Wayne Who?

Fear not my fellow patriots. After four hours of uncontrollable sobbing, i managed to come up with the solution to an England team without Rooney. Actually it was me, my mates Chris, Ali, DC, some White Ace and a guy called Fosters, but I'll take the credit thanks. Here is an artist's impression:


As you can see, the formation is a complete copy of the Chelsea formation, with Cole and SWP/lennon acting as support strikers from the wings. To some extent this formation favours the choice of Crouchy boy, as the striker would be needed to hold up the ball for the midfield to drive forward and score. Gerrard would have to be a bit more defensive-minded, but this was always going to be the case. Beckham can operate from a more central area, pinging the balls to the wings or Crouch. It all works my friends.

Yes, that sound you can hear is of a chorus of sopranos cooing ahhhhhhhhh, in revalatory style.

Only problem, adopting this formation would be the most radical thing Sven has done since he decided to shag Faria Alam in the FA cupboard, and the cances of him doing it are slim to none. Scolari would have done it, but don't get me started. As you were. (Benji picks up his metatarsal ray and heads off to Brazil)

Retention

Against all odds, it looks as if Chelsea will be the Premiership champions for the second year running. A quick look around Europe's top leagues will yield a plethora of similar shocks. Not really. 2006 has been the year of retention. 10 out of 12 of Europe's decent leagues have been/probably will be won by the same teams that won them last year:

England: Chelsea
Italy: Juventus
Spain: Barcelona
Germany: Bayern Munich
France: Lyon
Netherlands: PSV Eindhoven
Greece: Olympiakos
Turkey: Fenerbahce
Switzerland: FC Basel
Scotland: Celtic

The only two decent leagues who have not been retained by the 2005 winners are Portugal, where Porto will take the title from last year's winners Benfica, having won it in 2003 and 2004, and Belgium, where Anderlecht will take the title from Club Bruges, having won four out of the previous 7 titles.

So, crazy, unpredictable stuff my friends.

On the subject of league domination, my current second favourite team are Gretna in the Scottish Division 2. Check out their domination here, their goalscoring exploits here, and buy your commemorative mug here.

Pearce the Prophet?

Having just finished watching today's Match of the Day (recorded), I felt the burning desire to log something. Thus the 4am post.

I couldn't help noticing something very odd in Jonathan Pearce's commentary of the Charlton-Portsmouth game. I was slightly confused when Pearce, somewhat out of the blue, commented in the first half words to the effect of : 'You can't help wondering, with all the stress involved in this seasons struggle against relegation...will this be Harry's last year in management? Might he call it a day?' As far as I'm concerned, this is the first time anything has been said about the possibility of Redknapp retiring this summer, so I considered it just a bit of entertaining Jonathan Pearce filler; the kind he has made a career of.

Then, in the second half, again out of the blue, Pearce stated words to the effect of...'and just how much is all this tension effecting Harry's health?'. It wasn't just a flippant comment either, they were genuine words of concern.

On the final whistle, the BBC cameras focussed in, as they would, on a gutted looking Redknapp. I couldn't help noticing though that they held the shot as Harry exhaled rather unnaturally, looking like he might have been wheezing slightly.

If this is Jonathan Pearce madness, is there method in't? Pearce is a London footballing stalwart, having made his name on Capital Gold over fifteen years ago, a period during which he may have gotten to know a character like Harry Redknapp rather well. Does he know something we don't?

Lets hope he doesn't, and that this is merely the slightly sleep-starved rambling of an idiot who spent six hours on trains today to see his team get beat by a mediocre Boro side. Odd htojsjnharry nsbubblesnnns zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Lesser of Six Evils?

What is the meaning of life? Given a relatively level playing field – i.e., water deep enough so that a shark could manoeuvre proficiently, but shallow enough so that a bear could stand and operate with its characteristic dexterity – who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark? Who should be the next England manager?

Such are the questions facing our puzzled existence in today’s confused world. For question A, see here. For B, see here. For C, allow me to indulge (but not really answer)

Perhaps the most important issue facing the FA (and indeed every English fan) is that we are currently in the process of picking an England manager by default. All of the candidates have obvious flaws- the debate essentially being who has the least?

