Regular readers of my blog will know i'm less than fond of Man City's Mario Balotelli. Looking at some of his dodgy outfits since his move to England (remember the 'glove' hat from Manchester market?) I always thought he didn't know how to dress himself, but this video from before Thursday's defeat to Dynamo Kiev takes the biscuit. Not content with being beaten by the bib he then went on to get sent off, costing his team dearly as they crashed out of the Europa League, a competition I know the club were keen to win and must have been one of the favourites to do so. The early bath was obviously the final straw for Roberto Mancini who must have also been perturbed by the strikers phantom grass allergy that caused him to be substituted in the first leg, and Balotelli has subsequently been dropped from the City squad for this weekends game. He isn't doing much to change my opinion that his stay at Eastlands will be a short one.
Chelsea play at Bloomfield Road tonight in yet another game moved from it’s traditional weekend slot for Sky’s Monday Night Football coverage. Now, I am one of the fortunate ones who due to my choice of university live a mere 30 minutes away from Blackpool via train, but what about everyone else?
Being a fan in modern day football definitely has it’s draw backs. Add Blackpool to games with Wolves, Bolton, Sunderland, and to a lesser extent Fulham and Arsenal and you get an extraordinary run of six away league games in a row played midweek due to television. This weekend for example, would it have done Sky any harm to stop and think “hang on, United only have to travel up the road to Liverpool. Maybe they should be on Monday night” thus making it easier on those who spend their time and money supporting their team and giving them a nice weekend in the supposed entertainment capital of the country. Instead Rupert Murdoch’s cronies sit in their ivory tower dreaming up ways to make more money and take a little bit more of the soul out of football. Factor in Champions League away games with Spartak Moscow and Copenhagen and I would love to know how exactly Sky and the clubs expect fans to make enough money to pay for their tickets and take time off to travel up north in the middle of every other week.
It’s not only midweek kick offs that are detrimental to people being able to follow their club, I know as a Chelsea fan that kicking off at 3:00 on a Saturday in the Premier League is a increasingly rare occurrence. Getting to games that are early kick offs in a far flung town doesn’t make things any easier and playing on Sunday means no drinking and an early night due to work and education commitments the next day, taking a lot of the fun out of being a football supporter. Football to me is about days out with mates and following your team, it’s not just about the result. It’s about the banter and adventures in places you wouldn’t go to, with people you wouldn’t know without that one thing that unites you.
However, it’s obvious the powers that be don’t care and complaints like this will continue to fall on deaf ears. It becomes clearer with each passing season that Sky couldn’t care less about football and the real fans who make it what it is, infact it probably suits them that people aren’t at the games and are on the sofa watching their channel instead. What makes it worse is that clubs are powerless to resist the wads of money Sky are able to provide, and the only people who benefit are the people sat in their arm-chairs, infront of the TV, wearing their replica shirt.
Well, what a week it has been to be a blue! The arrivals of Torres and David Luiz on transfer deadline day is more than even the most imaginative Chelsea fan would have hoped for and seems to have given the club a real lift. This was swiftly followed by us inflicting only Sunderland’s second loss of the season at the Stadium of Light this season. It’s an easy to overlook result but a massive win and it’s great to see us rediscovering our goal scoring touch.
On the flip side, it’s unsurprising to see that all it takes is for Roman to get his cheque book out and we become Britain’s most hated again (not that we were popular before). Of course i’m used to this by now and it’s not something that worries me, infact I thinks it’s a sign we’re doing something right. However, what I can’t understand is the bile directed at Fernando Torres this week.
Numerous people have questioned his reasons for leaving Liverpool, with many claiming money was the motivation and even that he embodies everything that is wrong with modern footballers. Anyone with sense can see for once this is not the case. Fernando Torres wants to win things and what was the likely hood of that happening at Liverpool this season or even next? He turns 27 later this month and Liverpool need rebuilding. Time is starting to run down on his career and he could be in his thirties before Liverpool even look like challenging for the top honours again. This morning Phil Thompson explained in his usual moronic way why he couldn’t understand why Torres would want to leave Anfield. He then went on to say: “Fernando Torres has played professional football for 10 years and won nothing”... don’t worry i’m sure he’ll get there in the end. Those Liverpool schools, hey!
