Three and in – not just another football blog

During England’s thrashing by Germany at this summer’s World Cup, Germany were the better side in every department.  In one particular area, however, England offered no competition at all: that of playmaker.  The Germans had Mesut Ozil, one of the tournament’s stars, whilst the England midfield of Gerrard, Barry, Lampard & Co looked comparatively one-dimensional. They’re good players – great players, even – but they’re not playmakers.  Barry is a continuity player, Gerrard an impact player, and Lampard an intriguing cross-breed of the two.  But England’s midfield has no conductor, and occasionally, no flair.

In the aftermath of the tournament, great hopes were placed upon the low but sturdy shoulders of Jack Wilshere.  Despite the hype, I’m not sure anyone expected him to make as big an impact in the Arsenal side as he has.  He’s emerged as a first-choice player, playing a part in every game so far, and excelling in both the Premier League and Europe.  He’s been both consistent and creative, with some moments of sublime skill to boot, including this backheel to set up Andrey Arshavin’s goal in midweek:

Despite his seeming reluctance to use Wilshere during the last international break, it’s no surprise that Stuart Pearce has named him in his England U-21 squad for a crucial play-off against Romania.  However, if I were Fabio Capello, I would take Wilshere out of the U-21 squad.  Partly to avoid the risk of burnout, but mainly because he’s needed in the senior side.

The next England squad will be without the likes of Frank Lampard, James Milner, and Theo Walcott.  Midfielders with attacking impetus and drive are in short supply, and Wilshere is one of the nation’s most in-form players.  He might only be 18 years old, but he is more than ready to take his place on the international stage.

Capello may well be intending to pick him for the game against Montenegro, which comes a few days after the U-21 game.  But why make Wilshere play in both games?  The FA ought to have learnt the lesson of forcing Theo Walcott to compete at both levels – he followed up that ordeal with an injury-filled 09/10 season.

Capello needs Wilshere more than Pearce does, and ought to protect his brightest emerging talent.  When you’re playing regularly in the Champions League, the ‘experience’ of working under a middling manager with the U-21s is nothing more than an unnecessary distraction.

It started well. After two minutes Wayne Rooney put Man United 2-1 up in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich. It ended badly. He left the stadium on crutches after picking up an ankle injury. At the time United described it as ‘not serious’ and Rooney was back to play in the second leg. He was subdued, a shadow of the player he had been up until then, and lasted only 55 minutes before being replaced by John O’Shea.

The goal in Munich was his last until a penalty against West Ham on the 28th of August. It remains his only United goal of the season and he has just one goal in his last ten games for the club.

You can point to the goings-on in Rooney’s personal life if you wish but I think most players, certainly ones with the character and desire of Rooney, see football as an escape from the difficulties they suffer off the pitch. If anything we see improved performances. I’m not suggesting he’s not been affected by the tabloid guff but it’s more likely Wayne Rooney is a player shorn of confidence exacerbated by lack of fitness.

United needed him at the end of last season. Before the second leg of the Bayern tie he had scored 34 goals. He was carrying the team with little or no help from those around him. £30m Dimitar Berbatov got the last of his 12 goals in the game before the first leg against Bayern. Without Rooney’s goals Alex Ferguson knew United couldn’t win the league. He took a gamble, Rooney played through the pain for United and England, and it has backfired.

The United manager dismissed reports that Rooney’s injury was an ‘injury’ and designed to give him time off because of everything else that has been going on. He said:

What do you want me to say? Do you want me to describe every ligament? Christ.  I think Wayne will be [out for] two to three weeks. In fairness, he’s a strong lad and has recovered from injures in the past.  Nobody likes to be injured, it’s straightforward. Wayne would like to be out here training and playing with us but he’s not.

Berbatov’s improved form allows United to get Rooney properly fit but even now that the Bulgarian has found his shooting boots you don’t simply do without a player like Wayne Rooney unless he’s genuinely injured. All players go through periods of bad form, Rooney is clearly going through one now, but struggling with form when not fully fit makes it so much harder to pull through the other side.

