
Defenders - Kieran Gibbs, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling v. Cashley Cole, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand
Midfielders - Marc Albrighton, Jack Rodwell, Jordan Henderson v. James Milner, Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry
Strikers - Daniel Sturridge, Danny Welbeck v. Darren Bent, Wayne Rooney
You know what, I would not bet against the youngsters pulling off a win, although not against their Spanish counterparts. David De Gea, Javi Martinez, Juan Mata, Jeffren, Bojan. Good luck against that.
Quotes of the week
Headline - "Paul Scholes caught in extra-marital affair"
Harry Redknapp, after his wife missus an open goal - "Darren Bent could have scored that."
Steve McClaren - "I sought of knew, Shampeeonship football, ish for mee..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZnoP4sUV90 - brilliant dutch accent
Billy Davies - "I expect us to sign Messi and Ronaldo otherwise you cannot expect me to get promotion."
Arsene Wenger - "I feel, we don't need to sign anyone, our squad is mentally strong and we have a fantastic team spirit."
Jonathan Agnew - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hf8wq
And as a reward for your patience, here is a link you will probably find extremely hilarious. They say football is a universal language and that actions speak louder than words and nothing proves both of those right more than this. See you soon for the next blog, where I will complete my sporting catch-up/review of the week to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V3DeqELS8A&feature=youtu.be
Giggs slurs: Going for 8, but I lost count really quickly
No comments:
Post a Comment