A lot of people have argued that Torres made the wrong decision because Liverpool are a much bigger club than Chelsea. Well I guess that depends on your definition of a big club. Yes, Liverpool are a massive club but at the moment they are a big club in a similar way that Nottingham Forest are a big club, based on historic achievements rather than their standing in the game now. People can talk about fans and history until they are blue in the face but when it comes down to it sport is about winning things and being the best you can. What Torres has just done is in essence no different to what Valencia did when he joined Man United, moving to play with better players and challenge for silverware. I have no doubts Liverpool will rise again but they have to face facts that this is the situation at the moment. If reports are to be believed then not only have they lost their star striker but the man set to replace him didn't even want to join, not the mark of a "big" club.
Whilst on the subject of Andy Carrol, I can't help but feel there is a lot hypocrisy around surrounding his move. There is no difference between what Torres has done in comparison to Carroll, except for the fact that he genuinely left his supposedly beloved Newcastle without time to find a replacement. I am a (or was) a big fan of Carroll but £35m is a gamble and the club should be wary, if asked in the summer many Liverpool fans would have old you new signing Joe Cole was a world beater.
Liverpool fans can say what they like about the man they called El Nino, but the fact that not only themselves but also club legends have gone out their way to talk about him so much this week shows how they really feel about him despite what they may say. No one is that angry to see a bad player leave their club.
As one fan said: “We hate him so much because we loved him so much”
The subject of todays post could easily become some what of a theme on this blog. I didn’t particularly like Mario Balotelli before he came to the Premier League and since his move to Man City he has far from endeared himself to me.
My new arch enemy has been at it again this week stating: “Mourinho is the best coach in the world but as a man he has a lot to learn about politeness and respect." Funny that a man that stated he would shove his award for being the best young player in Europe (which he probably didn’t deserve) in Jack Wilshere’s face can talk about politeness and respect. People that live in glass houses Mario...
Since arriving in England Balotelli has talked on numerous occasions about how he is going to return to Milan, showing disrespect to Man City. Today he has generously pledged to stay 18 months before departing for Italy. He clearly thinks the club is beneath him and I can’t understand why the fans are so quick to stick up for him.
Balotelli’s time at Man City has so far been a constant stream of disrespectful comments on other players. As I have said before there is no doubt that the Italian has potential but to realise that potential he will have to stop talking and actually play some football, unlikely.
Well it seems that January is the footballing equivalent of a full moon. The new year is here and apparently clubs are trying to see how many managers it is possible to sack in a month. With Liverpool announcing Roy Hodgson’s dismissal at Liverpool today that takes the number of recent high profile casualties to 5 and with the likes of Houllier and Ancelotti among others apparently hanging by a thread, the situation could yet get worse. It’s an increasingly common sight in football and a worrying precedent in my eyes.
Take the case of Roy Keane receiving his marching orders earlier this week. Yes results were poor but to what extent is it the managers fault? Keane expressed the difficulty he had in enticing big players to rural Suffolk (and he’s not the first Ipswich manager to face this hurdle), yet he still managed to sign some solid Championship players. The fact of the matter is that when they took to the pitch they didn’t perform. Sometimes if a manager puts his best eleven on the pitch and they don’t play to the best of their capabilities, what more can he do?
It is rumoured that the sacking of Keane could cost Ipswich upwards of £2 million. Rather than spending this money getting rid of the manager, surely giving him the money to spend on the squad would have a more positive impact on the squad. Keane’s contract ended in the summer and if the board still felt a change was needed then they could do it for free.