If it takes longer than two to three weeks that’s something United should live with. The spell on the sidelines may give him to reflect on his life off the pitch but more importantly it’ll ensure he’s well again on it.

Every week Lawrence Gray-Hodson, a man who made his name in the upper reaches of Division 2 in the 1970s and 80s as well as being a former Scotland and England international, writes a column exclusively for Three and in.

This week it’s footballers hair.

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There are many things wrong with the game of football these days. The fact you can’t tackle anyone without some Frenchie taking out full page ads in The Times crying ‘Oh the humanity’. The money which has seen clubs and players lose all sight of what’s important. The diving, brought to this country by foreigners – if only we had Australia’s rules about bringing in species which could damage the delicate ecosystem. Overweight fans baring their man-breasts on live television, pundits who simply have no idea what they’re talking about and the fact it now costs more to bring your two kids to a football game than it does to pay for a half hour of pleasure from an online scorcher.

Yet there’s one thing that’s worse than any of those things. In fact it’s worse than all of them put together. Hair. Yes, you read me right. Footballers hair.

Let me give you the perfect example of why this gets my goat. On Saturday Roberto Mancini needed to replace his captain, the cavemanesque Carlos Tevez, after he’d run himself into the ground against Chelsea. He called for the Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor who ambled towards the sideline then spent the next five minutes trying to scrunch his ridiculous locks underneath some kind of matte-black handkerchief.

If I had been City manager I’d have had my first team coaches hold him down after the game and I’d have gone at his head with a sheep shears. Anything could have happened in that three minutes. What if, having exerted himself just that bit too much, Tevez had dropped dead of a heart attack like Marc Vivien Foe or Diego Maradona? Would him having his hair perfect have been worth it then? This is what football has come to, players see their own hair as more important than the team.

Another example, Alex Song. The Arsenal midfielder looks as if he’s dipped his afro in a vacuum cleaner’s bag. He’s like a dusty pint of Guinness running about the pitch. And at the moment he’s playing like one too. Not the liquid football of Alan Parry’s legendary commentary, more the liquid diarrhea that spews from Piers Morgan’s mouth.

You don’t have to look far, every team has a player whose hair is just says ‘judge me’. So I’ll judge them and their hair, that’s what they want.

Marouane Fellaini – arrogant. Kieran Richardson – ratty. El-Hadji Diouf – disabled. James McCarthy – complex. Anderson – erotic. Assou-Ekotto – overwrought. Malouda – rivery. Ryan Shawcross – violent. Stephen Ireland – invisible.

Keegan was later beaten up on a motorway for having stupid hair

You just can’t help thinking these players have their priorities all wrong. If Glen Johnson spent as much time on the training ground as he did on his hair he might be worth the massive wages he’s on. If Nani didn’t spend every waking moment trying to make himself look like DeBarge he might have more end product to his game. It’s like a contagion.

Now, I can hear some of you say ‘But Lawrence, what about when you played? Didn’t players get silly haircuts then?’ and the truthful answer is that some of them did, but they would be mercilessly teased and exposed for their public feyness. Not long after Kevin Keegan made the bubble perm famous a young player at our club came in with the same thing done to his hair. Quite rightly the senior professionals at the club gave him a hard time about it. In hindsight it was probably a little too relentless a campaign as he committed suicide some weeks later but those were the risks you took as a professional footballer who thought his barnet was something special.

The simple fact, as I told his grieving family at the funeral, is that if he’d come to work with a short back and sides it would have all been over and done with in five minutes. Of course there’s the teasing whenever anyone gets their hair cut but everyone respects a proper man’s style. If it was good enough for our boys in the trenches then it was good enough for the training ground. A perm was just asking for trouble.

I can’t even consider what would have happened if he’d arrived with dreadlocks or that one where their hair appears to be stapled onto their head. I’ll tell you this – they’d have had their work cut out to get into the team that weekend. These players are disrespecting the fans with the way they wear their hair. That’s why I have so much respect for Alex Ferguson. When he paid £7.5m for a £100,000 player he’d never even seen play he made this grown man get a haircut.

