Keown on nothing

Martin Keown. I don’t think anyone expected him to sound so articulate once he became a pundit for the BBC, but he has proved to be a well spoken chap despite his rugged playing career. The problem is that although the words come out beautifully, the content is actually the perfect example of BBC ex-pro anti-analysis.

Group F is not an easy draw for Arsenal, with last year’s finalists Borussia Dortmund and  big-spending Napoli both good sides. You feel that they will have to beat Marseille home and away to make sure they get through, so they could probably have done without playing them away from home in the first match. They may struggle without a striker (…)

Firstly, a total lack of any anaylsis of any team from the group except Arsenal. Good sides eh? So glad you wrote that.

Only mentions one non-Arsenal player, and when he does it is as a reference to Arsenal not buying Higuain.

Could have done without playing Marseille away from home? Arsenal having won their last 9 away games, including 2-0 at Bayern Munich in last seasons Champions League.

They may struggle without a striker? Arsenal’s striker Olivier Giroud has scored 5 goals in 6 games. They also have Podolski and Walcott as back up who have fine goalscoring records at the highest level.

Martin now moves on to the strikers to watch in this year’s Champions League. Thanks to the benefit of his exceptional knowledge I now know that Messi/Neymar and Ronaldo/Bale will be quite tasty. So glad you pointed these unknown gems out Martin.

NB. Not his fault but the picture of Zlatan/Cavani actually has Lavezzi/Cavani on it.

More nonsense from Rowley Birkin QC

 
Jeff Powell at his best.

Hands up all those who have heard of Razvan Rat, Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Jesus Navas, Modibo Diakite, Guillermo Varela, Aleksandar Tonev, Jose Canas and Fernandinho.

Without any research I can tell you the following

Razvan Rat: Romanian full back, played a lot of Champions League games

van Wolfswinkel: Dutch wunderkid, tall, strong striker Norwich have wanted him all season

Navas: Sevilla RW. Quick as fuck. Played in and won the WORLD CUP FINAL for Spain
Diakite: French CB, tall, strong, played for Lazio

Varela: fair enough

Tonev: fair enough

Canas: fair enough

Fernandinho: been outstanding for Shaktah Donetsk for quite some time, including lots of Champions Leage games. Explosive CM

For example, I won’t even bother to identify the handful of Mr Whos? bought by Fulham.

Like Martin Stekenleberg, with over 50 caps for Holland who also played in the last WORLD CUP FINAL?

Then, onto Cricket:

Now, in this age of political correctness when to call someone a plonker is a crime against his human rights, we have Warner being banned by Australia until next month’s first Test and fined £7,000 for what sounds like a bit of a lark.

Unprovoked assault in a bar? Bit of a lark really!

Jeff Powell, you are a nonsense.

Adrian Durham

Adrian Durham. I’m not 100% sure if he is on the wind-up with everything he ever writes, but I choose to take him at face value to highlight the ridiculousness of his “journalism”.

His thoughts on Mourinho pre Man Utd v Real Madrid:

He once questioned a referee who then got death threats and decided to retire. So much for respect.

When Mourinho joined Chelseain June 2004 he gave a press conference where he claimed he was “a special one”. Later that same month Imran Khan, Pakistani cricketer and politician, and Jemima Khan, daughter of the late Anglo-French billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, announced their divorce.

So much for the sanctity of marriage.

Mourinho has reportedly sent Tito Vilanova his best wishes but, for me, there is something deeply wrong with the amount of celebrating Real Madrid have done in the Barcelona faces after recent victories in El Clasico. Vilanova is in the USA having treatment for cancer.

This bit is beyond parody.

If Real Madrid go through they will have deserved to go through I suppose, but I prefer people who love football to be winners, not people who depend on off-the- field nonsense as part of their tactics. 

Managers who depend on off the field nonsense, like say Alex Ferguson?

Then we move on to Olivier Giroud, Arsenal’s mildly disappointing RVP replacement.

The previous day at Blackburn one of the Football League’s hottest properties right now, 5ft 9in Londoner Dwight Gayle,scored a hat-trick to lift my team Peterborough United off the bottom of the table. It was a perfect hat-trick: the first with his left-foot, the second with his head and the third with his right-foot. 

This hat-trick was scored from a combined distance of about 15 yards. It was decent finishing on good chances in the box.

