Sky's the limit but their punditry is limited

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

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

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.

Flatline Deadline

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

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!

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

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!