He might be an ill-mannered boor at the best of times but he never loses sight of what’s really important.

I’m unsure what the SPL call their fixtures. Is it ‘Match Day 1′, ‘Week 1′ , ‘Round 1′, or ‘Another Week when Celtic and Rangers are both likely to win’?

Celtic and Rangers both made it 6 wins out of 6. At a time when both are at their most vulnerable the fact that they are winning games with relative ease is worrying for the Scottish game. Rangers won at Aberdeen for the first time in 4 years. While coming back from 2 goals down is impressive for any team, what was more impressive was Aberdeen’s ability to look like they weren’t going to win the game even at 2-0.

“We conspired against ourselves”, said Mark McGhee afterwards. Rangers are as threadbare as Huckleberry Finn and have now faced Aberdeen, Hibs and Dundee Utd who they have dispatched with ease. It’s hard not to be impressed.

Celtic are a team in transition. 15 players sold in the summer, 11 signed in what is their second major rebuilding in 12 months. The performances are the mark of a team in transition. They are inconsistant as the new players take time to gel. Add to that a rookie manager who has admitted that he doesn’t know his best side. Ripe for point picking.

Not a chance. Hibs were dispatched with such ease, in a terrible game, that the Celtic support applauded Derek Riordon’s stupendous goal safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t lead to a collapse and a gift of points to ‘under-pressure’ John Hughes.

The question is now…who will be the first to take points from a supposedly on the wane Big Twa?

Hearts play Rangers next week. They lost 2-0 to Motherwell at the weekend and with Jim Jeffries bemoaning the interference from his chairman, which has seen Hearts re-sign an overweight former cult hero, Rudi Skacel – a player Jeffries didn’t want – over left back Tony Capaldi, a player they could do with as Lee Wallace is out until at least Christmas.

“I tried to solve the problem a couple of weeks ago with you know who but we couldn’t so we’ll have to go with what we have got”, moaned Jeffries after the game as Rudi Skacel walked by resembling a wet bag of cement. Hearts are comedy gold when Vladimir Romanov gets involved.

Celtic face Hamilton. Hamilton drew 2-2 with Kilmarnock after goals from Nigel Hasslbaink – Jimmy Floyd’s cousin – and Flavio Paixo put them two up – but a controversial decision to allow Kilmarnock to re-take a missed penalty for encroachment, both teams had players in the box, saw the game turn.

The winter of much discontent

This prompted a rebuttal from one of Hamilton’s Jedward twins. Jedward have more ability, in fact. The Paixo Twins are like the result of a genetic experiment between pigs excrement and a tiger loaf. “Some people need to show more respect for this club” shouted Flavio afterwards. Hamilton have given away 6 penalties this season. Something to keep an eye on if you’re a betting man, especially with them playing Celtic next.

Dundee United beat St Johnstone 1-0 but the game was overshadowed by referee, Brian Winter’s failure to send off Steven Anderson after two yellow cards. The fourth official and assistant tried to point out his mistake but Winters didn’t issue a red card.

“He cares so much about refereeing that he had to be talked out of walking away from it altogether”,  surmised head of referees chief, Hugh Dallas, a man who has reigned over a steady decline in the ability of the whistlers. Why did we talk a man, who made such a blatant mistake, out of walking away from a job he can’t do correctly? He had the chance to rectify his mistake at the time but didn’t. He is an idiot.

Two goals for Eric Odhiambo – another name for the betting people – saw Inverness send St Mirren bottom of the table. Good point to finish. At the point.

More next week.

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Lord of the Wing can usually be found at The Celtic Blog. If he’s not there try one of Deacon Blue’s legendary parties.

Paul Gascoigne, after a 39-day spell at Kettering that ended with acrimony and accusations of drinking on the job, is to make his return to football management.  His employers, Garforth Town, insist the appointment is not a publicity stunt.

Their claims would have more credence if the owner, Simon Clifford, wasn’t the same man who, back in 2004, signed two middle-aged Brazilians: chain-smoking playmaker-cum-philosopher Socrates, 50 at the time, and 44-year old former Napoli winger Careca.