Gayle, a 22-year-old pacy striker who feels his biggest strength is his finishing, could have been playing for Arsenal. He was with the Gunners as a schoolboy, but released at the age of 12 when the club told him he was too small, that he lacked height and strength

You’d think it’s obvious where this is going, and indeed he does hit us with:

What a shame Arsenal didn’t work hard with a young player and turn him into their first homegrown English star striker to come through under Wenger since... well there hasn’t been one during Wenger’s reign.

Like Wenger can magically invent a striker out of nothing. No credit for Wilshere, Ashley Cole and Gibbs, they aren’t strikers you see. Only strikers count I’m afraid. Also implies there is a limitless amount of young English strikers just waiting around that Wenger just can’t be bothered with. Fact is that the current English crop of young strikers wasn’t available to Wenger because they weren’t born or living near North London.

Then we take a turn for the crazy with the following:

The big clubs in England have a terrible recent record at producing strikers through their academies

He goes on to list players produced including

Danny Welbeck
Daniel Sturridge

Andy Cole

Kevin Campbell

Carlton Cole

Robbie Fowler

Michael Owen

Wayne Rooney

Andy Carroll

Followed by:

The big clubs in England should be ashamed of their poor record of producing strikers. Do academy coaches really know what they’re doing?

So arbitrarily deciding non-strikers don’t count, then producing a list of successful strikers anyway and he still comes to the wrong conclusion!

England’s most capped players currently active were youth products from:

Man Utd
Liverpool
Arsenal
West Ham
Liverpool
West Ham
Everton
Chelsea

Summary:He is talking nonsense.

Top, Top pundit

Jamie Redknapp nonsense:

Glenn Murray scored two more, so that’s 23 league goals for the season, but it was the No 9 alongside him — Kevin Phillips — who might just give
Crystal Palace that extra edge in the Championship run-in.

My old England team-mate has scored everywhere he’s been. An inspired loan signing in the window

So a 39 year-old man with 2 goals in 18 games will give his team the edge? Not the player with 25 goals in 28 games this season?

Stick to the boring platitudes Jamie.

Evra v Thuram

Intelligent footballers at war with each other?

While the French FA and it's players continue to destroy each other, let's remember this classic line from Manchester United's most erudite player. In response to Lillian Thuram's negative comments we get this beauty

Walking round with books on slavery in glasses and a hat does not turn you into Malcolm X

I'm willing to bet that 90% of the British media's target audience have no idea who Malcolm X was, so it was kind of lost in the Daily Mail of all places. The Mail do know that Malcolm X was a Muslim right? Strange that they mention one without use of the word terrorist or extremist.

Poor persecuted Fergie

Rowley Birkin rides again



Jeff Powell has had his cage rattled once again, this time it seems by his own colleagues (although it is always difficult to tell with him).

Sir Alex Ferguson lost top spot at Liverpool and is now public enemy No 1 with referees, but let's remember that he is ... STILL THE GREATEST

Snappy title eh?

This 2009-2010 campaign has turned into open season on the laird of Old Trafford. The rest of our national game is waiting for the mightiest of them all to fall.

God I hate Fergie. Let's make it clear from the outset my opinion on him. A truly great football manager who has consistently shown himself to be a tremendous judge of talent and a great man manager. The man who signed Roy Keane, Dennis Irwin, Patrice Evra, Ronaldo etc because he knew what they would bring to his team. I hold him up as an example of how to manage footballers: from old school players like Mark Hughes and Bryan Robson, through to modern day multi-millionaires like Ronaldo and Rooney.

Such a man would normally have my complete respect. Instead I have nothing but contempt for the man. As a man he fails to earn my respect on every level. Bad losers are good winners of course but Fergie takes it to another level.

The ruffling of authority's feathers and the intimidating of opponents are part and parcel of what it takes to be The Greatest. Ask Muhammed Ali.

Comparing him to Ali is interesting. Does Fergie even have any morals? Going to jail for committing no crime, only for an idea? I suppose Powell could be comparing the two as both are huge figures, dominating their sports with force of personality.
I think however, there is a slight difference between making a rude comment about a referee and refusing to go to war as a matter of principle when you know that you will lose your liberty as a result. Fergie's worst punishment is probably a week's wages rather than a loss of his livelihood at the peak of his career.
Ali was a horrible person a well I guess but I'm sure that's not what Powell means.

Whatever happened, gentlemen, to the freedom of speech which we profess to defend? Where would the stories come from if the leading players in the game of life were silenced? Yet football, in all its many constituents, is ganging up on the manager who keeps heaping more glory on our national game than most of his peers can begin to imagine.