At least there is some solace for Ipswich fans in the fact at Carrow Road the shoe appears to be on the other foot. With Norwich City running smoothly and mounting an assault on the top of the Championship table Paul Lambert is rumoured to have taken the strange decision to walk out. If his decision is in connection with Burnley’s rejected approach to talk to the Norwich manager then it’s a decision I don’t understand. It will be interesting to see how the situation unravels.
Ipswich appear to be ready to appoint Paul Jewell as manager before their next league game and looking at his previous record it’s a decision that could go either way. I really like Jewell and he did a great job in getting Wigan promoted however, he was less than convincing at Derby and Bradford. I for one would like to see Ipswich show a bit of ambition and go after someone else’s manager. For sheer comedy value i'd love it to be Paul Lambert. But for me, someone like Lee Clarke at Huddersfiled would be the perfect choice, a young manager who is doing a great job and the club could build something around.... unfortunately i'm a blogger and not the owner.
I am going to use todays blog entry to dispell what the pundits will have you believe is football's biggest mystery. What is going wrong at West Ham? I hope you are sitting down because this is shocking... they just aren’t that good.
The cliche’ for the past couple of seasons has been that West Ham have got a quality spine to their team with Green, Upson, Parker and Cole. I disagree.
I have never been a fan of Upson and find the fact he has 21 England caps pretty embarrassing. Carlton Cole has got the physical tools to score goals in the Premier League but he is the kind of striker that will take 3 or 4 chances to score a goal and is largely inconsistent. He needs a quality strike partner because he won't score enough goals to keep a team up on his own.
As for Parker, I can't help but think there has been a lot of undue hype in recent weeks. Parker is good by association with the mediocre players he has to play with every week but not much more. He does produce moments of quality (his volleyed lob over Petr Cech earlier this season is surely a candidate for goal of the season) and I can see why West Ham look to him for leadership however, in the grand scheme of things he is just a run of the mill combative Premier League midfielder who runs about a lot and puts in tackles.
Be that as it may, the bigger issue is the mediocre players they are surrounded with and this needs to be addressed in the transfer window if West Ham are to stay up.
Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, by that definition West Ham must be certifiable. West Ham narrowly avoided relegation last year and nothing has changed but the manager. The situation the Hammers find themselves in has been coming for a while now. The signings of Piquionne and Ben Haim aren't not enough to stop the rot in anyones wildest dreams. Don't be fooled by their win against a toothless Fulham today. Only one side in Premiership history has avoided relegation after being bottom at christmas and without major investment in January I don’t see how West Ham can buck that trend.
Merry Christmas and hopefully my next entry will be a more positive one.
As Man City squandered their chance last night to top the table at christmas for the first time since 1929 I began to ponder what went wrong for City. When Mark Hughes was in charge he said he wanted to build a team with an English spine and established premier league players who would battle their way to the title on a cold night. His audacious bid to sign then England captain John Terry embodied this. Unfortunately for City fans it was a quality severely lacking at the City of Manchester Stadium last night.
As a manager with limited experience in English football Roberto Mancini seems to have largely taken the opposite approach when putting his mark on the side over the summer which could cost them a run at the title.
Whilst Nigel De Jong’s suspension undoubtedly took some much needed steel out of the City midfield, over priced foreign imports such as Kolarov, Silva and Balotelli don’t appear to have the stomach for the physical style of the English game. Whilst I don’t question Balotelli’s potential he is yet to show the temperament to deal with the treatment he will undoubtedly receive in the premier league.
However, for a great example the City side need look no further than the architect of their downfall last night, Tim Cahill. The Australian was head and shoulders above anything on the pitch at COMS (apart from the equally impressive Tim Howard) and his willingness to work for the team was only outshone by his goal and assist on the night.
City are far from out of the race for the title. The Blues are in a great position and have countless options in their squad to change things around. Nonetheless, the foreign imports will need to start producing when it really matters and Carlos Tevez will have to put this weeks transfer saga behind him. The Argentinian, who is usually full of running, looked far from his usual self against Everton.