The aptly-named Clifford argues:

“This is not a publicity stunt. When we signed Socrates and Careca, that was. Everyone says they love Paul but nobody does anything about it.”

What he fails to acknowledge is that anyone who does “love” Paul Gascoigne would never give him a job as a football manager.  The mental strain is, quite frankly, the last thing he needs.

Clifford’s denials are further undermined by Gazza’s own word.  The former England international and friend to rogue gunmen says:

“I will get the same publicity at Garforth as if I was at a Premier League club and I don’t want the players to get carried away with it.”

The players should be fine.  It’s the chairman I’d be most worried about.

No, I’m not talking about him refer, more than once, to David Silva as David Villa until Gary Lineker corrected him. I mean his opinion of the Steven Gerrard elbow on Danny Welbeck.

GIF here – (3mb)

Shearer was critical of the referee’s decision to book the Liverpool captain saying “It’s a red card or it’s it’s nothing”.

Wrong. It’s just a red card. Gerrard led with the elbow, knew fine well what he was doing, and should have gone. Then again, I don’t suppose we can expect Alan Shearer to come straight out and condemn players who are a bit wild with their elbows …

The Arsenal full back captures the mood during their 3-2 defeat to West Brom.

Oh Manuel, what was that?

The chance to manage a club like Liverpool doesn’t come very often and for 62 year old Roy Hodgson it was always likely to be his last chance at a ‘big’ club. Nevertheless, I suspect he had to think long and hard about it.

He’d made good progress with Fulham, reached a European final and had good support from a relatively solid board. On the other side he must have known Liverpool were a club in trouble after a poor season, no Champions League football and with big problems with the ownership and finances.  In the end the lure of Anfield was too much. The reputation and history of the club must have been a huge factor and the chance to work with established stars like Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano (oops), Carragher, Kuyt, Reina and so forth must have been tempting.

Yet beyond those few names the Liverpool team is fairly average. A clutch of overpaid, over-priced players brought in by Rafa Benitez who, despite the denials from many Liverpool fans, was as suspect as they come in the transfer market.

If Wednesday’s Carling Cup was to bring any hope that there was potential below the first team Hodgson was clearly disappointed. Speaking afterwards he said:

I am just bitterly disappointed that the team I had so much faith in did not repay that faith this evening with the exception of one or two performances.

As a new manager he has to be relatively considered when passing comment on his team but thaty’s about as damning as you can get. Not only did he inherit a first team lacking balance and quality, the youth and reserves aren’t up to much either. There’s nobody coming through to put pressure on the established first team squad.

Without the financial resources to make changes there’s the very real danger that it will lead to stagnation. Going out of the Carling Cup to a lower league side isn’t in itself the worst thing in the world. Cup shocks happen all the time. The most disheartening thing for Hodgson, and for Liverpool fans, must be the fact that a club which has always prided itself on producing good local talent is no longer doing so. It might well be another legacy of the Benitez era but it’s something the new man is going to have to address.

Unless Liverpool find themselves with a sugar daddy, a la Man City, money is going to be tight for the foreseeable future. Investment and focus on youth might mean Liverpool have to take another step backwards to go forwards. It might be unpalatable to fans who saw their team finish second just a couple of seasons ago but the reality is very different now.

Hodgson has to marry the twin tasks of keeping Liverpool relatively competitive in the Premier League and ensuring there’s a brighter future for the club. He must have known this was going to be the most difficult job of his managerial career. Calls for his head already are misplaced.

He’s got a job to do and should be given time to do it.

Let me just say, with as must neutrality as it’s possible for any football fan to muster, that I’ve been decidedly unimpressed by Man City’s start to the season.  Their performances have been uninspiring, with results to match.  Setting aside the pedestrian irrelevance that is the Europa League, they’ve won just two of their opening five league games, and crashed out of the League Cup at West Brom.  They’ve lost at Sunderland and been held at home to Blackburn.  Their most impressive result was a 3-0 win against a Liverpool side who now sit just two places clear of the relegation zone.

