GO ON SON!! GO ON!!

Just a quick thought. Of the managers with teams staring at the Premiership as Essex girls stare at Essex boys (on their knees, staring upwards with a tear in their eye. Sorry.) there is a common theme.

The lack of real tactical nous. Stuart Pearce screams at his team like they've just slapped his gran, Alan Pardew puts David Brent to shame with his motivational interviews, Neil Warnock is only ever a few dodgy penalty decisions away from killing someone, Aidy Boothroyd is aiming to break Mick McCarthy's record of saying 'my boys gave their all', and Glen Roeder is, well, a bit thick.

Point is, being a manager is more than just enthusiasm, passion, belief, motivation, and all those other words that might as well be on an Audi advert. Its a lot to do with tactics. Look at what Arsene Wenger did last season with a bunch of inexperienced youngsters. Look at what Alex Ferguson did in the mid-90s with the same. Didn't scream and shout and say 'we're really up for it' every five seconds.

Kevin Keegan, however, did. And failed. Despite the fact that he'd love it if Newcastle had won the league, just love it, they didn't. Kevin Keegan showed us all that without sound tactics, you won't get very far.

Boothroyd and Warnock are excused, as their teams contain a lot of chaff, but Roeder, Pardew and Pearce aren't. A manager's job isn't just to pick the team and send them out, its to dictate what they do once they are there. I'm afraid it looks as if they have been rumbled.

I'm off to shout at a chair to make it more comfortable.

And the best player in the world is...

...Tim Cahill! Well, it could be, since he was shortlisted for the prestigeous Ballon D'Or alongside Willy Sagnol, Florent Malouda, Vicente Medez (plays for PSV apparently), and others.

Stupid really. But got me thinking, so i had a little peak at some previous awards shortlists. The FIFA World Player of the Year is a good one, as it is voted for by international managers and captains. I had a little rummage and wasn't dissappointed. In order of ascending stupidity:

- In the 2005 voting, the Equitorial Guinea captain voted Jay Jay Okocha as the 3rd best player in the world

- In 2004 the manager of Palestine voted Milan Baros as the 3rd best player in the world.

- In 2003 the manager of Chinese Tapei voted Dado Prso as the 2nd best player in the world; his vote for 3rd went to some bloke called Takamtsu Daiki.

- In 2003 the manager of the Bahamas voted for Brad Friedel as the 3rd best player in the world

- In 2003 the the nominations by the Ghana coach went as follows: 1) Zinedine Zidane 2) Paul Freier 3) Ronaldo. Fuck knows who Paul Freir is but he must be pretty handy to be better than Ronaldo.

- In 2001 the Ukraine coach voted for 1970 World Cup hero Carlos Alberto in third.

- In 1997 the Costa Rica Coach voted for Paolo Wanchope in 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

I'm genuinely thinking of sending my Championship Manager CV to all of the above international FAs. They will clearly employ anyone.

Disclaimer

Within 14 seconds of my last blog I was contacted by some really nice men. Totally unrelated to our conversation I have the following statement to make.

Arsene Wenger is in no way a peadophile. Nope, definitely not. In any way. In fact he hates kids. Bloody hates them.

Oh, and if you were wondering, Belgian Club Beveren are in no way a money laundering outfit for Arsenal FC.

What's that? Ok fine. I would also like to add that every time i visit Dubai I only use Emirates Airlines. The check-in process is just so convenient, and the seats are dreamy.

(can I have my nephews back now? cheers)

Club Vs. Country

Just thought I'd add my voice to the club vs. country debate. By the way have you noticed how every bit of news relating to this issue starts with "_____ has added their voice to the club vs. country debate..." Surely if you ever say anything you're 'adding your voice' to something? Is a news reporter 'adding his voice' to broadcast journalism? Are the Sugababes 'adding their voice' to popular music? /discuss.

I digress. Anyway, Arsene "I didn't see the incident" Wenger was wingeing about the busy international schedule today as Eboue and Ljungberg returned injured from recent internationals. A couple of weeks ago Jose Mourinho accused Raymod Domeneche (France gaffer) of using Makalele as a slave (excellent choice of word Jose, not as if the country is going through an ethnic identity crisis or anything). Benitez reopened the compensation row over Dirk Kuyt's injury whilst playing for Holland. Ferguson hasn't actually said anything this time, but you can tell he was thinking about it.

Anyway. Have you ever heard a player complain about playing for their country? Frank Lampard spends 4/9ths of every interview he gives for England gushing about his international dreams. Theo Walcott was almost pooing himself he was so excited to be playing and scoring for the U21s the other day. They bloody love it playing for their countries they do! How dare you deny Jermaine Jenas the opportunity to tell his kids he plays for England? Its the only thing stopping them from getting beaten up in the playground for having a shit player as their dad.

Moral of the story: Every time Wenger winges Jermaine Jenas' kids are more likely to be beaten up. So Wenger is therefore a peadophile. There, I've said it.

Oh would you just...

...stop wingeing Graham Taylor. Being the prophetic, revolutionary man that he is, our favourite turnip-resembling ex-England gaffer (left) was on Sky Sports News today bemoaning the demise of youth development by the FA. Apparently due to the employment of 15,000 Ozzie stoners to build our national stadium, plans to build an academy in the countryside somewhere have been scrapped. Fair enough. Sounds shit.

But then he had to say it didn't he. He just had to. "Too many foreign players in the Premiership stifling emerging talent blah blah blbl yadda".

Either i'm Bill Murray or we had this conversation last year. And the year before that. And about 10 years ago.

England's strongest XI is currently the finest it has been in decades. In fact, if it wasn't for the FA's other brilliant decision- to appoint a strange swinging Swede to coach out national team; and then give the job to his token northern friend- we would all be hailing this as our 'golden generation'. This being the generation that coincided with the dramatic influx of foreigners into the Premiership. Before the foreigners turned up, Graham Taylor was busy playing Tony Daley on the left wing.

Take Theo Walcott's second goal for the under-21s tonight, in which we beat Germany 3-0 to get to the U21 European Championships:


An Arsenal forward cutting in from the left wing, opening up his body and curving the ball into the right hand corner. You can almost hear Theo shouting 'Va Va Voom' as he wheels away to celebrate. Who do you think tought him to finish like that? (And don't listen to Peter "Clooney" Beardsley saying it was 'self-taught') I'll give you a clue Graham, it wasn't Justin Hoyte.

And for the record Mr Taylor, stick this in your pipe and smoke it. Other than Walcott, Wayne Rooney, Aaron Lennon, Dean Ashton, Micah Richards, Kieran Richardson (ok, i take that one back), Nigel Reo-Coker, Darren Bent, Anton Ferdinand, ...are all 22 or younger. So I'm thinking we'll be alright.

I'm off to bemoan the introduction of nets to goals.

South American Football is Mental (Part II)

In our continuing series of South American footballing hillariousness (see part I here), this little gem popped up this morning. Upset with their teams 2-0 away defeat to Ceara, some fans of second division Brazilian team Coritiba decided to greet the club's players and officials at the airport. By trying to kick the shit out of them.

The players and officials, not wanting to look like girls, retaliated, and thus another chapter of South American football mentalness unwound infront of the gleeful media. And to think we get eggy about Joey Barton getting his bum out.