Half Time Oranges

The money'll come out tomorrow...

2011-08-30T19:03:00.005+01:00

I can't help it. Every year I try not to get excited about the impending closure of the transfer window, and every year I get caught up in it. This year's not exactly shaping up to have any of the Robinho and Berbatov-laden insanity of summer 2008, but then again, neither did that day.

What we can expect, though, is a huge amount of panic buying. And industrial-strength stalling from the berks at Sky Sports News, who've been preparing for this hallowed day for the last seven months.

Andy Burton will be being interviewed in the studio every 45 minutes or so, saying his sources are saying their sources are saying that someone is getting on a plane to somewhere, but he can't give us any details because he needs to keep it private. Meanwhile, Jim White will almost certainly be trying to convince us that Sunderland signing Peter Crouch will happen, and that it is every bit as important as the giant shock transfer we're all waiting for. Adam Leventhal will try, and fail, to get a nice view down Natalie Sawyer's cleavage.

The BBC live text system will be as dull as ever. Sam Lyon will retweet some tool's lies about Sergio Biscuits being seen travelling along the M60, possibly tongue-in-cheek but you can't be too sure with Sam, he might just be a thicko. Jonathan Stevenson's updates will be pretty reliable, but just five minutes after you've read about them in the next day's papers. God, he's slow.

Owen Hargreaves is looking like being the comedy story of the day, probably being subjected to cotton wo- erm, "fitness tests" at various places, allegedly Manchester City, which is funny in itself. I'd bet cash money on him failing, regardless of what YouTube tells you.

But forget everything else. Tomorrow is about Arsenal. They'll be referred to as a crisis club dozens of times, the words "pivotal", "crucial", "vital" and anything else you can find in the thesaurus will be banded around in reference to the day's importance to Arsene Wenger's time as Arsenal manager, probably by Craig David, who's my tip to be stationed outside the Emirates with that big façade of the Arsenal legends linking arms in the background. You know the one.

Intrepid SSN reporter David Craig gears himself up for another hectic transfer deadline day

And in the end, it'll all be a massive disappointment. Stoke will sign an average Championship player, Arsenal will panic buy someone unproven but with promise (cue ominous music), and Leventhal won't see any boobs. I can't remember a truly interesting transfer window since that aforementioned wonderful day in 2008. At least this one won't feature the saga of whether Barca will make a late bid for Cesc Fabregas.

We all know it'll be rubbish. I've told you what's going to happen already. But you'll still skive off work and be glued to the tv, your phone and/or the internet all day, won't you? Of course you will. And I'll be right there with you

Villas Boas has a big rebuilding job on his hands

2011-07-25T21:14:00.002+01:00

Andre Villas Boas could hardly refuse an offer like Chelsea, but what appears to be a very attractive position could prove very challenging, even for somebody of his considerable talents.

Chelsea stagnated alarmingly last season. They started the season in blistering form, destroying anybody that crossed their path, but once they lost Frank Lampard to injury, it exposed frailties in Chelsea's squad not seen for years.

Their play became sluggish and predictable, Drogba and Anelka's goals dried up, £50million man Fernando Torres' goals never even came. The case for the defence of Chelsea was, well, their defence. They had the joint best defensive record with Manchester City last season but it still was not quite as convincing as in their Premier League winning seasons.

Chelsea's squad is an aging squad, and has been for some time. This must be the biggest concern for the new manager. Perhaps that was a reason for hiring the previous manager, Carlo Ancelotti. He does, afterall, have a proven track record with more experienced players and he has handled the big egos, but maybe now it has got to the point where the over 30s struggle to cope with the pace of the Premier League.

Looking over the current Chelsea squad there is a staggering number of player aged 30 or more. Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Yossi Benayoun, Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda, Paulo Ferreira, John Terry and Nicholas Anelka to name them.

This is in stark contrast to Sir Alex Ferguson's youth movement at Manchester United, which won them the Premier League and took them all the way to the Champions League final against Barcelona.

Andre Villas-Boas has enjoyed immense success for such a young manager, winning the Portuguese league, cup, supercup and the Europa League last season in his first season as Porto manager.

Roman Abramovich was sufficiently impressed to pay Porto over £13million of his fortune to acquire his second Portguese manager, now he must be similarly generous to ensure his team are not completely left behind by United and possibly Manchester City with whom they finished level on points last season.

In buying Ashley Young, Phil Jones and David De Gea, United have spent well so far this summer; buying young (pardon the pun), hungry players for the future, but who can also make a solid contribution straight away. City are actively persuing Sergio Aguero and Samir Nasri to bolster their attack and compliment their already solid defence.

So where do Chelsea start? For years Chelsea have played to the strengths of Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, playing a slow, possession game and overpowering their opponents. Both of these players are now 33, how much longer can Chelsea play like this?

The signings of Ramires, Torres, Benayoun and Luiz suggest perhaps a change from the typical Chelsea we've seen since Jose Mourinho left. These are smaller, more mobile players and perhaps there have been long term plans to change the way Chelsea play.

Certainly, Ramires and Torres suit a faster style of play in order to exploit their pace. Chelsea's slow style of play keeps opposition teams camped in their own half, which is fine with a striker like Drogba who can bully defenders. Torres, while not physically weak, is not capable of replicating Drogba's style. To get the best out of Torres he needs to be put in behinds defences to show his pace and finishing ability, he cannot do this when defences are given the chance to retreat to a deeper line.

Nicholas Anelka had been the main outlet of pace in the Chelsea squad but his role in the team has diminished due to a lack of playing time in his true position as well as simply aging, he won't keep his pace forever.

The over 30s will soon need replacing and a new philosophy of football is necessary to get the best out of the younger players at the club. Andre Villas-Boas is a young manager with fresh ideas and isknown to favour attacking football which can only be beneficial for the likes of Josh McEachran, Ramires, Torres and the probable entrant, Luka Modric.

The real challenge for Villas-Boas is keeping Chelsea at the top while rebuilding a team that requires new blood.

Mario Balotelli - In defence of an idiot

2011-07-25T16:50:00.001+01:00

On Sunday, an atrocity against football was committed.

Sometime in the afternoon heat of Los Angeles, a footballer dared to showboat. This deplorable act had dire, hilarious and, for some reason, very angry consequences.

Fortunately, for those who like to watch professional sports people make tools of themselves, Mario Balotelli's chucklesome gaff was captured on television for posterity.

As well as serving as the latest chapter in the Italian's comicbook account of his City career, this bungled piece of buffoonery was the trigger for all kinds of scorn to be poured upon the striker.

thrown darts at a youth teamer

stopped a child from being bullied

wrestled with a plastic bib

given away thousands of pounds to a tramp

Compared to those escapades, fluffing a back-hell is probably the least controversial thing he's done. Well, you'd think so. Apparently not.

Moments after the miss, Roberto Mancini substituted the striker and the two shared a heated exchange of words. The anger didn't stay between these two, either, Twitter was soon abuzz with words like 'disrespectful', 'unprofessional' and 'disgrace'.

'Idiot' would have sufficed.

Had he scored, or maybe even if it wasn't one of football's biggest nut-jobs, there's probable doubt that these words would have been reeled off. Certainly, had it gone in, the superlatives may well have been in free-flow.

Instead, though, he missed, looked a fool, everybody laughed and the clip will be on something like 'Danny Dyer's Pwoppa Nawtie Footie Fowl Aaps' and that's how it should have stayed.

The fuss would've been understandable had it been in a competitive game, like Robbie Keane's abomination of a fancy flick ( go to 3.20), in the Champions League, Djimi Traore's effort of a Zidane drag-back or David Dunn's derby day hilarities.

Instead, it was in a friendly. A friendly. You know, those unimportant games which are usually devoid of entertainment? Well Balotelli tried a trick to entertain. Yes, he messed it up, but it was entertaining.

