Three and in – not just another football blog

We should have known.

The Mail has about as much ability at humour as it does at level-headed, sensible liberalism. Turns out the post we made yesterday captured the Mail plagiarizing Dirty Tackle.

We would like to apologise to Dirty Tackle for not being aware of their running ‘holding his face gag’ (we can’t read all the blogs in the world, you know!), as well as apologising profusely to both our readers for such a serious error of judgement regarding the Mail.

To make it up to you, here’s the famous Daily Mail headline generator, which is always good for a laugh.

It won’t happen again, we promise. Please don’t leave us. We can change.

From a story about Barcelona’s players appearing on stage with Shakira to celebrate their Champions League win.

Unless Busquets is even worse than I think that’s nicely done.

Somebody did something naughty last year. But we shouldn’t be allowed to tell you what it is because they have a lot of money and have bought one of those things you’ve only heard of recently. But you can know who the other person involved was, sure, she’s not that rich anyway. The slag. And anyway, she probably tried to blackmail our poor hero and then sell her story to some grotty tabloid that insists on calling the police ‘cops’. Oh yes, we can say that about her – besmirch her character, and why not? She’s clearly the ‘bad guy’ here. And she’s not allowed to deny it! Or tell her side of the story at all, in fact, because she doesn’t have as much money. Result!

In the first instance, this may sound unfair to you, but really you just need to stop and think about it. What if the naughty boy was a premiership footballer? The poor soul has to go and run around in front of a crowd of partially-unsympathetic football fans. They might chant nasty things about him! How would he ever get over such a thing? It could well still be on his mind as he drove his Ferrari home to his multi-million pound mansion. What if he was still thinking about it that night when he was eating steak in a gourmet restaurant? Or, god forbid, weeks later, when he’s lying on a beach in Hawaii trying to recover from months of a health & safety-defying workload of running around in the fresh air for several hours a day? Not so sure now, are you?

And all this, before you even consider possibly the most important thing. His family. What if his wife and children were to find out about him betraying them with another woman? It would destroy them! Won’t somebody please think of the children! Surely the provision of a secure and supportive family unit is the responsibility of the press, the courts and most of all, the unrelated single woman who has callously slept with a married man. How can she ever look his wife and kids in the face again?

Obviously there are no totally innocent parties here, apart from our unnamed hero, but surely we can at least all learn a lesson from this…

They seem suspiciously happy to expose themselves to abuse and blame for results they can have little control over (compared to the players, at least). Even if they’re successful one season, that only gives their future-detractors ammunition with which to accuse them of having ‘lost it’ in following seasons when they inevitably struggle to achieve quite the same level of success. Ferguson and Wenger, two of the Premiership’s most successful managers, have certainly had their fair share of such accusations during less successful periods. It seems the only way to maintain a reputation as a good manager is to ditch your team as soon as you win anything with them and get out of the country.

But before we all start wearing ribbons for them, let’s not forget that, by regular standards, they do have a really, really, easy job. They never even have to run!  The ‘pressure’ they suffer surrounds their long-term decisions,  that can be made over hours, with advice from colleagues and underlings, in the pub, in the bath, in bed. Not like the players’ instant-result/consequence pressure on the pitch, which could more conceivably get to you ‘in the moment’ and cause some ill-advised (not-at-all-advised, to be fair to them) decisions like poor passing choices, over-zealous tackles or yellow cards for dissent.

So isn’t the role of manager, even with no transfer budget, stars sold, replacements touted, actually a pretty cushty job? Why should we feel sorry for them? ‘Aw, they’ve been treated badly’, ‘Made fools of in the public eye’, ‘Terrible pressure, terrible pressure’. These people (the ones we tend to hear about at least) are averaging £1m a year in wages. That’s almost £20,000 a week – not far off what a lot of the premier-league players (that we’ll never feel sorry for because ‘Look-how-much-money-they-make-it’s-a-joke’) earn.

But they have to work 80-odd hours a week! Including weekends! Poor darlings. The average football fan probably thinks about what their team needs to do/sign/sell/set-up/drop/promote for about half of that anyway. For free.

