Last night’s Spurs-Boro fixture wrapped up with a nineteen-man brawl on the pitch:
A mild game erupted in the closing minutes when Didier Zokora and Boro’s George Boateng were sent off after a set-to by the touchline. A late Aaron Lennon tackle on Boateng had sparked a melee which attracted every player but Paul Robinson.
A footie match and a rugby game for one ticket: what a bargain!
Paul Canniff
Sheffield United is cockily building on their latest push out of the drop zone by putting £10M at Neil Warnock’s disposal for the coming transfer window.
After a considerable boost in their form recently, the Blades may end up putting our poll to shame as they wave goodbye not only to the Hornets but possibly the Laticks and the Toon as well.
Paul Canniff
Update:
The Toon surprisingly climb above the Blades in the table after a 3-2 win over high-flying newcomers Reading.
Traces of Polonium have been found at the Emirates Stadium. Who knew Vladmir Putin was a Spurs fan?
Damian P.
Four For Two has published in its December 2006 edition what is easily the most foolish piece of armchair football analysis in print:
Arsene Wenger doesn’t hate English players, he has given many of them their chance at Arsenal, only for them to throw it back in his face, or not reach the required standard.
[…]
When you look at the attitude of the young Arsenal players like Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue and Cesc Fabregas, added to the experience of Thierry Henry, Gilberto Silva and Jens Lehmann, you realise why Wenger wants these people at Arsenal. Nationality is not the issue, attitude is.
And thanks to their poor attitude, the English players who toil at the other nineteen Premiership clubs have yet to realize their dreams of clinching the Premiership title, claiming the FA Cup or the Carling Cup, or reveling in a Champions League victory.
Because at the Emirates they don’t judge a man by his passport, just his esprit de corp… and his pronunciation of it.
Paul Canniff
Boro’s unlicensed gaffer feels hard done by the EPL’s certification process:
“Something needs to be done - international players can’t get on the courses,” he told Football Focus.
“I had no opportunity because the only courses are during the summer and I spent 10 summers playing for England.”
Apparently football management is no longer a career path secured by diligence and skill but an entitlement to anyone who’s worn an England strip.
Said Southgate,
“The qualifications will teach me how to coach and the Pro Licence will be a great help to me in terms of management, but the last four months have probably taught me more than anything.”
Yes, nothing like life experience to teach you how to throw your dolly far enough out of your pram for the world to notice.
Paul Canniff
New president of the G-14 lobby of football clubs, Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein makes a spirited bid for this year’s C. Montgomery Burns Award for Excellence in the Field of Excellence:
“G-14 is a friend of the game,” he told delegates at the Soccerex football finance seminar in Dubai.
“It is not just for the good and great, the rich and famous. It is clubs that are similar in many respects because of their success, or the money they generate.”
Because, of course, they are just misunderstood legitimate businessmen.
But the real howler comes with Dein’s rationale for the lack of English members in la Légion Étrangère du Londres-Nord:
“As an English club we want to have a base of English players if we can,” he said, adding that Arsenal spent £3m to £4m a year nurturing local talent.
“But if it is not there, we have to buy-in talent from overseas.”
Surely he meant to say, “As a club situated by happenstance in England…”
Paul Canniff
The rhetoric is heating up in advance of Chelsea’s visit to Old Trafford on Sunday. While Peter Kenyon, the Chelsea chief executive suggests a move from Stamford Bridge is in the works, Cristiano Ronaldo tries to emulate Muhammad Ali’s wit but ends up sharing only his kicking skills from five yards out:
Blues’ chief executive Kenyon also said they will have to quit Stamford Bridge.
“By 2014 we want to be internationally recognised as the number one club,” he said. “But I think it’s pretty clear we can’t get to where we want to here.”
But United winger Cristiano Ronaldo hit back, saying Chelsea would fall apart if boss Jose Mourinho left the club.
He said: “Mourinho is a great coach and he is Portuguese, so I can’t speak badly of him.
“I would like to see what would happen if he were to leave Chelsea. Perhaps they would stop getting good results.”
Paul Canniff
ESPN Soccernet has a great online monthly poll where visitors can rank the EPL managers.
By a remarkable coincidence, among the lowest rated managers are the textbook-cracking current custodians of The Riverside and St. James’ Park.
Paul Canniff
The League Managers’ Association is justifiably upset over the EPL’s decision to let Gareth Southgate continue to manage at Boro without the required professional certifications:
The LMA added: “The decision does not sit comfortably with those managers who were told that if they did not achieve Pro Licence status prior to the 2003-04 season, they would not be allowed to manage in the Premiership.
“They as a result applied themselves, in many cases at their own considerable expense, to obtain the required qualification.”
Over at the 606 chat boards there are those who contend that the managerial greats of yore had no UEFA licences. But the issue is not whether professional certification is a necessity in modern football, it’s that the EPL takes an inconsistent cavalier approach to enforcing rules that demand a considerable commitment of time and money for managers to satisfy.
Are Gareth Southgate and Glenn Roeder such wellsprings of talent and cunning that they merit these exceptions? Maybe in the Bizarro Premier League, which according to the stats may indeed be the next destination for the Toon, if not Boro as well.
Paul Canniff
Here’s how the English sides stand today:
Some points to ponder as the dust settles:
Paul Canniff
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