If outlandish attempts at pointless tricks are that bad and are a blight on the game, maybe we should start a campaign, Father Ted style?

DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING! And this. And this. And especially this.

Imagine football without this type of disrespectful play. A joyous game full of Kevin Davieses, Dirk Kuyts, Darren Fletchers and Gareth Barrys.

Dedicated. Committed. Functional. Boring.

Strip-tease

2011-07-16T12:51:00.002+01:00

The close season is a dull time for a football fan. Saturdays drift by aimlessly, and it's only around now, with the minor consolation of pre-season friendlies getting underway, that there's any relief from an otherwise dreadful summer of drizzle, golf and the Women's World Cup.

The only thing that's kept me going is the steady stream of new kits being revealed, something I've kept on top of thanks to Football-Shirts.co.uk. Now, the issue of new home, away, 3rd, and sometimes even 4th (not to mention European home and away) kits being replaced every season is a rant in itself, and one I won't get into for now.

Because I wanted to focus on the kits themselves. If you sift through the standard, bland and oft-recycled Nike and Adidas templates, and try to kid yourself that Umbro's featureless 'Tailored' range isn't just them running out of ideas rather than the PR excuse of wanting to celebrate [insert team name here]'s proud heritage, there's actually some cracking designs knocking around.

Wycombe's offering, in particular, is a belter, as Kappa show that you can actually do something interesting with a fairly restricting template of two-tone blue quarters, with their wobbly (and, let's be honest, comedy breasts lookalike) chest panels giving the shirt an nice little feature. That said, it does suffer from the age-old Kappa issues of a sponsor that's far too high, and those damn shoulder logos.

But where's the fun in looking at nice shirts? Like a club just before closing time, there's some absolute munters hanging around trying desperately to grab somebody's attention. And what better place to start than at the top of club football?

Grim. I've seen someone wearing this shirt around town (Preston must have a fledgling Catalan population) and it looks just as bad in real life. I can appreciate that Nike want to do something interesting and different with one of its biggest clients, but this? Really? When have asymmetrical stripes EVER looked good? In fact, I'm reminded of this:

Still, it could be worse. You could be a Gillingham fan, stuck with wearing this. At least it's only a third shirt, so hopefully for Gills' sake they won't have to look at it too often. And just in case you were wondering, the shorts are pink, too.

But before I go, spare a thought for goalkeepers. You'd think they'd be fairly safe from the atrocities afflicting their outfield team-mates, after all, shouldn't they just be stuck in a plain green shirt and left to it? Not if you're the England goalkeeper!

This is, quite possibly, the worst kit of any sort I've seen since, well, England's away goalkeeper kit from Euro 96. What, you don't remember? Well let me refresh your memory...

It looks like a parrot was sick on a rainbow. I remember laughing about this kit when I was 8 in the playground. It was even worse when it was what Seaman was wearing in that heart-wrenching shooting against the Germans. And now that memory has made me cry, I think it's an appropriate time to go.

But hang on. How can I possibly write a blog about bad football shirts, and even go so far as to mention goalkeepers, without this fella getting in on the action. Jorge Campos, we at Half Time Oranges salute you!

A HtO guide to: Being a transfer news guru

2011-06-06T16:50:00.001+01:00

We all know summer is traditionally transfer silly season. It seems tradition that papers spread and, on occasions, dream up the latest, almost instantly tedious, transfer saga. But these shenanigans are no-longer restricted to the news room and journalists.

You just have to open up Twitter to see plethora of possibly, genuinely, deluded bores churning out a deluge of transfer 'news' at a rate of knots.

It's so easy, anyone can play!

Yes! You, too, can make up a vast platter of transfer ~~bollocks~~ news to serve up. It's easy.

Here's Half Time Oranges' handy 10 step guide to being a Transfer Watcher And Teller:

Pick a club, any club.
Pick a player said club has been linked with at any time over the past 18 months or a young 'unknown' who turns out to be amazing in the latest Football Manager game.
Pick a number, normally between seven and 30.
Add a '£' before the number and a 'm' after it.
Say a 'source' has told you that the club has bid said amount for said player (remember, you can't name sources - which is just as well, considering yours is about as real as Lolo Ferrari's ghost's tits).
Say you're pretty sure it's going to happen but can't confirm it until the club do (you know, because you don't want to get sued or anything).
Avoid awkward questions by saying your gran's dead and that you have to go offline for a bit.
Questions persisting? 'Kill off' your parents/siblings/pets. Hey, that's what they're there for!
Dispatch of as many family members as necessary until no one dares question your credibility for fear of upsetting a soul so brave that, despite their entire family being wiped from the earth inside a week, can still soldier on bravely to report that they reckon Kaka will be at Chelsea next season.
Transfer happen? Yes? Brag smugly to your doubters. No? Say it fell through at the last minute. Ideally by a last minute price-hike.

And there you have it. Blag, entertain and annoy like a true pro.

Pre-season - the unavoidable no-man's land

2011-06-06T16:50:00.000+01:00

The football season has ended and, with no World Cup or European Championship, a football-free summer is ahead. A full summer without football. For some, non-fans, this is pure bliss. For others, it is a short-cut to insanity.

At first it seems a nice, relaxing little break. The play-offs wean you off the spherical goodness nice and slowly, then the next couple of weekends are quite pleasant. There's no biting of nails; no constantly refreshing web pages or Twitter feeds. There's no pacing up and down your front room, wearing a hole in your carpet. In short, there's no worrying. It's nice.

But then you worry that you're not worrying. Why aren't we worrying? It feels strange, almost alien, not to be wrenching your gut nearly every afternoon or evening over some game of football or other. Your brain, so used to working out, updating and hypothesising over ever-changing implications and permutations of results and formations, starts to feel under-used.

Yes, there's the Under-21 European Championship, to stop us all from going totally cold turkey before the pre-season friendlies kick in, but it isn't the same.

Saturdays become desolate places without the company of Jeff and company or, at the worst, Gabby Logan and Garth Crooks (well, maybe being without Crooks is preferable, but you get the point).

While we mark off the days to the first friendly, we do our best to tide ourselves over. There's FIFA, Pro Evolution and Football Manager to give us our fix. Hell, some of us even go out and play football. Actually play it. With a proper ball. On grass and everything.

However, until 3pm on a Saturday in August and our over-optimism sets us up for a gauntlet of worry and the inevitable yet crushing disappointment, we will be longing for the real thing. The proper football. The best distraction from the reality that there is other stuff - actually properly important and often frightening stuff - happening in the world.

Put simply, a world without football is boring and scary. Roll on August.

Mourinho's tactics just not cricket... but were they football?

2011-04-28T19:24:00.000+01:00

Last night's instalment of this season's 'El Clasico' series proved two things: 1) Lionel Messi is some sort of footballing demi-god and 2) Jose Mourinho really doesn't like to lose.

Given that most of us already knew these two things, the only other thing the first leg of this Champions League semi-final presented us with was as clear an example of 'football v anti-football' as you could wish to see (assuming you are masochistic enough to wish for such a thing).

Yes, Messi's beautiful goal aside, last night's game will be remembered, chiefly, for the dearth of sportsmanship, the wealth of play-acting, tantrums, José Mourinho's conspiracy theories and Real's intent on stifling Barca's creativity.

Putting aside the gamesmanship and blatant cheating from both sides, Real's actual footballing tactics were attacked for spoiling the game.

To those watching for entertainment, they most certainly did, but when you are a manager (one who isn't Arsene Wenger, anyway), aesthetics are second to results. Especially if that result leads to a European Cup final.

Barcelona are held up as the epitome of 'the beautiful game'. Their adventurous, quick, fluid and often devastating style of play is the envy of most sides in the world and stopping them proves to be nigh on impossible.

