Angry fans
I CAN assure Mr Keating, the deluded Spurs fan from last week’s column, that Arsenal’s new stadium is far from being “stupid.” I suppose the fact that it emphasises the vast gulf between our two clubs is why he’s become so bitter. He also seems to know much more about safety and ticket allocation for away fans than the Metropolitan Police, the Football Licensing Authority and Islington Council combined!
He can’t sleep at night wondering whether we will ever be able to host a high profile cup match at our ground. Whisper this very quietly in front of a Spurs fan but there is a competition called the Champions League (like the UEFA Cup, only with proper clubs, Patrick) and somehow we’ve managed to host those matches at the Emirates this season. Oh, and as for him not being able to wait to “stuff those fools” last Wednesday night, I’d say the sight of our kids outplaying the Tottenham first team left him feeling as sick as a plate full of dodgy Spurs lasagne!
: I suppose a groundshare is out of the question, then? JUST what is it that Arsenal don’t understand about Bolton? Kevin Davies does a lot of hard running; Kevin Nolan picks up the bits and pieces; Gary Speed provides the brains; Nicolas Anelka and El Hadji Diouf the provocation, and they like set pieces. For a team that “plays the best football in the Premiership” they don’t half make hard work of it.
Mr Wenger says that he would like a loan of your spy plane.
€18m for Marcus Bent? €12m for a 17-year-old left back who’s yet to kick a single ball in the Premiership. I’ll have some of whatever Alan Pardew and George Burley are on please.
Fair enough, but horse tranquillisers don’t come cheap.
SOMEHOW can’t get too disappointed by the prospect of not seeing the likes of Bolton and Blackburn in the Champions League. Anyway, the competition is locked into its current format until 2009 so I can’t see what the fuss is about.
ALWAYS admired Platini as a player . . . and I particularly enjoyed his recent quip before the UEFA elections: “My hair is gone; I’ve got a big belly; it’s time to be president. It’s a better line in humour than Sepp Blatter and Lennart Johannson combined.
MUCH OF the Platini agenda looks like politicking to gather in votes for his election. Does the footballing public really want to see more performances from Eastern European teams of the kind we witnessed from Shakhtar Donetsk, Levski Sofia and Dynamo Kyiv during the group stages of this year’s Champions League?
But there’s one area where I think he could make progress — and that’s with his suggestion that there should be four linos instead of two. For several seasons now the assistant referees have been off the pace in professional soccer with the result that too many marginal offside calls are given against the attacking team. The FA Cup was full of them this weekend but if one example is needed just simply recall Larsson’s excellent, but disallowed, goal. The rule does not exist to underpin the efficiency of a defending team’s offside trap, or to mitigate against attacking play, which is what people come to see.
Four linesmen might also offer a better opportunity to assess when the ball has crossed the line, as Vidic’s header clearly did against Portsmouth. And that will reduce the clamour for video technology, which is simply a Trojan horse for the TV companies to have an even greater influence over football than they do now.
As an old footballing romantic, I’m all in favour of inclusion rather than exclusion but would have to agree with Kevin that Platini’s vote-grabbing will probably morph into very long-fingered policy. Kevin would get our Letter Of The Week prize except that he’s wrong, wrong. wrong about video technology. When are folk going to wake up and realise it’s time to stop penalising good play?
FOUR is still possible.
Yes, and three’s a crowd and two’s company and one’s a straight red.
IS IT my imagination or are there more injuries this season than ever before? Newcastle decimated; Wigan on the rocks; big players out at Chelsea and Liverpool: Arsenal under the cosh. About the only team that hasn’t suffered has been United. Might that have something to do with their lead at the top?
Well, put it this way, I’d worry for them if they lost Scholes.
IS Martin O’Neill building a replica of Graham Taylor’s Watford at Villa Park. Man mountain up front (Carew); creative play coming from the wings (Ashley Young in the John Barnes role) and Agbonlahor. I predict they’ll ruffle a few feathers next season.
Winner of our early prediction competition. Prizes to be awarded at the end of next season.
THERE are some things wrong with football, but players celebrating late winners — as Vennegoor of Hesselink did against Inverness Caledonian Thistle — are not among them. For a couple of seasons now we have seen players dismissed for expressing enthusiasm, even when they have been celebrating with their own supporters. We have seen over-officious security men pushing players around, and suspensions because referees haven’t used their common sense. Some of them allow celebrations, and others don’t. If anyone should be booked for over-celebrating it should be Thierry Henry . . . on the grounds of bad taste.
Letter of the week prize winner. (Great first name too, by the way).
IS THIS the best season ever for really memorable goals, with Rooney’s chip against David James being just the latest example? What’s your vote for goal of the season so far Liam?
Hard to beat Rooney’s effort, methinks. Words like “exquisite” tend to understate it. But I also loved Scholes’ cracking volley against Villa.
JOSE Mourinho v Brian Clough . . . would that be a better plot for a movie than Rocky Balboa?
Enya v The Singing Nun would be better than (not so athletic) Balboa.
IT took a long time to happen but the touchline antics of Neil Warnock were the first sighting of the genuine article that has prowled and snarled around lower league touchlines for several years. I actually think the performance of managers and coaches on the sidelines is at least as entertaining as what takes place on the pitch. What a duller world it would be without Fergie’s wristwatch, the Allardyce gum, the Wenger red mist, the greatest ham of them all, Mourinho, and all the rest of them.
Perhaps we should inaugurate new BAFTAs — British Academy of Football Touchline Awards. (Or perhaps not)
NEW Wembley. Chelsea v Manchester United for the Cup Final. You just know that the FA are keeping their fingers crossed and their balls warm.
They’ll be balls of fire by the time Wembley is ready.
