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

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?

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 "invincibles" season and the policy of youth development.

The Invincibles 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 Invincibles 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?

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

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

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?

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.

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...

...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?

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

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.?

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!"