Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture

Are we sure Sir Alex Ferguson is Scottish? After his little tirade about his players being ‘exhausted’ after their international duty I get the feeling that with this little bit of ungracious losing he is really an Australian. Oddly enough though, even they played like a bunch of muppets at Spurs and got a lucky point there, he did not mention the trip to the Middle East the team took to play in a meaningless game over there (sorry did I say meaningless, I meant ‘lucrative’). Teams go through these periods of getting poor results - all it takes is a few of those 50/50s to not quite go your way and then you drop some points, your confidence drops, which mysteriously means more of those 50/50s go against you…. Man U are going through on of these. Admittedly the whole Munich commemorations will not have helped, as much as you try to remain professional, they are still human beings and when confronted with the build up and nearly 80 000 people standing in silence with scarves raised aloft, it is going to affect their focus. However, in reality they were in one of these periodic mini-slumps before that. Spurs could and should have taken full advantage and City did take full advantage and they had a good quantity of their players away on International duty too. Will this be the end of Manchester United’s Premiership bid? Well that depends Read the rest of this entry »

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…for a month….in France. So, if any paparazzi are reading, it might be worth hanging around Ryan Air flights to Geneva to see if you can catch him on there

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The FA have finally picked the right type of person for the job. I never had too much problem with Sven, except his lousy friendlies when he would play a seemingly random selection of players with no sense of rhyme or reason, his policy of having a few too many favourites and his love of tabloid-friendly antics. However after the McLaren debarcle it amazes me that there are still people in the game wittering on about have to have an English manager. Quite simply there is nobody that fits the bill. Read the rest of this entry »

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Well I think the good old BBC summed it up perfectly when they said

‘All hail the return of the Premier League: a world where Steven Gerrard is a superhero, Frank Lampard ventures into the opposition penalty area and Scott Carson is a very good goalkeeper.’

and now I hear Motty saying

‘The talk about overseas players is a red herring, we simply need our players better coached’

Thank god for that!!
It is about time we acknowledged that the FA is the root of the problem. Read the rest of this entry »

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So we have oil prices rocketing, unrest in the middle East and OPEC makng waves, the Russians beign bolshy, the Americans with a very dodgy president and now we find ourselves with our football clubs doing really well in European competitions and the national side failing to reach the major finals….with Steve McLaren kindly stepping in to replace the Chopper. At least this means I might now actually be able to get tickets to go to the Euros. Pass the Party 7

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As I mentioned in my previous post, I was a bit dismayed about the comments of Trevor Brooking in the run up to the England vs Israel game. He and the FA believe that the number of foreign players in the league is harming our own aspirations. Really, why is this Sir Trevor? “Well,” he says, “take a look at Italy, almost all their players play in their league and they won the World Cup” Good point Sir Trevor, but statistically it’s a little irrelevant, it’s a bit like saying “I flipped a coin and it came up heads, so it must always come up heads” So, lets have a look around the other power houses in International football shall we…. Read the rest of this entry »

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…and Germany have trounced Argentina 11-0! It is looking like it could be an interesting tournament, with the USA, Germany and China fielding decent sides and a few of the others capable of an upset (although maybe not Argentina!) The thing that amazes me the most though is that I remember when it started back in 1991. No coverage, hardly any teams. Now you have a huge opening ceremony, coverage across most of the world’s media and even the petty pre-tournament squabbles and moans about the organisers. A few years ago you would never have had any of this, but it is a good sign. The game is now becoming truely professional, the peopel involved are there to win, not just to play, and people are also expecting the organisation to follow suit. Read the rest of this entry »

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I mentioned a little while back about BoDog losing their name in a very dubious legal decision. Well I saw this post and it looks as though NewBoDog.com is actually getting more traffic that the old. According to the article they are getting much more traffic, many more sign-ups and generally things are looking pretty rosey.

It does prove the old adage about no publicity is bad publisity and also shows that a non-generic domain name is only worth a limited amount. If you can’t back up the brand name with something, it very quickly loses it’s value.

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OK, this is time for a very blatant plug! My cousin, Becky Wing, is on the British Gymnastic team who are competing in the World Championships this year and have exceeded pretty much everyone’s expectations. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ahhh, the joys of singing along in the Emirates, feeling the relief as Arsenal finally score after missing a penalty against Sven’s organised but dull Manchester City side. OK, so Arsenal fans aren’t known for their banter or singing. I mean the old chant from away fans was ‘Highbury’s a library….shhhhh’ but this doesn’t work so well now at The Emirates. Read the rest of this entry »

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