Which this week brings us to West Ham. Whatever could have enticed Avram Grant to the position that he ‘was advised by several people not to take’? Can anyone think what could possibly have possessed him? Despite the ‘terrible situation’ he knew he would find himself in at the currently-so-turbulent club? And why would any other sane person want to take over as manager of the club?

Admittedly, the way West Ham’s owners had touted Grant’s recently-vacated position to other managers behind their current employee’s back can’t have been much fun for him, and has already blown the club’s chances of getting Martin O’Neill on board. And did they think that sacking Grant minutes after the game that confirmed their relegation would do anything to help repair their image as Employers From Hell amongst the football-management community?

But the reality is that there will always be plenty of managers who are willing to take the position, however ‘difficult’ the circumstances, because it beats working for a living. Or punditry – which it turns out must be a lot harder than it looks, considering the ever-declining quality of ‘insight’ we’re fed these days from the BBC, Sky, or (god help us) ITV.

Maybe Grant’s instant-sacking was a move engineered to help the club’s long-suffering fans to release some of their considerable frustration in these disappointing times. We’d all like to be able to sack someone for not delivering our team to the Premiership title, Champions League & FA Cup treble, and the manager’s the only one you can’t sell, so why not? He gets his money, you get your fall guy. Everyone’s a winner.

But right after the game?

Maybe they just wanted to be able to get into the changing room before other Premiership suitors came calling for Scott Parker and offer him the job. Apparently he’s been taking the half-time team talks this year anyway, and I can’t see too many West Ham fans arguing with that appointment after the dogged performances he’s consistently turned in over the season. He’s a man that doesn’t crack under pressure, that much seems clear.

And coaching badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!*

* Just ask Gareth Southgate.

Never a year goes by without the future of the current England manager and speculation over his potential replacements dominating at least one slow-sports-news week. It’s a go-to topic, like ‘Fabregas Wanted by Barcelona’, ‘Giggs is Really Quite Good, Have You Noticed?’ or ‘Terry Family Member Questioned by Police Over ——-‘

One of the recent speculators’ favourites, after getting Tottenham into the Champions League for the first time in their history, is the excitable Harry Redknapp.

On the one hand he seems to be a good man-manager, he’s tactically-competent, and has brought several teams from ‘lowly’ positions (as, in some cases, he’ll never tire of reminding us) to arguable over-achievement. And over-achievement is something the national side is yet to sample. You never know – they might like it – the media certainly would.

But for all his white-flag-waving at Manchester City, Harry also spends a lot of money to bring his teams success – not a luxury afforded to national managers – so would the quality at his disposal in the England set-up be enough to work his magic on? There’s certainly plenty there, with a decent crop of youth creeping in already, but would it be enough?

And would he be able to handle the ‘big personalities’? Harry’s got a bit of a history of falling out with players and though he’ll do his best to keep it internal, it’s pretty obvious when players like Bentley and Pavlyuchenko are only justifying big transfer fees by doing an extra-high-quality job of warming the bench. How would he react to being undermined by an ex-captain, or having a star-striker tell him to procreate off? And what if he, god forbid, froze-out a star player during a tournament? How would he handle the media-frenzy at every following draw or loss?

Perhaps the biggest loss he’d have to handle in moving to a high-profile team, would be his pressure-relieving tactic of telling everyone who’ll listen that his team don’t have a chance against their opponents but that they should just get credit for ‘having a go’. I’m not sure that kind of talk would be met with much sympathy when England lined-up against Denmark. Or Belgium. Or Liechtenstein.

It seems that Harry’s real talent really is, like many other lauded managers who suddenly lose all respect as soon as they fail to make the grade in a higher-expectation role (step forward Woy) getting the best out of average players. To take England to the next level we need someone who can get the best out of quality players. Someone the players ‘like’ purely out of fear of upsetting. And as far as I can see, there are only two working managers we’ve seen in the Premiership recently who fit that bill, and one’s far too Scottish to take the job.

I’m sorry to say it English-manager-demanders, it would be great if we had a home-grown manager capable of getting the results we’re all so desperate to finally achieve, but if we want to get anywhere with the current crop of Lamborghini-driving English talent, there’s only one man for the job. And he’s Portuguese.