I find this appalling journalism. Football is not ganging up on Fergie. Powell speaks as if Fergie has done nothing wrong, as if he is being persecuted. There is no glory in the way Sir Alex Ferguson treats people. Physically and verbally abusing his players; not allowing them the freedom which Powell so vociferously defends for Fergie himself; constantly belittling, condescending and undermining officials and opponents.

Ask this man which quality he looks for above all others when he recruits a new batch of kids or signs a £50million superstar and he will give you the answer himself. 'Character,' he will tell you. 'Aye, then it helps if they can play a bit. But first attitude, desire, pride, appetite.'

Berbatov? Nani? Owen? Kleberson?

Yet football, in all its many constituents, is ganging up on the manager who keeps heaping more glory on our national game than most of his peers can begin to imagine.

Just because your paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you? Criticising Fergie for talking absolute bollocks about referees, bringing the game into disrepute in the process, is not ganging up at all.

"The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit. It is an indictment of our game. You see referees abroad who are as fit as butcher's dogs. He was taking 30 seconds to book a player. It was ridiculous."

"I think Howard Webb has a great chance to be the top referee but today was a big game for him and, at times, he favoured Arsenal. Their second goal came from him not giving a free-kick for a foul on Louis Saha on the far side. It should have been a foul for us."

"Everton knew it was a weak referee and they exploited that to the full. I don’t blame them. Right from the first whistle, there was no protection."

Just a few of Fergie's rants for which he never seems to get more than a slap on the wrist. What a way to 'heap glory' on the game this is.

On Wednesday, we came to the laughable point where one Roberto Martinez complained Ferguson wields too much power. Roberto who? For the benefit of the uninitiated, young Mr Martinez used to be the boss at Swansea and is now in charge at Wigan Athletic

I believe Jeff Powell is now moaning about Martinez expressing his freedom of speech. He's probably forgotten that bit already.

Having reacted with dignity in Rome by acknowledging Barcelona's superiority on the night, just as he did at Liverpool on Sunday, he is using the wisdom of his ages in the game to plot life after Ronaldo.

Cherry picking much? I think we have established that Fergie is bereft of both dignity and wisdom by the bucketful.

Anyway this is followed by lots of fawning over the great Fergie. Typical Powell BS.

Piers Morgan, look in the mirror.

Piers Morgan. Anyone who has seen him on screen cannot argue that his arrogance and love of himself is matched only by that of Richard Madeley. So it is quite remarkable that he would lambast Rafa Benitez for being very much the same.

There has always been something very irritating about the Spaniard.

There has always been something very irritating about the self-important moral outrage of a filth-monger like Morgan.

The cheap-looking glasses, hideous patterned ties and ill-fitting suits do nothing to counter the general impression of a middle- ranking bank manager. But the most annoying thing about him is that he could be so much more successful if he just managed to find a few seconds in every day to stop thinking about himself and dwell on his team for a moment.

Wow. Really wow.

Valencia:
La Liga Winner: 2001-02, 2003-04
UEFA Cup Winner: 2003-04

Liverpool:
FA Cup Winner: 2006
UEFA Champions League Winner: 2004-05

What a tale of woe for Rafa. He won the Spanish League with fucking VALENCIA. Twice.

Considering the strength of the Premier League you can make a very good case that Liverpool are the 3rd or 4th best side in Europe. Hardly Rafa's fault that there is a Man Utd dynasty going on and Chelsea have limitless amounts of money.

Oh yes he did win the Champions League with Liverpool. Here's a few names for you: Biscan, Baros, Smicer.

This guy has managed teams that have consistently over-achieved.

Morgan's crowning achievement? Not sure but here's a few select highlights:

Achtung! Surrender headline
Insider trading
Iraqi torture hoax pictures

Benitez has to be the most arrogant manager ever to grace the Premier League...

You just know that he wakes up every morning, struts to the bathroom in his purple Noel Coward smoking jacket, takes a long, hard look at himself in the mirror, and smirks: 'Rafa, you is looking the bizzo today!'

Seriously I don't know he has the balls to write this. You've got to admire the bare faced cheek I suppose. Arrogance and self-love oozing out of Piers Morgan's skin. He really is one of the most irritating pieces of shit ever to float to the top of the showbiz pond. At least there is something genuine about Rafa. He is honest, open and interesting, qualities that Morgan can only dream of having.