One way to hope to do it is by packing the middle of the park and trying to restrict the time the likes of Xavi and Iniesta have on the ball whilst also trying to contain the likes of Messi and Villa.

This usually results in a 'parking the bus' approach and derision from those who believe that this isn't playing football - labeling it as 'anti-football'. But is it?

As HtO's very own Phil McLaggan alluded to in an earlier blog, Mourinho's selection of three defensive midfielders in the previous two encounters with the Catalans came under heavy scrutiny. This, however, was largely justified with one draw and a victory (albeit in extra-time).

Last night was no different, with midfield sitters Pepe, Lassana Diarra and Xabi Alonso all deployed together. Predictably, Los Blancos looked to stop Barcelona by any means possible with Pepe and Sergio Ramos looking to impose themselves on Barcelona's creative hub of Xavi and Messi, respectively.

Mourinho's men were obviously briefed beforehand to do everything they could to disrupt Barca's flow. This made for an ugly, disjointed, game but, crucially, a game where Real were managing to prevent Barcelona from opening them up. That was until Pepe's dubious red card gave Barcelona the bit of extra space and time they needed to pick through the Madrid back-line.

For a man whose job security relies on results (possibly more-so in the CL for Madrid than any other competition, especially against their bitter rivals), the point of competitive football is to beat the opposition, not to appease the neutral's desire for entertainment.

So why, in such a big game, would Mourinho choose to play an open, attacking game - and risk another 5-0 mauling - when he knows another set of tactics would see him best placed to snatch a win? Put simply: he wouldn't.

There are many ways to win a game; be it Helenio Herrera's Catenaccio system, Johan Cruyff's 'Total Football' ideology or Kevin Keegan's kamikaze style but, at the end of the day - attractive or ugly; attacking or defensive - it's all football.

So what about The Special One's latest effort? Well, to paraphrase a Star Trek character: 'It's football, Jim, but not as we like it'.

Wenger - Should he stay or should he go?

2011-04-24T19:06:00.002+01:00

Perhaps Arsene Wenger is mulling over Joe Strummer's classic question. Maybe the answer is "If I stay there will be trouble, if I go there will be double". Let's be honest, Arsenal fans would kill for a double after a trophy drought of six years.

Who would have thought, after Patrick Vieira stroked home the winning penalty against Manchester United in 2005's FA Cup Final, that just weeks later he'd be gone but also in six years time it would still be the last kick to win the club a trophy?

Cesc Fabregas, who would ultimately replace Vieira as the club captain, apparently (he claims it's a mistranslation) claimed that if Arsene Wenger was a manager in Spain he would have been dismissed by now after such a dry spell.

Given the success Wenger had in his first 10 years in North London, for it to stop so suddenly is quite alarming, for it to continue like that is even more alarming. It's difficult to argue with Fabregas' logic, assuming he did say it. Look at the way Barcelona let Frank Rijkaard go after a couple of poor seasons and Real Madrid sack managers like it's going out of fashion.

Even in England, you could probably say the same. Wenger is the second longest serving manager in the Premier League, behind Sir Alex Ferguson. There is a culture of reckless sackings in the Premier League, which even Jose Mourinho fell foul of.

In Wenger's defence, much has changed for the better at Arsenal since the Frenchman arrived. They play some of the most attractive football around, they play in a huge new stadium, he's won plenty of trophies, there was the "untouchables" season and the policy of youth development.

The untouchables who went for a whole Premier League season without losing should be the first thing everybody remembers about Wenger's Arsenal legacy, but he is now in danger of being remembered as being a manager who turned Arsenal from a winning team into a team that develops good players but doesn't win anything.

And herein lies the problem, it has been suggested that Arsene Wenger wants to create an Arsenal youth policy much like Barcelona. Johann Cruyff had the vision to change the philosophy of football at Barcelona. His period as manager was greatly successful and his legacy has lived on as one of his former players, Pep Guardiola has adopted that same "Tiki Taka" style.

Cruyff signed several big name players for Barcelona in his time there, the likes of Hristo Stoichkov, Romario, Gheoghe Hagi and Michael Laudrup. They benefited the sytem, and when he has needed to, Guardiola has also spent big on his team to compliment it. Buying players like David Villa, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Dmytro Chygrynskiy.

Cruyff laid the foundations at Barcelona for Guardiola to build something truly special and Wenger will surely have been inspired by this. Wenger's youth policy has been going on for some years now. The Untouchables squad was built on a mixture of experience (Bergkamp, Pires), smart signings (Campbell, Toure, Ljungberg) and youth (Fabregas, Clichy, Senderos). It was an ideal set of elements that made a formidable compound.

Many changes have been made since then, and it has been a downhill slide for the Gunners. The current side lacks experience, and with Wenger's keenness to blood these young players and build them into a great team, a reluctance to tamper with it has appeared.

Weaknesses in the team have also appeared, and because of Wenger's aversion to change these weaknesses are there for all to see. A staggering 54% of Arsenal's goals conceded this season have come from set pieces. It's evident that opponents are capitalising on this. Arsenal do not have a truly dominant central defender in the mould of a Tony Adams or Sol Campbell. Djourou and Koscielny are fine players with the ball at their feet but they struggle with the physical side of the game.

Myriad goalkeeping errors have been a problem ever since David Seaman left the club. A string of goalkeepers have attempted to plug the gap left by the (formerly) ponytailed Yorkshireman. The eccentric German, Jens Lehmann probably did the best job of it, but he could hardly be labelled reliable. Neither could Manuel Almunia, Lukasz Fabianski or Wojciech Szczesny.

This stubbornness against addressing Arsenal's problems is hurting the team. Wenger seems to refuse to admit he is ever wrong, and until he changes that stance then Arsenal will still struggle. The issue now has become does the manager change his ways or do Arsenal change their manager?

Wenger's vision for the future of Arsenal is great, in theory, and to an extent it is working. He said himself:

We will continue to have an absolute commitment to youth. We will add to that what is needed. I believe you cannot be responsible, be a big club and have no desire to develop young players.

I feel there is always a need to improve the team but if you look at our season you cannot come to the conclusion we need a massive change.

In investing so much time in the future, Wenger seems to have forgotten about the present. It's all well and good building a better Arsenal for the future, but for a successful future Arsenal, there needs to be a successful current Arsenal. Until that happens, Wenger faces tarnishing his legacy.

Is Mourinho the right fit for Real Madrid?

2011-04-20T20:42:00.002+01:00

The Special One received some heavy and maybe even unprecedented criticism at the weekend for his tactics in the second Clasico of the season.

His selection of a central midfield trio of Xabi Alonso, Sami Khedira and Pepe and omission of Mesut Ozil was deemed by many to be very negative. It was a team set up to stop Barcelona playing rather than Real Madrid, the home side, stamping their authority on the Catalans.

The criticism was predictable, however. To set up with two defensive midfielders, a very deep playmaker and a full back on the wing just is not the Real Madrid way. It's something of an unwritten rule that to win is not enough, you have to win with style. Proof of this came with their brutal sacking off our very own Fabio Capello. Real won their first trophy, La Liga no less, for four years in the first year of his second spell. This proved insufficient for Real's hard-to-please board of directors as he was dismissed almost immediately after winning the league after they had tired of his counter-attacking football.

Since then, Barcelona have established themselves as a, maybe even the dominant force in world football, understandably to great frustration from Los Blancos. Numerous managers have been and gone since Capello departed. The Chilean, Manuel Pellegrini managed Real to a record breaking points total of 96, unfortunately for him, Barcelona also broke the record last season with 99 and consequently he was relieved of his duties.

