Where to start? Best place is probably Spurs game last night, where they got spanked by Young Boys (first and last pun, promise) in the first leg of their qualifier for the Champions League. Maybe it was because of the plastic pitch, maybe because they were very cocky before hand with fans at the end of last season celebrating making the Champions League without thinking of the fact they had to qualify to get there. Then when the draw happened the fans were convinced they would get through no problem but, of course, with all these things you have to worry no matter who you’re playing. Some fingers of blame must be pointed at ‘Arry for his very strange selection in the first half but in the 2nd half they recovered well and will more than likely get through with a home win after losing 3-2 but scoring 2 all important away goals. Maybe ‘Arry thought that by putting out a strange selection and flopping abroad he’s meet the F.A criteria on being the new England manager?
Honestly, could any other governing body make such a pig’s ear of a simple announcement like our own F.A can? According to Charles Sale at the Daily Mail they can’t even decide amongst themselves whether or not they want and English or British manager. Does nationality really matter that much? The last English manager that understood the passion and the desire etc & blah blah was Steve McClaren who of course had an amazing record in taking us to Euro 2008 and beating Spain 4-1 in the final....wait, we didn’t even get there?! Ahhhh so English managers are excellent then, and the shortlist of people like Harry Redknapp, Roy Hodgson, Paul Ince, Tony Adams, Alan Shearer or David Beckham – doesn’t it just fill you with confidence? At least if it was British then Martin O’Neill might get a look in, however as with everything that they deal with the F.A, along with Club England (what is that?!) can’t decide yet. Of course if a major cooperation came out saying they were only going to appoint a boss of a certain nationality they would be in violation of all sorts of EU laws about discrimination etc, but in football it’s ok to make up its own laws and ignore other ones.
Speaking of football making its own laws I was literally wetting myself with laughter at the news Motherwell are taking legal action against Cardiff City over outstanding money owed for Paul Quinn, a player that transferred to Cardiff from Motherwell in June 2009 for £300k. Yesterday Motherwell revealed that, like most other clubs that have dealt with Cardiff (or previous chairman Peter Ridsdale) they are still owed money, nearly £175k and £100k of that should have been paid in January 2010. Motherwell, quite rightly in my opinion, feel that if Cardiff can acquire players like Jason Koumas, Tom Heaton, Danny Drinkwater, Seyi Olofinjana, Martin John, and now, the loan signing of Manchester City's Craig Bellamy then they can pay them the £100k that’s outstanding which is fair enough, especially as reports indicate that Cardiff’s new owners are paying about £1m of Bellamy’s £3.5m a year wages. How this deal was allowed to go through is beyond me and it looks like Cardiff are heading on a Portsmouth like slide to financial oblivion unless the league step in to do something because it seems the reckless policy of previous owners is carrying on and now Motherwell are threatening to send bailiff’s to Cardiff City stadium on match days. What is so funny, for me anyway, about this situation is it’s just another football club that the bubble is going to burst at and end up in a tangled mess as they are chasing the dream.
Finally it was another quiet day at Man City, with new signing Mario Balotelli being unveiled and claiming ‘I’m not a bad boy’ despite rumours of fights with his fans, team mates and managers in just the past 12 months clearly having escaped his attention, but the main story was the conclusion of the James Milner transfer saga, a slightly better than average player being bought for £18m and sending Stephen Ireland, who was City’s best player in 2008-2009 the other way. Aston Villa fans must be sick to death of City waving their bags of money at Villa players however if Stephen Ireland can turn out to be as good as Richard Dunne whilst Milner as poor as Barry has been then Villa fans will be laughing.
Finally it appears that Serie A is so bad these days that giants Juventus have been linked to Jermaine Jenas. I’m not saying Jenas is a bad player but if he can’t get in to the Spurs team then surly he can’t get into team like Juventus? I know there not as great as they once were but still Jenas isn’t good enough for them. Turned out that Juventus knew nothing about this and it was a story that the English media had decided to print without any real evidence just like they ran with the story of Messi’s twitter account praising Ashley Young despite the fact Messi doesn’t have a twitter account! Or the Sun’s quotes attributed to Messi saying he would love to see Mascherano at Barcelona – these of course were quotes from over 12 months ago.
Enough of my ramblings & thanks for reading, as usual you can follow me on Twitter @buster_5265 for all the latest news or join my facebook group called ‘football fan’ for the same
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