Word filtering through the t’Interwebsphere is that Tottenham’s Niko Kranjcar’s notoriously chatty father, Zlatko Kranjcar has been engineering a swap deal with AS Roma’s Mirko Vucinic.

At least that is what ol’Zlato told Walter Sabatini…

Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has quite openly operated a culture of favourites at White Hart Lane, ever since his arrival. He’s a died in the wool East End boy who sticks with what he knows, sticks with who he knows. I don’t think Harry has ever felt he either knows or wants to know Niko. And I think that’s probably Tottenham’s loss.

But Mirko Vucinic is a €25M rated striker and even the most ardent Niko fan will acknowledge this sounds pretty good! But will it happen? Can Spurs be the first club in the history of football to make one of these insane media deals actually come true? Good question. In this instance, let’s hope so.

For Spurs, breaking the top four monopoly in 2009/10 was a momentous achievement. And with it came a highly rewarding Champions League campaign, taking in a thrilling victory over the holders, Inter Milan, before bowing out to Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid.

There was little disgrace in losing to the battle Real – a side that cost hundreds of millions to assemble. Harry Redknapp, never slow to justify his occasional failures, will doubtless make the same point about the tussle they’ve just lost to Man City over that invaluable Champions League spot.

A year ago, a Peter Crouch header ensured it was Spurs who embarked on that voyage in to the stellar climes of the Champions League. Last night, his own goal confirmed that City will replace them. The form of Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool means that Spurs may now miss out on the Europa League too.

There is an air of inevitability about City’s ascension – it would require remarkable mismanagement to spend that much money without any discernible success, and despite his conservative tactics Mancini is clearly no fool.

However, I wonder if Spurs fans feel a tad uneasy about how easily they’ve relinquished a prize they fought so hard to obtain. Granted, City have spent money, but Spurs had something more valuable: poll position. For the last twelve months, they have been a Champions League club, and City haven’t. In the summer, that advantage enabled Spurs to pull in big names – the likes of Rafael van der Vaart and William Gallas, both of whom have been inspired signings.

And yet, in January, Spurs were strangely inactive, moving only to snare Stephen Pienaar from Everton – a good player, but not one who was not evidently needed. The weakness in the Tottenham squad has been clear all season: they have lacked goals from their strikers. Whilst the likes of Bale and Van der Vaart have chipped in, Crouch, Defoe and Pavlyuchenko have been erratic. Robbie Keane was shipped out to West Ham on loan, where his poor form has continued. And yet nobody came in.

Tottenham did make a few haphazard deadline day moves, throwing money at half the clubs in La Liga in attempt to bring in the likes of Guiseppe Rossi, Fernando Llorente and Alvaro Negredo. But it was unplanned and unproductive.

It was also unusual for Harry Redknapp, a manager known for his transfer market acumen. Perhaps he wanted to escape the shackles of his ‘wheeler-dealer’ reputation. Perhaps the Spurs board were more interested in raking in the Champions League money than investing it in the squad.

Or perhaps they felt it was pointless, and that City’s riches meant they would perennially be fighting a losing battle.

Spurs lost the fight on the pitch last night. But in many respects, it was lost off the pitch in January. With City now having both the money and the status they desired, it looks a long way back for Tottenham.

There are two sides to every story, as they say. FC Barcelona is a great example of this.

Story 1 - a team of wonderfully gifted, athletic, highly skilled, incredibly hard working and well drilled players, augmented by the incredible Lionel Messi who lifts their football from the sublime to the ridiculously sublime. You can’t help but admire the way they try and play, attacking, more attacking, close passing, a high intensity pressing game and just a fantastic ability to unlock teams in the final third.

It’s a beautiful thing. Or it just be a beautiful thing, because now we have:

Story 2 – a team of inveterate cheats, conmen, divers, and actors who seek to gain advantage in the most unsporting way possible at all times. In Mascherano, Busquets and Dani Alves they have a trident of footballing flimflammers who showcase the very worst in the modern game. The slightest contact, or even none at all, and they go down, wailing, shrieking, crying, acting, trying to get their opponent booked or sent off.