So, in theory, even in Real Madrid's best season they still could not do enough to topple their fiercest rivals. Desperation called and Jose Mourinho picked up. The former Barcelona interpretor had just won the treble for Internazionale and left on a high. It was one of football's worst kept secrets that the Spanish capital would be his destination.

En route to the treble, Mourinho masterminded Inter to a memorable victory over Barcelona and he was lauded for his tactics. Real Madrid club president Florentino Perez obviously liked what he saw. Mourinho is a manager whose style is based on getting results, it often isn't pretty, it's usually defensive, but now it was important to knock Barcelona off their perch and if anybody was capable, it was the manager rated by many as the best in the world.

Mourinho's first year at the Santiago Bernabeu has been largely successful but he still finds his team trailing by eight points. Have they receded since last season? Probably not, but they still do not look like a serious threat to Barcelona's dominance. In Mourinho's first Clasico, he saw his side dismantled in a 5-0 defeat, in arguably the best ever Clasico performance by Barca.

The negative tactics are unnecessary against the rest of La Liga but Barcelona are a different prospect. They keep possession like no other team can, so ball winners were needed, hence the inclusion in the second and third derbies of the season of Pepe and Khedira. This approach has brought them much more success after Mourinho learned an excruciatingly harsh and humiliating lesson at the Camp Nou.

The critics of this system have become more vocal over the last week, but Real Madrid must have known what they were getting themselves into. Mourinho has made a career of building his teams on a solid defensive base, so why would he change that mantra now? It has brought him huge success in three different countries.

Florentino Perez has even loosened his grip on the club's transfer policy, allowing Mourinho to buy the players he wants for the team. So, unlike Capello, Pellegrini and all the others, Mourinho seems to have the club's full backing. Perhaps, unsurprisingly if the reputed figure of £6million per season in wages is true, but the striking detail is that the negative tactics are tolerated as Real Madrid's desperation to regain their crown as the number one team in Spain and the world becomes ever more evident.

The Twits

2011-04-15T17:07:00.002+01:00

One of the most interesting effects of social media's increasing popularity is the way it has landed several well-known sportsmen in hot water.

Just this week, West Ham striker Carlton Cole was charged by the FA for comments he made on Twitter during England's recent friendly against Ghana. Apparently, his tongue-in-cheek immigration remark about the Ghana fans was "racist" and ill-advised.

The "offending comment read as follows: "Immigration has surrounded the Wembley premises! I knew it was a trap! Hahahaha." He later added, "The only way to get out safely is to wear an England jersey and paint your face w/ the St George's flag."

Are we to believe that these comments are in any way racist? Just take a look at Carlton. In case you didn't know, he is himself of African ancestry, with a Nigerian father and a mother from Sierra Leone. Hardly someone, then, that would set out to racially discriminate against the supporters of an African team. Even if a white player had posted the same comments, I would hardly be pulling out the race card and waving it at him.

Carlton himself was clearly shocked by the backlash he received for what was so clearly a harmless joke. He later tweeted, "Why are there so many sensitive people out there! It was a joke & its not even racist."

Even his club manager Avram Grant has defended him, claiming the FA should have "more important things to concentrate on." As an Israeli of Jewish heritage, Grant would know more than most about the horrors of genuine racial discrimination. That he believes Cole has done nothing wrong should be enough to suggest that the reaction has been ridiculous.

I quite agree with Carlton. The saddest thing about the whole incident is that there are people out there who were genuinely offended and felt racially abused. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I hardly think such a reaction is either logical or remotely informed.

Sadly, our beautiful game is increasingly being swallowed up by the illogical and politically-correct idiots that insult our intelligence. Common sense has long been discarded. I would argue that Wayne Rooney's foul-mouthed rant at West Ham a fortnight ago was far more offensive than any of Cole's tweets.

When most people these days see footballers as shallow, materialistic adulterers, it is such a shame to slam one of our brightest talents just for showing a sense of humour and a bit of light-heartedness.

It isn't the first time this season that Twitter has landed a player in trouble, however. In January, Liverpool's Ryan Babel was punished for posting a mocked-up photo of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt following the Reds' FA Cup defeat to their great rivals. There again, Babel was clearly just making a light-hearted jape, born out of his frustration at Liverpool's cup exit.

Of course, the FA were never going to see it that way and he duly had his knuckles rapped. There are further examples in football and other sports where players have vented their rage at officals, managers and others for various reasons. While directly criticising someone is clearly unwise, should we really be censoring what players can and cannot say?

This type of thought-policing seems to serve only as a means of curtailing free speech. Unless a player had posted comments that were clearly defamatory in some way, then it is surely only fair to allow them to tweet without fear of repercussions. After all, a quick look at the tweets of "normal" people would reveal far, far more offensive content.

The end of the season as we know it

2011-04-15T11:27:00.006+01:00

Generally, by mid-April, fans tend have a pretty good idea of how their club's season has gone. Some fans will be spending the next 4-6 weeks a jangling ball of nerves, as the heart-wrenching anguish of a title challenge, playoff push or desperate fight for survival looms.

But frankly, they're all boring and overly sensationalist stories. Plus as a Wolves fan I'm itching to get away from the grim reality of the near future. So I thought it was time to take a more light-hearted look at what lies ahead for a few clubs, and give those slightly more obscure battles a chance to stand in the limelight.

Starting at the business end (of the Blue Square Bet Premier), you've got AFC Wimbledon, Luton and possibly Wrexham battling for the unsponsored Conference Championship. Unsponsored because money's got no business interfering with the league title. Hi, Crawley fans...

Meanwhile, in the Barclays Premier League, despite the incredibly hard to predict term where maybe three teams have managed to hold together a consistent season, Everton are admirably near to achieving their aim of 8th placed obscurity once again.

It'll be a tough ask for them to manage their results through the season, as they are too close to catching Liverpool for comfort, and after an unfortunate win over Wolves last weekend, need to make sure they're outscored by Bolton in the last six games.

Scotland, and the infamous SPLit is almost upon us. Which of course means the intriguing battle between the 6th and 7th placed teams (Motherwell and Inverness CT, yet again) to see if 7th can finish the season with more points than 6th, to stick yet more fingers up at the historians.

Elsewhere in Scotland, after a few years in the wilderness, East Stirling are making a late bid to reclaim their rightful crown as the snappily-titled Irn-Bru Scottish Football League Third Division basket cases, with Clyde current incumbents of the lowest position in Scottish league football, comfortable in the knowledge relegation will never be a threat.

And once again, Bradford are steaming away with the Michael Ricketts-endorsed, "I Can't Believe They Were In The Premier League" award. Now in its 18th season, this highly-sought after piece of silverware was always destined to go to Bradford this season as the only ex-Prem representative in League 2.

Swindon are making a bid for relegation from League 1 to make a challenge for the crown next season, although of course Bradford don't seem beyond diving out of the Football League altogether in a desperate bid to retain their crown, which they've held almost unopposed for four seasons.

There's lots more teams already mired in midtable for this season of course, and in those will be a mix of relief, grudging acceptance and disappointment. If you're one of those (un)lucky fans, then do keep an eye out for the fortunes of the teams I've mentioned here. And if, like me, you're in the nail-biting brigade for the next month, try to remember that, for better or worse, at least you've still got something to be shouting for.

Will Torres ever get back to the player he was?

2011-04-12T19:37:00.002+01:00

The decision of whether to play Fernando Torres was the big talking point leading up to Chelsea's Champions' League quarter final second leg against Manchester United.

In theory, the decision to play a recently bought £50 million striker should be a no-brainer; but this isn't any case of a £50 million striker.

To say the Spaniard, once rated by many as one of the world's best strikers, has been a flop thus far at Chelsea is a gross understatement. He was signed in January to save Chelsea's faltering title challenge and, consequently, has failed miserably.