Incredibly, two wins from five is enough to have City currently in the top four, which is as much an indictment of the form of sides like Everton, Villa, and indeed Liverpool as anything else.  They’re currently level on eight points with Spurs, and the pair look set to wage another war over that final Champions League spot.

Unless…

Tomorrow City host league leaders Chelsea, in the first of this season’s fixtures likely to cause them to break sweat.  If City are to make the jump from Champions League contenders to title challengers, they have to win tomorrow.  The time for excuses and ‘bedding in’ has settled.  Everyone knows Mancini’s team now.  It’s got Carlos Tevez on his own upfront and more defensive midfielders than you can shake a very negative stick at.  It’s got Joe Hart in goal and James Milner on the wing and Kolo Toure still clinging on to his spot, aided by the presence of his more-talented brother.  It has, however, got potential.  And now is the time to realise it.  Lose at lunchtime, and they’ll find themselves ten points behind the league leaders.  Already.

Chelsea, meanwhile, will be hoping to keep their remarkable momentum going as they enter a far trickier run of fixtures.  In their next three league games they travel to City and Villa and host Arsenal.  The Gunners, as well as Manchester United, will be looking to pounce on any slip by the Champions.  If Chelsea can pick up three points, however, and it’ll be almost as disheartening for the chasing pack as City.

Man City v Chelsea might just turn out to be one of the most pivotal games of the season.

Arsene Wenger is an intelligent, eloquent man who speaks a lot of sense on many of football’s important issues.  Occasionally, however, his views baffle.  In the build-up to last night’s game with Spurs, he said:

“I am personally convinced he is a world-class goalkeeper, potentially, and of course when you have that potential you want to transfer that into competitive games.

I have massive faith in him and I think I have shown this historically. I am convinced he will become a great goalkeeper.”

Surely this is Wenger in spin-doctor mode, attempting to cajole a performance from a player whose confidence has dropped with every mishandled cross.  Whatever it is, it’s a bewildering statement: if genuine, he’s wrong; if attempted man-management, it failed.

Fabianski was his usual nervy self at White Hart Lane, and conspired to let a tame Robbie Keane effort past him.  Despite getting both gloves to the ball, the molecular structure of his hands seemed to dissolve, and they parted for the ball to squeak embarrassingly by.  Arsenal blog Goodplaya makes the point that poor goalkeepers are often defended as being ‘good shot-stoppers’.  You can’t even say that for Fabianski now.

There is, Wenger has suggested, a limit to his patience:

“We live in a world where if you have an opportunity you have to take it. You will get a second one, but you will not get 10 – and that is part of our job.”

If we decide to be facetious and take the manager at his word, then Fabianski can’t be far away from last chance saloon.  This campaign alone, we’ve already witnessed a disastrous display in a pre-season friendly in Warsaw, as well as last night’s blunder.  Last season, there were memorable outings against Blackburn, Wigan, Stoke and Porto.  Wenger continues to insist Fabianski must take his chances, and then persists with him when he fails to do so.  It’s all carrot and no stick.

Supposedly, Wenger’s faith in Fabianski is what prevented him meeting Fulham’s demands over Mark Schwarzer.  He may have dodged a bullet there: the Australian has been in flappy form himself since returning to the Cottagers’ XI.  Perhaps his head’s not right, and his heart no longer in it.  Either way, Arsenal should be grateful for the relatively solid form of Manuel Almunia, who seems to be bringing some stability to the position.

Whilst Almunia is settled as number one, Arsenal should take the opportunity to dispense with Fabianski.  He’s had enough chances.  He’s become a target and a joke.  Perhaps even more crucially, if Arsenal continue to persist with a player so clearly unsuited to elite football, they may lose one of far greater potential. Wojciech Szczęsny, whose form on loan at Brentford last season suggested he has a far better chance of being an Arsenal #1 than Fabianski will ever have, is disgruntled about a lack of first-team opportunities.

The prospect of losing Szczęsny, as well as the errors Fabianski is almost guaranteed to make, make the gamble of playing him simply too costly.  Fabianski has had enough chances.  It’s time for him to go.