The Curse of Curbs lingers on as Ian Dowie departs the gaffer’s post at Charlton.
The Beeb report notes he is the first Premiership manager to be sacked this season. And you know he won’t be the last.
Roeder? Anyone? Roeder?
Paul Canniff
Manchester United and Chelsea respectively hold the first and third slots in the latest ESPN World Club 25 rankings; in contrast, Barça and Real Madrid hold down sixth and tenth.
Back in the Champions League, here’s how the English sides are faring as we come up to matchday 5:
Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are at the top of their groups, while Arsenal holds second place.
Among the top eight scorers in CL action are Didier Drogba in first, followed by Peter Crouch in fourth and Luis Garcia in eighth.
Paul Canniff
While the Telly’s roundup of the papers reports that Andriy Shevchenko is pining for Milan, the Sun claims otherwise.
The observation from Soccer Steve in Edmonton may be bang on, that Sheva needs some down time to clear his head and make a proper mental adjustment to the English game. A string of flashes of brilliance does not make up for Drogba taking up the full burden of striking power, even if Didier is doing so masterfully.
Paul Canniff
Yesterday saw the Houston Dynamo defeat the New England Revolution on penalties after two rounds of overtime play. What got them into the showdown was some thrilling play in the second part of overtime, as each side scored dramatically within a minute. The downside was the 112 minutes of pedestrian play that it took to get there.
MLS is coming up in quality, although there ought to be a league rule forbidding cannon volleys unless the players are named Wayne Rooney or Michael Ballack, judging by yesterday’s wide misses of the sticks. And ESPN could take some lessons from Sky Sports in field camera work. But with expansion coming to Toronto next season, we may expect to find more Canadian coverage on TV.
Paul Canniff
The key to Method Acting is motivation. So what makes a man switch in under a minute from sprinting like a Triple Crown winner to hobbling like Dennis Weaver in “Gunsmoke”, as the world witnessed Saturday at Ewood Park?
Weak.
At this rate Vinnie Jones will remain the only footballer to make a plausible transition to the silver screen.
Paul Canniff
Last month I took a look at the results half-way in the group stages in contrast to the results of our ongoing poll on English teams in the Champions League. Here’s how things stand today:
Paul Canniff
The Home Office reports that banning orders for football supporters are at a record high, increasing by 7% in the past year.
While the Premier League has gone ahead of the Championship in fan arrests, the top five havens of hooliganism reside in both the old Divisions One and Two:
Banning Orders
Arrests
However,
[B]oth Hull City and Luton Town had the highest number of fans arrested for violent disorder - both clubs had 21 hooligans detained.
Fourteen Birmingham City fans were arrested for the same offence in the year.
[…]
Thirteen people were also held for violent disorder at both Coventry City and Sheffield Wednesday.
Notwithstanding that data, in my visits to a number of football grounds I have not encountered any particular violent incidents. The police protection was high but not as paramilitary in flavour as I witnessed in Stuttgart, by contrast. The Premiership has in fact become rather family-friendly, thanks to all-seater stadia and enforcement in the stands. That being said, the Great British Night Out — a pint and a fight — has not vanished entirely from football.
Paul Canniff
The FA won’t take any action against Jermain Defoe for biting West Ham’s Javier Mascherano this past weekend:
The Football Association last night passed up the chance to take action against Jermain Defoe for biting the arm of Javier Mascherano — even though it could have done so with Fifa’s blessing, The Times can reveal.
Steve Bennett, who refereed the Barclays Premiership match between Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United on Sunday, is understood not to have mentioned the incident in his report, leaving the FA free to impose any sanction it wished without fear of upsetting the world governing body by issuing a retrospective punishment.
Leading referees are dismayed at the message the FA is sending out by not pursuing the case against the striker, fearing a “trickle-down effect” at the lower levels of the game. One refereeing source professed “amazement” at the FA’s decision.
An FA spokesman said it was “unable to take any action because the referee has already dealt with the incident”, but The Times has learnt that Bennett did not report any bite. He showed Defoe a yellow card but only for “aggressive behaviour”, presumably a reference to the grounded player crawling towards the Argentinian angrily after he had been tripped from behind.
Damian P.
As if they weren’t already over-exposed in so many ways during the World Cup, England’s WAGs (wives and girlfriends) are forcing their way back into the media spotlight with their own reality TV show:
Ten WAGs - wives and girlfriends - of footballers are to run rival London shops in the ITV2 series, WAGs Boutique, due to be shown next year.
[…]
The WAG who individually makes the most money will win the opportunity to design her own clothing range.
Two problems:
Paul Canniff
Well said, Gary Lineker. Save Lurch for Hallowe’en, Macca, and put a real striker out on the pitch.
Paul Canniff
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bad Behavior has blocked 70 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Comments(1)