The stage was set in his Chelsea debut against former club Liverpool, where he had struggled this season, to prove the doubters wrong. He fluffed his lines. As he has continued to do ever since. Up until last week, he had failed to even hit the target with a shot.

This run does not look like ending despite the claim from one caller on TalkSport today that "Every game he goes without scoring, he's a game closer to that first goal". Difficult to argue with that logic, but the man is horrifically out of sorts. He lacks the explosive pace he has become known for and his body language suggests that of a man who does not believe in his ability to make an impact for his team. He almost looks disinterested at times.

Why is this so surprising? He'd hardly been tearing up any trees for the preceding year, partly to do with fitness problems and later with just plain old bad performances, but it is the Torres of before 2010/11 that Chelsea desperately hope they have bought.

During his time on Merseyside he racked up an impressive 65 league goals in 102 appearances, at a rate of a goal every 120 minutes. A record comparible with any of the league's top strikers.

That's why his fall from grace has been such a shock, but his poor Chelsea form is merely a continuation of a year's bad form. Since his injury problems in early 2010, three different managers (Liverpool's Roy Hodgson, Spain's Vicente del Bosque and Chelsea's Carlo Ancelotti) have shown faith in him to no avail.

The difficulty with the decision to pick Torres for Chelsea now comes in the consequences that would come with it. Drop him and you have a player even lower in confidence but you have Drogba in the team from who you know what to expect. Play him and it's a player horribly out of form and it's a gamble as to whether he'll be up to standard. Whilst he continues to struggle it is undoubtedly hurting the team and one has to wonder how long Ancelotti can keep the faith.

Chelsea's trophy hunt this season is now over, perhaps they should look to next season to get the best out of Torres. He is just 27, he should be in his prime, if next season brings no improvement, then it's time to worry.

Crawley go up but their reputation has never been so low.

2011-04-10T18:07:00.001+01:00

Normally, when a non-league side wins promotion to the Football League, a lot of people will be pleased for them. Not in the case of Crawley Town, however.

The Red Devils secured their place in the League's 92 clubs, yesterday, for the first time in their history and the West Sussex club will have undoubtedly partied the night away in celebration. Many fans of other clubs, however, may well be wishing that their hangovers are lengthy and painful ones.

Not that many people begrudge any long serving fans their shot at the big-time; the negative reaction - to their otherwise admirable season - will be directed at the way the club have operated and one man in particular: Steve Evans.

Before we get to Evans, though, lets look at the main reason for Crawley's wonder season: money.

The green stuff is painfully sparse in the lower echelons of both the Football League and, especially, the non-league system. Clubs are going bust left, right and centre; either through their own misadventure, dodgy owners or just plain lack of revenue. Not that you'd guess this at the Broadfield Stadium.

The newly-crowned Blue Square Bet Premier champions averaged gates barely over 1000 before this season yet still managed to throw more cash around than most League 1 and 2 clubs, thanks to their mystery backers.

The Red Devils threw around sums around and beyond the region of £100k for players with alarming regularity and seemingly gay abandon.

Is a striker who, two seasons ago, couldn't get a look-in in a mid-table Conference side and only had one-and-a-half good seasons under his belt worth £275k? Crawley apparently thought so when they signed Richard Brodie from fellow BSBP side York City.

Two-hundred-and-seventy-five THOUSAND pounds for a transfer between two NON-LEAGUE clubs. Just think about that, for a minute. Think how many Football League clubs can make transfer dealings of that size, let alone Crawley's non-league counterparts.

No-one else had a hope in hell when they could be blown out of the water so easily. They were Rosie and Jim's Ragdoll boat to Crawley's Bismark.

When you look at it like this, Crawley's promotion isn't well earned. It's expected. It's been bought. Bought by people whose identity still remains unclear.

Of course, when you think of money, you think of crooks.

Totally unrelated to the previous statement, it's about time we got back to Steve Evans.

His supporters - of which there are probably about 5 - will tell you that he is one of the game's 'characters'. What they won't tell you, however, is that the word 'character', when used in relation to a football personality, is usually interchangeable with the phrase 'gobby reprobate'.

In this case, then, Evans is, indeed, one of the biggest 'characters' in football.

The brash Scotsman is never afraid to sound off and is, admittedly, a talented manager. He is always active on his touchline and his teams do know how to get results. He is also more than adept at being able to rub people up the wrong way.

Among the hoards of people he has managed to rile are the bods at HM Revenue and Customs. In 2006 Evans was convicted for being part of a £245k tax fraud, at former club Boston United; an episode that ended up seeing Boston plummet from League 2, down through the upper-tiers of non-league.

He was hit with a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years for the aforementioned fraud. Given this conviction, then, it is amazing that Evans was allowed to be near a position of power in a football club again, let alone one with as much loose change and as secretive owners as Crawley Town.

So, yes, it is wonderful that Crawley's die-hard fans have had such a wonderful season, but don't expect too many letters of congratulations. As a few Scousers once sang: money can't buy you love.

Remember when Arsenal...

2011-04-10T14:56:00.003+01:00

...were solid at the back? Usually I like to use that question as a joke regarding a team or player out of form (eg. remember when Wolves could keep a clean sheet, remember when Torres was good), but Arsenal being shakier than a jelly on a washing machine has been an issue for much too long to be a mere blip.

They've had the odd decent defender in recent years, but the real focus of their instability has been between the sticks. Arsene Wenger has been their manager since September 1996, and in those 14 and a half years I honestly can't name a single genuinely dependable goalkeeper they've signed.

Seaman was already part of the furniture when Arsene rolled in with his comedy specs, as were the indisputably sound back four of Dixon, Adams, Keown and Winterburn. It should have been a simple job for the foul-blind Frenchman to build on that and create a long-term dependable brick wall of a defence.

Fair enough for Wenger to have tried out a few understudies to see if one could be built up while Seaman held down the first team duties, but repeated failures such as Alex Manninger, John Lukic, Stuart Taylor, Richard Wright and Rami Shaaban meant that when Seaman left the club in 2003, Wenger needed to buy an expensive world class replacement immediately.

Mart Poom. Played for Arsenal once. Wasn't great.

Instead, Arsene decided that Seaman should be replaced with Jens Lehmann, who had proven himself to be not good enough to keep the geriatric Oliver Kahn out of the German team, and hilariously error-prone at such mediocre-to-decent outfits as Borussia Dortmund and Schalke (respectively after and before they became Champions League forces)

After Jens went all Harald Schumacher on Samuel Eto'o in the Champions League final, he was eventually shuffled aside for the circus sideshow known to most as Manuel Almunia. When even Arsene's untrained eyes saw he was simply a bleached blonde mullet and four randomly flailing limbs, Arsene panicked again, and has tried and failed to bring Lukas Fabianski and Wociejhjshs Kenny Chesney into the team.

Meanwhile the defence has slipped as well. As I alluded to earlier, there have been some quality defenders such as Kolo Toure, Ashley Cole or Sol Campbell, but they're the few idyllic islands in a sea of Pascal Cygans and Oleg Luzhnys. One has to wonder if Wenger's lost his touch, and simply wanders aimlessly around the transfer market nowadays with a few million in his pocket looking for cheap young Franco-Africans. After all, if it worked once...

Arsene undeniably has an incredible eye for a bargain (£500,000 for Anelka and Fabregas are up there with the best ever buys), but it would appear the man has no idea how to find a good goalkeeper. It must be incredibly frustrating for Gooners to see the club linked with people like Sebastian Frey, Igor Akinfeev and Maarten Stekelenburg every single transfer window, and be stuck with the same inept clowns. And until they can find themselves a dependable shot-stopper, I struggle to see how they can mount a sustained title challenge.

Is Football in the Wrong Dimension?