You might call it clever play. It’s not. It’s shameful cheating, nothing less. And they’re not alone. I accept that Barcelona’s style of play invites challenges, they nick the ball away at the last second, but Xavi and Iniesta like a jump in the air. Pedro too. Puyol ‘uses his experience’. Or, to put it another way, he cheats. They all do it to some degree and they’re put to shame by Lionel Messi who must get kicked and fouled more than any footballer on the planet and most of the time tries to stay on his feet.

He’s not whiter than white, no professional player is, but often Messi gains an advantage by staying on his feet instead of going down clutching his face/knee/ankle as if he’d been pole-axed.

For me, this Barcelona team’s legacy is tainted by the cheating. You can play great football without diving, without pretending to be kicked when you weren’t, and the thing about it is that no matter how often we see replays of them engaging in this behaviour it doesn’t change.

So they don’t care that they cheat and that’s an insult to anyone, Barcelona fan or neutral, who loves what they do when they actually play football.

What an amazing place Twitter is. A true social media, a great leveller, where the hoi-polloi can mix and engage with heads of state, celebrities from A list to Z, writers, reality TV ‘stars’, sports people and, of course, footballers.

It is a place of intelligent discourse, witty repartee and reasoned, measured debate which improves society and the world we live in. It’s the kind of place where a footballer can create an account and be welcomed generously and openly to the party by fans of the team he plays for. It’s certainly not the kind of place where a footballer can create an account and then shut it down two hours later because he simply can’t be arsed with the invective directed at him.

Oh wait, yes it is.

It’s the kind of place where a footballer’s sister can receive the following message because her famous brother has, apparently, broken up with his old girlfriend started going out with somebody else.

Footballer’s personal lives are of little consequence to me but if you follow the trail of Tweets from the one above you find a strange and frankly discomfiting undercurrent. Fans of players, I understand. Young women who are into these players ‘Beatles style’, I also understand, but some of what you read is really quite disturbing. If this were ‘real’ life you’d be looking at restraining orders and increased security. It’s cyber-stalking and bullying of the worst kind.

Often it’s faceless and anonymous but not always. For some reason Twitter has made people think it’s perfectly ok to eschew all manners and decency. Journalist who writes something fans take exception to? ABUSE. Fan of a team whose opinion differs to that of a fan of the same team? ABUSE. Opposition fans? ABUSE. Footballer who says anything at all? ABUSE.

Today, Bolton striker Kevin Davies announced he was going to quit Twitter. I’m no fan of him as a player but his feed was interesting and intelligent, a decent look into the life of a professional footballer, and far, far removed from inane LOLZy banter of some of the more high profile players. And he’s quitting because of the abuse. Really, who needs it?

Last week I read, rather incredulously, two Arsenal fans argue on Twitter and one of them, quite seriously, decided the best way to solve the problem would be a punch-up in real life. Mad, I know, but on one level that guy had a point. He took exception to some name calling and wondered, quite reasonably in my opinion, if the other guy would have ever called him that to his face. I doubt it. Yet on Twitter anything goes.

There are great things about Twitter. It does bring people together, it does allow you to engage and debate and talk to people you wouldn’t normally have a chance to. More importantly, it allows you to talk with your peers, to discuss football, politics, Glee, whatever. And it opens up a new world of opinion, new cultures, ways of thinking and more.

Yet underneath it all, bubbling just below the surface, is this viciousness, this nastiness that makes you despair at times. In years to come we might discover the best thing about Twitter is that it makes the people who are nothing but spiteful and horrible so easy to identify.  Four step program:

Step 1 - Receive Tweet

Step 2 - Check person’s timeline

Step 3 – Realise person is an angry, bitter, ill-mannered cunt

Step 4 – Block or just ignore

I don’t expect fans of rival teams to be friendly with each other, or with players from rival teams, but it goes beyond that. On a basic human level the lack of manners is a sorry reflection on those involved. You can disagree with somebody without name-calling, you can argue with somebody without abusing them, and you can differ entirely without resorting to half-witted, tedious barbs which lack the intelligence to strike home.

Sometimes it is best, if you’ve got nothing good to say, to say nothing at all. You’re only making yourself look stupid and making it easy for the rest of us to know you are.

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