Big Sam is an excellent wheeler and dealer, an admirable quality in club management, but useless on the international stage. He has also nurtured at Bolton perhaps the ugliest playing style of any Premiership team. Whilst his scouts have a penchant for the exotic, he has a penchant for the long ball.

Alan Curbishley has said he doesn’t want it, and is in charge of a Charlton team that has been stagnant for about 5 years.

Gus Hiddink would have been a good candidate, but is famous for his distaste for media intrusion (ask Sven about that), wanted to manage a club team at the same time as England, and wanted to commute from Amsterdam.

Steve Maclaren really isn’t anything special. Take away Boro’s cup runs and everyone would have been talking about him getting the sack. Despite his experience in the England setup, ex- Man Utd Assistant Managers do not tend to make good managers- see Kidd at Blackburn, Quieroz and Real Madrid, and lets face it, Maclaren at Boro.

Martin O’Neil has spent a year out of the game, and signed off his Celtic career by loosing the SPL on the last day of the season. Yes he transformed Celtic into the best team in Scotland after years of being second best- but this is the point; succeeding as a Rangers or Celtic manager is a case of being better than one other team. I fully expect Le Guen to do the same at Rangers, as he is pretty good. Not brilliant but pretty good. The main reason everyone seems keen on O'neil is beacuse he is not Allardyce or Maclaren.

Big Phil Scolari (right) has the best credentials of the lot having won a World Cup with Brazil, and almost won a European Championship with Portugal. Stylistically he is the ideal Manager to work with the most attacking England line-up we have had for years. Scolari is of the ‘you score two, we’ll score three’ school of thought, the dramatic opposite of Sven’s approach of ‘we’ll score one then sit back and wait for Zidane to score two’. If only the bugger didn’t have a grasp of English that was intermediate at best.

Guess What? Brazil Are Quite Good.

An article in this Sunday’s Observer Sports section annoyed me a bit. The basic jist of the article is that Brazil aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and are in some sort of crisis. The full article can be found here. To some extent the Observer may have been trying to reverse The Sun and News Of The World campaign to destroy the England team’s morale via the medium of scandal, which is commendable. Doing this by trying to claim Brazil are shit is a bit over the top though.

To summarise, here are the basic points, followed by my rebuttals, your honour:

1) Roberto Carlos is losing defensive composure at the rate of knots. I saw Roberto Carlos the other week, he is still the second best left back in the world, and has never had much defensive composure anyway. People have been criticising his defensive capability for years.

2) Cafu has just returned from surgery. Oh dear, that means they might have to play Cicinho (right) instead. I also saw Cicinho play the other week, and he was awesome, arguably already better than Cafu anyway.

3) Juan and Roque Junior are dodgy centre backs, and Lucio has dipped in form. Ok, but when was the last time Brazil had good centre backs anyway. This is not how they roll. You score two, they score three. A Kevin Keegan wet dream. The article also failed to mention Edmilson, who does a good job for Barcelona whenever they play him.

4) Emerson was made to look geriatric by Arsenal. Oh dear, they might have to play Gilberto Silva (left) instead. The upping of Gilberto’s responsibility since the departure of Vieira has markedly improved his game, with many Arsenal fan’s claiming his form is the real reason behind their recent resurgence. He sits back, soaking things up so the rest can pile forward. Ideal for a team like Brazil.

5) Kaka has lost a shade of the sparkle that accompanied his emergence to the big stage. Rubbish. Kaka scored a hat-trick yesterday.

6) Ronaldo is fat and out of form, and Ardiano has personal problems. Ronaldo is indeed fat, and was on poor form a few weeks ago. He has since scored four goals in four games, including one corker against Barca, who are arguably the best team in Europe. He was fat and out of form before the 2002 World Cup, then he won the Golden Boot and virtually single-handedly won an average Brazil team the World Cup. Adriano (right) is admittedly on poor form, but has still managed to score 19 goals so far this year. He was also man of the match in the first leg against Villareal the other week. Even so, if Brazil chose to drop either striker, they could play one up front with either Kaka, or the unmentioned Robinho in a slightly deeper role. Then there’s always Juninho at Lyon who could operate as an attacking midfielder. Poor them.

7) Ronaldinho will be tired after a long season. A tired Ronaldinho will still shit all over almost anyone.

In sum, don’t count your chickens. Brazil will be a joy to watch this summer, and a bastard to play against.