2011-04-07T00:35:00.000+01:00

Unless you have spent the last few years like the proverbial ostrich, with your head in the sand, you will no doubt have heard the great song and dance surrounding 3D TV.

As a concept, 3D has merits. The experience of seeing a blockbuster film at an Imax screen is a gripping thrill-ride and the third dimension certainly enhances the atmosphere. But what about live sport in the third dimension?

Naturally, Sky have made a huge fuss about their televised football being 3D, including what looks like their own version of the Blues Brothers (until they went all rock 'n' roll and unleashed abuse on a female official). They pushed the 3D coverage fervently in a big advertising campaign, encouraging viewers to find their nearest 3D pub.

Just imagine the spectacle: 200 blokes down the local, all wearing silly blue and red glasses, whilst watching the big game (spare a thought for those poor souls who have to wear glasses anyway). This scenario, which would resemble an Edgar Davids fan convention, already sounds ridiculous enough, but imagine seeing images like this and this in three dimensions. They are scary enough in 2D to give a child nightmares without making them pop out of the screen and towards your face, snarling.

As a sceptic, I can't help but see this 3D lark as anything more than a fad that will eventually pass. Besides, 3D football is nothing new; it has been around since the game was first invented. Of course, I am referring to going to watch a game live. It doesn't get any more 3D than cheering your team on from the stands. Even better, you don't have to watch the game in red and blue shades (impossible for Norwich vs Plymouth games) and the atmosphere is better than the greatest surround sound system could convey.

2D football has served us perfectly well since it was first broadcast, so let's keep it that way. If you insist on watching your football in 3D, go and support your team in person - and put those silly glasses in the bin.

Spare a thought for Nani

2011-04-06T20:19:00.004+01:00

Few hearts will have bled with sympathy for Nani when the PFA Player of the Year nominees were announced.

The Portuguese Manchester United winger is disliked by many for some of his on field antics; diving, feigning injury and crying to name just a few.

All of that aside, however, and it has to be said that he has finally shown this season the form that we knew he was capable of on a consistent basis. Since he signed for United in 2007, he has been erratic to say the least. His performances fluctuating between scoring some sublime goals to barely knowing he's on the pitch.

In a Manchester United team that is widely accepted to be their worst for possibly 15-20 years, Nani has been at the forefront of United's quest to remain at the peak of English football. Last season, it could have been argued that Wayne Rooney carried the team but when his form dipped at the end of the season, throughout the World Cup and the majority of this season, it could have been difficult to see where the goal threat could come from.

Berbatov had struggled since joining from Tottenham, Hernandez was largely unproven. Somebody needed to step up to the plate. Nani and the two aforementioned players have all performed admirably this season, but it is Nani who has stood out with nine goals and the most assists of anybody in the league.

Despite such output, the PFA have overlooked him and named a sextet of Gareth Bale, Scott Parker, Samir Nasri, Nemanja Vidic, Charlie Adam and Carlos Tevez.

The six have all played remarkably this season, and all are undoubtedly important figureheads of their respective teams but it is Bale, the bookies' favourite at a staggering 1/2, whom is surely least deserving of the award.

We've all seen his two demolitions of Inter Milan but he has spent much of this season injured, so his team have got by without him. When he has played he has been good, but the best player in the league? Not even close. If he could maintain his Internazionale performances on a regular basis then you are looking at a world class player but it is the consistency of performances and appearances that is lacking.

Does Swearing Crackdown Mean Sweet F.A.?

2011-04-05T20:35:00.003+01:00

Wayne Rooney swears. He swears a lot.

In fact, believe it or not, most footballers swear. Some of them every single game. Now, some of these players swear at referees; this isn't really allowed. Not that you'd guess.

It is very rare, particularly in the Premier League, to see a player either booked or sent off for 'effing and jeffing' at the man in black. Rooney, it has to be said, is one of the most prominent players who are prone to one or two expletive-laden tirades at the officials. Yet, on most occasions, he is let off scot-free.

Why, then, are the F.A. choosing to ban him for his 'message' into the camera of Sky Sports?

This isn't to say it is the wrong move, mind. What Rooney did was stupid and to do it into a camera, a camera he knows is providing images to millions of viewers (viewers who include impressionable children), is both unprofessional and irresponsible.

What it does mean, however, is that the F.A. have, potentially, set a dangerous precedent.

Does this mean that all swearing by players will result in a ban? Or just swearing at referees? Or maybe it only counts if you're caught on camera? Possibly it's only if there's huge mock-outrage from the media... who knows?

If, next weekend, you spot a player giving a linesman a bit of 'friendly advice' of where he can store his flag and said player doesn't get booked; you'll know it's likely the latter.

What is more confusing is that this ban follows the F.A's refusal to punish Rooney for his near-assault of Wigan's James McCarthy.

Effectively, in punishing this yet refusing to punish the elbow; the F.A. have given the message: 'It's fine to smack someone in the head, as long as you don't tell him to 'f**k off' as you're doing it'.

It could be argued that this ban comes in lieu of the elbow incident. If so, then that is a further blow to their integrity; smacking of a Gene Hunt-esque modus operandi of 'we might not be able to get you on one score but we'll get you on something, no matter how shoddy'.

In any case, if the F.A are intent on cracking down on players swearing in camera-shot, then Mark Wright can expect a retrospective fine for his rather uncouth display of delight at lifting the F.A. Cup in 1992.

Argelico Fucks and Stefan Kuntz (and John Motson) can also count themselves lucky they avoided the Premier League.

Meanwhile, the F.A. continue to bemuse and blunder their way through their stewardship of the game; usually leaving us all thinking: "F***ing what?! What?! F***ing hell!"

Sky's the limit but their punditry is limited

2010-08-10T18:45:00.000+01:00

This weekend saw the return of domestic football and, with it, the loud, brash, 'look at me' banner waving of Sky Sports.

Not that this comes as a surprise or, indeed, to the detriment of the viewer. Sky have been exactly the same since day one when they rolled out the cheerleaders and Richard Keys' hands were still impossibly hairy.

If you put your mind to it, you can almost successfully zone-out whenever Sky's follically over-compensated ringmaster bellows at you to 'WATCH IT IN 3D! GO ON! IT'S DEAD GOOD! I PROMISE!'

One area, however, in which Sky have become more irritating is in their deteriorating quality of punditry and their obvious sycophancy towards certain members of the footballing world - and apparent agenda against some others.

Watching the Community Shield, yesterday, you could almost be forgiven for thinking your television was autonomously flicking between MUTV and some sort of anti-Capello propaganda channel.

It started off all harmless enough, with Keys peddling out cliché after cliché about how 'it's good to be back' with 'the best league in the world' and him trying to flog you 3D TV, much in the same way as you would expect a street merchant in Marrakesh to try and palm a dodgy Rolex off on you for an unnecessarily exorbitant price.

Then Redknapp opened his mouth.

While he must be congratulated in managing to curb his misuse of the word 'literally', he threw away any chance of having his first decent game when he launched into an off-topic 'Capello has lost the plot' rant.

This rant can be summarised as: 'Capello is not good enough because he's not English enough'.

You almost get the feeling that he won't be happy until his old fella, whiter-than-white, diamond geezer, Harry Redknapp gets the job.

When, finally, Redknapp had tired himself out, picked up his dummy, and settled down for a nap during the game (not that it'd make much difference to his inane, paint-by-numbers, makes-Mark-Bright-look-insightful effort of an 'analysis' if he actually did falls asleep during the game) it was time to roll out an interview with His Holiness Lord Almighty The Overseer Most High Sir Alex Ferguson, to give him his full Sky Sports infobar name.

Well, calling it an 'interview' is probably over-egging it somewhat. That would imply probing and helpful questions were asked. They weren't.

Instead, Geoff Shreeves, boot polish and tongue at the ready, proceeded to make Jonathan Ross and Terry Wogan look like the Spanish Inquisition.

