It is nearly 3 months since I last waded in and committed my football views on a blog; looking at the landscape, so much has changed! England failed in their bid to host the World Cup, Chelsea have frittered away a huge advantage, a significant number of Premier League managers are seeking work elsewhere, Andy Gray has left Sky Sports and Manchester United are on top of the league and behaving ominously like Premier League champions and it's only February. Where on earth do we start?
I honestly believe that after all the nonsense that played out in 2010, Liverpool are finally conducting themselves with integrity, taking tangibly big strides and most significantly discarding Fernando Torres...for £50 million. Chelsea fans may have been laughing very loud this week, but I sense that laughter is feeling very hollow now. Towards the end of last season, Torres had cut a disconsolate figure at Anfield and everyone knows he wanted to leave. The global shop window of the World Cup did not happen for him because of bad form and injury, and so he consoled himself with the fact that £110k a week at Liverpool was not so bad after all. But, as I said in a previous blog, there's only so much you can do with a lot of money, and masking genuine frustration is NOT one of them. Enter Roy Hodgson, an honourable football man, but one who was out of his depth at Liverpool, Torres needed an immense personality at the controls; Kenny Daglish came too late. He has now achieved his move to Chelsea for a hefty sum, in his place Liverpool have acquired a young terrier that they know is naive, but bursting with energetic enthusiasm and a desire to be inspired and moulded by an old master like Daglish. Yes, we all know the price is inflated but remember they did receive £50 million for Torres, who if he had gone anywhere in Europe except Real Madrid would have struggled to raise a price of £20 million based on his current performances. Chelsea, are an illogical organisation, run by a whimsical gangster called Ambramovich who is daft enough to write such a cheque and Newcastle are run by an equally debatable clown called Ashley who was bamboozled by the £35 million cash to twist and let his major asset depart. So, yes Liverpool have in 72 hours put their house back in order...and just to cap it all, have beaten a Chelsea team containing Torres in their own backyard 1 - nil. Very sweet! Torres will be discovering a new English proverb: a bird in the hand is worth... Mr Ferguson chose to refer to fields and cows!
Talking of clowns, let's start with Mike Ashley. All my new Facebook friends in Middlesbrough must be laughing their heads off! Firstly he, and that other fool Chief Executive Derek Llambus, push out Chris Hughton, who's achievements were acknowledged with the award of BBC North East and Cumbria Sports Personality of the Year, lost to lowly Stevenage in the FA Cup when the WHOLE world was watching, then they sold Andy Carroll after assuring everyone that he was not for sale. But Newcastle completed an amazing comeback to draw 4-4 after trailing 4-0, demonstrating the spirit of the fans and the team that was truly fostered by Hughton; but missed by the hierarchy. As a result, it will take the Geordie public a long time to accept Pardew as their own, but I think he could be successful, if allowed to get on with his job, but I suspect they'll mess it up for him one way or the other. We seem to be in a world of meddlers.
On the subject of meddlers, Sam Allardyce is another manager whose unemployment baffles me, even now. I am sure that new owner Anuradha Desai is, like Roy Hodgson, a lovely person, but she knows very little about the nuts and bolts of football. I have said before and I'll say it again that football is like music, magical sometimes beautiful often illogical and impossible to quantify. Desai will, if she is truly smart enough, learn very quickly like Liverpool owner John W Henry that football decisions need to be taken by football people and that she cannot make an uninformed decision like the nonsensical one to sack Allardyce or worse to assume that a marquee signing like Ronaldinho would consider coming to Ewood Park just because he's been offered more sacks of money than anywhere else. The football world is a tough one and although I hope for the sake of all my dear Lancastrian friends that Blackburn remain prosperous, when solid servants like their Chief Executive John Williams resign you know that the club is heading for trouble. Until last week she had never been to a football match, and as for Jerome Anderson who is advising the club, please fella there's the door. I wonder if either of them know what Lancashire Hotpot is or Chips and Gravy? It's embarrassing and on reflection Sam Allardyce must be wishing he'd stayed at Bolton!
What the hell is going on with West Ham United? Of all the managers out of work in the Premier League, two have lasted longer than most, the first was Roy Hodgson, although once he lost at Blackburn, everyone knew he had to go, and he was dispatched gracefully, but Avram Grant has survived! How? I have watched Karren Brady on the Apprentice and admired the way she has replaced Margaret Mountford as Lord Sugar's aide but her dealings with Avram Grant have been anything but slick. Ms Brady, Messrs Gold and Sullivan are first class business operators, they have clinically and ruthlessly done the dirty job of sorting out West Ham's finances but whilst the club is now profitable and relieved of it's dead wood, Avram Grant is a weed they have struggled to shift. He is genuinely not good enough, at least Gianfranco Zola survived last season but Avram Grant's team are firmly rooted to the bottom of the table and I am pretty sure that with the exception of occasional bursts of brilliance, they will stay there. Sadly Robbie Keane is no miracle worker, great grafter that he is, Scott Parker is a clear thinking midfield general with oozes class and should be an England regular but he is playing in a team that needs a battle hardened and clinical Brigadier, Grant is more Boys Brigade. I sense that the owners are preparing an exit strategy for him and are preparing for an arduous season in the Championship. They've been there before and they'll be successful because they know the route well but don't expect them to romanticize in the process or make any friends, for them business is business - they just messed up this time but be reassured Hammers fans that it will be fine...eventually, but we'll NEVER love those guys.
Richard Keys and Andy Gray left Sky Sports after being set-up by the new management who did not quite know how best to remove them because they had been there too long; that's my view. I, like many of you, have grown used to the coverage of Super Sunday with Richard Keys presenting, Martin Tyler commentating, and Andy Gray firstly in the commentary box and then his "Last Word" combing through the goals, the talking points and offering his own personal insights. I have over many years loved those insights and felt thoroughly satisfied that my hunger for proper football coverage and chit-chat is comprehensively covered. I am not going to enter a debate about Sexism and whether they should have been sacked, it has happened and we should all move on. I want to say thank you to those two for their contribution to football by their contribution to its coverage. That is a huge legacy, and as a result BBC and ITV and to a lesser extent ESPN have been forced to raise their game for the benefit of all of us that love the beautiful game.
Finally, talking of legacies, I was devastated when I watched Sepp Blatter live on TV reveal that England had failed to host the World Cup. The realization that I will probably never see a World Cup in my lifetime in my country is a huge disappointment. I believe that we only have ourselves to blame. We entered the bidding war with our eyes open, squabbled amongst ourselves for a long time, made a PR gaffe with Triesmann and "The Mail On Sunday" with a claim about referees and bribes and then tried to claim the moral high ground with Panorama; it was always asking for trouble. Losing was a huge embarrassment, especially given that we had the best box office bid with David Beckham and Prince William present. The real power within FIFA lies with individuals from smaller nations, I suspect a little bit of imperialistic revenge was also exacted here and that too is desperately disappointing but they ultimately held the ace cards, and we upset them. So, in order to sample the World Cup at close quarters, I will need to board an aeroplane and spend significant amounts of cash or befriend some big sponsors; either way it's not a convenient arrangement! But since I love football so much, it's my only option.
It is constantly said that football is a funny old game! I pray that Blackpool, with Charlie Adam still at the club, and managed by Ian Holloway can still defy the odds and stay up, and hope that regardless of whoever wins the Premiership or is eventually relegated in May that this exciting season of ups and downs continues to excite and surprise us. This season will take some beating, roll on!