Liverpool were cruising at the top of the League at the turn of the year. They looked strong in depth and focused and I genuinely thought, if Gerrard and Torres stayed fit, they might go on and win the title. Then came Dossier Day. The moment that Benitez decided to make it all about himself again.

Fernanado Torres number of Premier League games missed this season: 13

But of course this article is all about Benitez. It is true that Rafa lost the plot with Fergie but I very much doubt that had any effect on his players. Another case of the media blowing something out of all proportion, then presuming that the players are effected by it just because they put it in the papers and then reciting it as gospel fact when it is actually all made up by them.

This season was the closest Liverpool have come to winning the Premier League and they almost certainly blew it when they had it in their hands. Because, at the crucial moment, when the players looked to their manager for the kind of supreme Churchillian 'Let us go forward together' speech that might drive them on to victory, he turned it into the Rafa Benitez show.

No one except you, the media, have made it the "Rafa Benitez show" by continuously writing pointless repetitive articles about a slightly interesting press conference rather than focusing on what is happening on the pitch.

As a football fan it has been about the fact that Torres has not been able to stay fit all season and that there have been quite a few teams prepared to try and to leave Anfield with 0-0. Then we look to Rafa's inability to understand how to play away from home in the Premier League.

Question his decisions in who he picks and the instructions he gives them away from Anfield and I will be right there with you.

Drivelling on about personality and issues outside of the football field and I suggest that you are projecting something of your own awful business onto sport where performance on the field is all that matters.



Twat.

Jeff Powell vs the greedy Premier League

This guy has so much anger inside him he makes me look still and steady.

Even as Ronaldo lurches between disgrace and glory in the space of 24 hours, a small army of lawyers abroad are working ever closer to the reform which will give back our national game to the humbler home-grown English player.

Humbler like Jermaine Pennant? Joey Barton?

The only thing disgraceful about Ronaldo's sending off against City was the refereeing. One yellow for a fair tackle and another for a harmless (although admittedly bizarre) handball.

News of this development, even though it should regenerate the England team as a future World Cup power, will throw the Premier League into frenzied protest.

1. I don't buy all this less foreign players will make us into a World Cup power bullshit. The last World Cup winners were Italy, where a massive number of foreigners play. In terms of talent coming through they are no better than England but they had a winning mentality and great coaching.

2. Journalists everywhere seem to be picking up on this and saying that the Premier League clubs will protest. I am seeing no evidence for this, only presumption. In this article alone we get:

frenzied protest
cause chaos
Furious
panic-stricken defence
consternation
blinkered insularity
indenial (sic)

I give you Jeff Powell: master of subtlety.
Jeff here is a Brazil nut if you fancy... wait a minute Jeff put down the hammer, put it down. OK now step back and use this nutcra... SMASH.
Oh man now I'm going to have to vacuum the living room again. And stop slavering all over my new sofa for God's sake man.

It will also cause chaos among the major clubs, challenging managers such as Arsene Wenger and Rafa Benitez to wean themselves off their dependence on French, Spanish or other foreign imports and start developing young English footballers.
Put a limit on Johnny Foreigner and even Arsene will have to bring on the English.

Burnley v Arsenal Carling Cup:
number of French players in Arsenal staring line-up = 1
number of British players = 6

Arsene knows you know.

I also must point out that 90% of Wenger's 'foreign' players will be eligible for a British passport by the time they get into the first XI anyway.

A decline in Premier League attendances this season - down by an average of almost 1,000 per game - comes as a reminder of the importance of England success to football’s popularity in this country.

WTF? Linking foreigners to lack of success by England team is tenuous at best, then we take another gigantic leap in logic and uncover the dastardly secret that foreigners are responsible for a lack of attendances by proxy? Anyone would think this was an article from the Daily Mail. Rivers of blood, send them back etc.

Fabio Capello’s team are still a work in progress which could use more skilled labour. Not that we want Ronaldo to go home, or even to Madrid, unless he keeps insisting until Sir Alex Ferguson gives in.

Yeah our recent results have been awful haven't they Jeff? Anyway keep Ronaldo cos he's really good but fuck the rest of those spic bastards.

If Enid Blyton were still writing her children’s books, be sure young Cristiano would be one of her Five Go To Old Trafford.

Awful writing there Rowley. Perhaps Blyton is his race relations mentor?