No queries on Michael Carrick's miraculous recovery, from being ruled out for two weeks on Friday to starting one-and-a-half days later. No probing on the possible transfer of Mesut Ozil. No anything.

The interview basically condensed into:

GS: "Good to be back, isn't it Sir Alex?"
AF: "Yes it is."
GS: "You're great."
AF: "Yes I am."
GS: "I love you."
AF: "I know."

Of course, the coverage of the game itself was, as usual, high quality stuff. No one can argue about that.

It's even possible to put up with the odd bit of salesmanship from Martin Tyler and the general torrent of verbal diarrhoea from Andy Gray. Although, even they are partial to a bit of a love-in.

After Javi Hernandez scored his farcical face-plant, complete with equally farcical badge-kissing celebration, Tyler and Gray waxed lyrical about 'yet another young gem unearthed by Sir Alex' and marvelled at his ability to find young talent, conveniently forgetting the likes of Tosic, Manucho, Djemba-Djemba, Liam Miller and Dong.

Although, to be fair to Tyler and Gray, they may have genuinely forgotten about them, such was their pointlessness.

After the game it was back to Richard and Jamie in the studio for, yet another edition of, the mind numbing state-the-obvious championship.

Sometimes you have to laugh at the sheer shallowness of it all, if only because the alternative is to put your foot through your TV.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Coyle Asks Megson for Advice

2010-01-05T13:23:00.003Z

Owen Coyle asks ex-Bolton boss Gary Megson for tips on taking over at the Reebok:

A Half Time Oranges production.

Ignorant Warewolves Bay For Benitez Blood

2009-10-31T20:58:00.004Z

Hallowe'en saw Liverpool have a nightmare and crash to a frightening 3-1 defeat at Fulham.

This means that, inevitably, the blood-thirsty press and brain-dead fans will be clawing at Benitez' door as they clamour to put him in his coffin and hammer in all the nails with the gusto of an over-excited undertaker.

Fans foam and fit on radio phone ins while pundits paw-over and analyse every move made by Benitez, stopping short of examining his stools for further fault.

But is the Spaniard really to blame for this latest result.

No. Not for the most part. Even people who have half their brains eaten by a zombie should be able to deduce that.

It was not so much a freak result as a freak set of circumstances.

Fulham, at Craven Cottage, are a hard team to beat, as Manchester United will testify after last season's visit. Roy Hodgson has built an extremely resilient side who are more than capable of claiming the scalps of big teams.

Make no bones about it, they are a tough side to play against with a full strength side. So imagine going into the game with a whole starting XI's worth of players out. To make it more complicated, more than half those players pulled out the night before with a virus.

Very rarely are teams picked on the day. A match will be planned for almost a week in advance with the team in the managers mind on the Friday. So most of the changes would have been made the morning of the game.

Gerrard, Johnson, Riera, Kelly and El Zhar were already missing through injury while Aquilani dropped out with a virus on Friday morning. Then it began.

Seemingly overnight Liverpool lost Cavallieri, Agger, Skrtel, Aurellio and N'Gog to the same illness.That's a half decent Carling Cup side all ruled out in a matter of hours, the majority of whom would have featured in either the starting line-up or on the bench.

The patched up side Liverpool sent out didn't play particularly well but did dominate the game for the most part, until Fulham scored the second. Where they came unstuck was lack of alternatives on the bench, almost entirely down to the sudden onset of a virus.

The bench resembled more a creche than a substitutes bench. Dossena was the oldest of the lot at 28 while the next oldest was Ryan Babel at the decrepit old age of 22.

The lack of depth from the bench could be, in part, attributed to a lack of squad depth. Something that Rafa could be at fault for. However, despite distorted reports from many media outlets, the Spaniard has not been able to spend vast amounts of money on players or, indeed, wages. Something highlighted in, prolific Red's novelist, Paul Tomkins' article about his recent meeting with the former Valencia boss.

Benitez was questioned about taking off of Torres but the striker is still carrying an injury and was always going to come off. If he had been left on and got injured for a month then Benitez would also have been chastised. The substitution of Benayoun was questionable but one that was probably made with the make-or-break game against Lyon in mind.

Going down to 9 men, with one debatable red card, did not help Benitez. He can hardly control moments of madness by players, injuries and illness.

Don't expect many 'experts' and jerky-kneed fans to take note of such common sense, though.

Why believe that when you could believe that Rafa could have possibly injured Gerrard and Johnson himself, purposely withheld Limsips from the those laid low by the virus and even paid off the referee to send off his players.

FIFA, the French and the Curious Case of Gary Coleman and the Child Catchers

2009-09-08T12:08:00.006+01:00

First it was Madonna, then Brad & Angelina and now Chelsea, Man United, Man City and virtually every top flight club in England are at it!

Yes, that's right, they're taking foreign children from their homes and showering them with money!*

French parents and football coaches alike are currently scouring the playgrounds in case Alex Ferguson is hiding under a slide, Arsene Wenger is staking out an U-8's game from a bin, much like Oscar the Grouch, or Rafa Benitez is perched on top of some monkey bars.

All of them ready to pounce and whip away talented youngsters and, in their place, leave a crisp £5 note, all before Gael Kakuta (or is it Gary Coleman? You've never seen them in the same place at the same time...) can say "Wha'chu talkin' bout, FIFA?".

Ok, maybe it's not as sinister as that (unless you believe what will soon be, seemingly, every club in France or anyone outside the richest clubs in England) but it is a cause for concern.

Since Chelsea have been bent over and spanked on the bare behind with a studded leather belt by FIFA, both Manchester clubs and an unnamed Premier League club (believed to be Liverpool) have been accused of foul play in luring youngsters to their club.

This is likely to only be the start of a whole host of clubs coming out of the woodwork to make claims about youngsters being tapped up. Also, it is equally likely that the only clubs that will be accused will be rich and English.

Certain claims will be true, and the guilty clubs should be punished. However, a lot of claims that will come in will be from clubs trying to make a fast buck or get one over on clubs that have fairly taken a youngster away from them. If any club is found to be making a knowingly false claim then they too should be as harshly punished.

A blanket ban on the transfers of under 18-year-olds would go some way to stop youngsters being 'tapped up'. Although this won't stop it totally. It has always gone on and always will. There will be ways around it.

Chelsea are ahead of the game already - they already employ the Child Catcher, from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as their Chief Executive.*

*Our lawyers have told us to make it clear** that both Madonna and Brad & Angelina have done this perfectly legally and totally above board (honestly), nor is Peter Kenyon the Child Catcher (you've never seen them together, that's all I'm saying...)

**Well... they would if we had any.

Flatline Deadline

2009-09-02T12:40:00.001+01:00

For many football fans, yesterday was the day that those who weren’t at work sat perched on the edge of their sofa, curtains drawn, staring at a Sky Sports News lovely and the average bloke sat next to her, whilst those at work kept a crafty eye on proceedings through a constantly minimizing Internet Explorer window.

Yes, yesterday was transfer deadline day! With millions of fans - watery eyes, heart palpitations and all - were glued to whatever screens were in front of them in the hope of their club pulling off a major signing before the transfer window slammed shut on the fingers of cash-splash happy managers (or, if you’re a Portsmouth fan, in silent prayer that the other half of your squad isn’t sold).

However it was all a bit of an anti-climax. While rumours; from the sensational (Ribery to Liverpool) to the reasonable (David James to Spurs) to the downright ridiculous (Voronin to Arsenal) were in abundance, Leeds’ Jermaine Beckford was spotted at the training grounds of the remaining 91 clubs in the football league (presumably by a best friend’s mam’s uncle’s partner’s dog’s son’s brother’s owner) and Notts County were supposedly throwing cash at retired football luminaries such as; Figo, Nedved and probably Pele, Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore, nothing of any note actually happened.

As much as Sky tried to make the transfer of Danny Collins seem important, everything was, well, a bit rubbish. They darted from club to club speaking to their roving reporters only to be told: ‘There’s sod all happening’ - albeit in a more articulate way - while a smarmy looking bloke sat on a telephone in the studio telling them why sod all was happening before feeding us false hope by saying: ‘but it could… will it… probably not… but there is a chance.’ Did it? No.

What did happen was; Pompey managed to replace the half of the squad they had sold… before quickly selling the other half and Man City signed no-one, presumably because Hughes’ arms are knackered after hurling huge sacks of dosh at clubs, players and probably passers buy in the street all summer.

So, all in all, another wasted afternoon sat in the company Sky Sports or BBC’s text commentary on their website. No change there then. Will we learn in time for January’s deadline? Probably not and with good reason: I’ve heard from a reliable source that Frank Lampard will be signing for Stockport.

Geordies Clowning Around

2009-07-12T23:26:00.007+01:00

The ongoing soap opera that is Newcastle United Football Club rolls on, as the latest reports suggest that Irishman Charlie Chawke is interested in buying the much-troubled club.

This must be galling for Toon fans. Firstly, Mr Chawke is a former shareholder at big rivals Sunderland. That might be seen as being bad enough for some people, given the embarassing taunts and jokes the Magpies have had to endure from their neighbours in recent months.

But Newcastle don't make headlines by half. Those football fans in their 20s might remember an animated children's TV programme about a friendly clown called Charlie Chalk, whose best friend was an elephant called Arnold. The show was popular in the 1990s and included a spin-off franchise of kids' play areas in pubs across the country.

Some fans have already sniggered at the fact, as Charlie Chalk's Wikipedia entry has already been defaced by one sharp-witted user. After all their recent troubles, the last thing the Toon need is another clown in charge of proceedings. It only provides yet another chance for fans around the UK to have a cruel poke at the struggling Tynesiders, but you have to admit, one that cannot be ignored easily.

For legal reasons, we must point out that Irishman Charlie Chawke is NOT an animated clown who lives on an island called Merrytwit (we kid you not) with his best friends Arnold the Elephant and Captain Mildred!

Still, if the takeover doesn't work out, perhaps the Biker Mice from Mars might fancy a dabble in club ownership.

Hughes Knows What You Did This Summer, Micah!

2009-07-11T14:16:00.006+01:00

So, Micah Richards has swine flu.

Thankfully he's on his way to a full recovery but the discovery of him contracting the illness must have been a huge worry to his family, friends and colleagues at Manchester City as well as his gaffer, Mark Hughes.

Almost as worrying for Hughes, however, will be the England right-back's account of his illness.

"At first I thought it was a really bad chest infection, or maybe alcohol poisoning," he told The Sun.

Alcohol poisoning?

ALCOHOL POISONING?!?!

How much have you been drinking, Micah?!

Just how wasted does someone have to get in order to consider alcohol poisoning a feasible explanation for chest pains?

"I felt so weak that I couldn't move or eat. My friends had to bring me drinks in bed," he continued.

Somehow, I don't think he has learned from his alcohol poisoning worries. Although, to be fair, I'd be more worried about returning to training to face Sparky - who has, no doubt, figured out just how Micah has been keeping in shape this summer!

Ooops!

Net of Injustice

2009-07-09T20:14:00.004+01:00

They say you have to be mad to be a goalkeeper, and usually they're spot on. Some of the past decade's most eccentric players have been between the sticks.

We will always remember Mexico stalwart Jorge Campos's violently lucid self-designed attire, or Fabien Barthez's comical arm-raising gesture towards Paolo Di Canio in the FA Cup. Similarly, we were all open-mouthed when Colombian Rene Higuita performed his now-legendary scorpion kick.

But when you look past the wacky antics of the most famous shot-stoppers though, you will find brilliant reflexes, acrobatic dives and intelligent distribution. From Kahn to Cech and Peruzzi to Seaman, some of the most consistently brilliant performers have come from goalkeepers.

Therefore it is naturally perplexing how little recognition 'keepers get in major football awards. In the 53-year history of the Ballon d'Or, or European Footballer of the Year, only once has a goalkeeper bagged the prize. Aside from the legendary Lev Yashin in 1963, no goalkeeper has even made it into the top three nominations. Similarly, the various World Player of the Year awards have never been won by a man in gloves.

To the knowledgable football fan, this should seem alarming. If the likes of Dino Zoff, Gordon Banks and Peter Schmeichel are regarded as three of the best players of their generation, how strange it is then that not one of them came close to the gong.

It seems that in football, goals are everything. Ask ten people on the street who they think is the best player in the world today and chances are not one will give you a Buffon or a Casillas or a Cech.

The Spanish captain in particular is cruelly overlooked on awards nights. At 28, his CV is more complete than most pushing 40. He is still the youngest captain of Real Madrid, became a double Champions League winner before his 21st birthday and already has 96 caps for his country.

Perhaps it is time for FIFA or UEFA to devise new criteria for these awards, finding a balance between goals and clean sheets. After all, it is likely that outfield players would feel aggrieved if the glove was on the other hand!

Pellegrini to 'do a Keegan'

2009-07-02T13:53:00.007+01:00

No, we don't mean that he will walk away only a few months into the season when things aren't going his way (let's face it - he's at Real Madrid - he'll be sacked long before then) nor that he will get a perm or fall off a bike racing other, less notable, sports stars.

What we actually mean is that he's going to use the same approach to tactics as, ex-Liverpool star and current former-Geordie Messiah, Kevin Keegan. Or rather he'll be forced to.

The 'Galacticos Project - Part Dos' has so far seen the big-money arrival of attackers Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo with Karim Benzema almost certain to follow, at a total cost nearing £170 million.

These new signings will join up with the likes of (deep breath): Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart, Klass-Jan Huntelaar, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Arjen Robben, Gonzalo Higuain and, of course - Mr Real Madrid himself - Raul.

In comparison the sole defensive signing has been Raul Albiol for the comparativley measly sum of £8 million. While Kaka & co join up with an embarrasment of riches in attack, poor Raul will join up with an aging Salgado, injury-plagued Metzelder and pea-headed Pepe.

With Heinze linked with a move away and Fabio Cannavarro already gone, only right-back Sergio Ramos looks to have the class to be worthy of a place in a team alongside the likes of the aforementioned attackers. In fact, the only defender to be linked with Real is also a right-back; Liverpool's Alvaro Arbeloa.

As well as splashing the cash up-front, Real have also been linked with a big-money move for Liverpool duo Javier Macherano and, more likley, Xabi Alonso to strengthen an already packed midfield.

Florentino Perez is unlikley to be pleased at seeing, potentially, £200 million be spent on players only for half of them to be sat on the bench. Likewise, Real fans will not be best pleased if Raul goes missing from the line up too often.

This means Pellegrini will have the thankless task of fitting all the stars in the team, playing attractive football (which shouln't be too hard with players like Kaka and Ronaldo) and winning trophies, probabably all of them, if he wants to see out his contract.

So don't be suprised if Real turn up to the first game in La Liga looking like they're facing the wrong way at kick-off; they'll just be playing 2-4-4.

Kick Off

2009-07-01T18:36:00.003+01:00

Welcome to the football blog that will lunge two-footed, studs up, into all the football news Kevin Davies can swing an elbow at.

Looking at stories from all levels and across the globe; it will cover more ground than Dirk Kuyt after a binge on blue Smarties and Red Bull and pull fewer punches than Duncan Ferguson, in an approach so direct that even Big Sam Allardyce would consider it ugly.

So read on, join in and feel free to comment.

Welcome to Half Time Oranges!