Three and in – not just another football blog

Roy Hodgson has accepted the BEEB’s shilling and joined Harry Redknapp,  Clarence Seedorf, Jurgen Klinsmann and Emmanuel Adebayor to comprise a formidable World Cup panel.

BBC bloke Philip Bernie gushed, ‘We are delighted. We will have on board two of the most respected English managers to add to an already great line-up.’

All I know Phil, is that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. The campaign to get Andy Gray binned starts here.

And so it seems that Rafa won’t be Gaffer at Anfield for much longer. Join me on a Youtube-dominated trip down Memory Lane, as we review the highs and lows funny stuff from Rafa’s time at Liverpool.

The hall-mark of Benitez’s early days was his ability to tactically transform a match from the sidelines. Here, for example, he uses the international language of gesture to ask Steven Gerrard to dig a tunnel to Goodison Park, swear at everyone, then return.

Benitez’s gesturing was so authoritative that even Sky’s in-game graphics were at his command.

It’s no wonder the players respected him. He used to play for Real Madrid, don’t you know.

It all started to go wrong for Rafa as the pressure of the 08/09 title race took its toll. The signs of stress were obvious: he grew the sort of dreadful goatee only a disturbed mind could permit, and his weight suffered.

Still, at least if Rafa does leave Anfield his summer, he’ll be able to leave with his dignity intact.

…Oh:

Whilst the drama of the England squad announcement was diluted by the steady drip of leaks throughout the day, the decision to drop Theo Walcott still comes as something of a shock.  Since his hatrick against Croatia in September 2008, Theo has been a regular favourite of Fabio Capello.  Only a couple of months ago the Italian called the Arsenal winger an “important player”, and starts in England’s two warm-up friendlies seemed to confirm Walcott’s seat on the plane to South Africa.

Not so.  It emerges than instead of attempting to settle Walcott in to the first XI, Capello was offering a stage from which to stake one final claim for a place in the squad.  An injury hit season has halted the youngster’s progress, but Capello is man of faith: Walcott’s role in England’s qualification earned him a chance for a reprieve.  He would have wanted the player to seize the opportunity.  Capello will be as disappointed as anyone at what he actually saw.

The decision to promote Walcott, almost two years ago now, was one of the pivotal moments of Capello’s time as England manager.  His pace and direct running saw him move ahead of David Beckham in the pecking order, providing balance to the side and allowing the manager to field Steve Gerrard as a narrow left-midfielder.  The brief to Walcott was simple: provide an overlap, exploit space, and deliver crosses for the two forwards.  The fact is that recently Walcott has not done any of those jobs sufficiently well.

Some will say dropping Walcott on the back of two friendlies is unfair.  The truth is that had he played well in those games, selecting him would have been just as unsubstantiated.  His form over the course of the season does not justify inclusion.  Can you remember a significant moment Walcott produced for Arsenal this season?  Can you remember a major positive contribution for England since that night in Zagreb?

Walcott is a player who is both a beneficiary and victim of our ‘hype’ culture.  The attention he receives, both commercially and from the likes of Capello, is due in large part to a reputation that stems from the stratospheric rise he experienced as a teenager and the fact that he is cartoonishly quick.  His technical ability still trails behind that of many of his rivals.

Oliver Kay of The Times said that last night Capello was toying with the idea of leaving Aaron Lennon at home.  In the end, Lennon’s superior form and greater versatility seem to have won the day.  Shawn Wright-Phillips is the arguably surprising beneficiary of Walcott’s exclusion; Adam Johnson, Man City’s promising left-footer, will join Walcott in hoping future World Cup’s bring greater fortune.

After being the shock inclusion in the 2006 World Cup Squad, being the shock exclusion this summer isn’t the kind of progress Walcott will have targeted.  Five years in to his senior career, it’s hard to pick out a period of extended good form.  There have been moments, doubtless – flashes of instinctive ability – but it has never translated in to anything approaching consistency.

His only option now, ironically given much of the criticism of his playing style, is to get his head down.  His international place has gone, and his club place is under threat too – even when fit he often found himself on the Arsenal bench, usurped by the likes of Emmanuel Eboue and Tomas Rosicky.  The reputation that has both buffered and buffeted him throughout the last five years is now in limbo – he finally has a chance to escape it.  Walcott has to learn that a match is about ninety minutes, not one blistering sprint, and at 21 he’d also be well-advised that his career doesn’t have to be defined by this moment.

Walcott has the luxury of being at a club who’ve already shown tremendous patience with him.  If anything, perhaps he has been a little too comfortable.  Maybe now he has the motivating factor he needs to fulfill his potential.

Barcelona have been very vocal in their pursuit of Cesc Fabregas over the last couple of weeks. So much so you’re reminded of the old adage about a dog’s bark being worse than his bite.

Certainly Barcelona talk a good transfer, they don’t seem too keen on the nuts and bolts of this one though. Outgoing President Joan Laporta seems to be less certain than he was, saying:

We will not sign any players for above market value. We are interested in signing Cesc and Arsenal know that but we will not pay an exorbitant price for any player.

When it comes to market prices, we’ll strengthen where we can but will not pay an unrealistic price.

So what is the market price for a 23 year old, world class central midfield player with 5 years left on his current contract with a club who don’t want to sell him? It’s certainly not the €30m Barcelona keep talking about. That’s what Real Madrid paid for Xabi Alonso last summer. I like Alonso but he’s no Cesc Fabregas.

Last summer Barcelona paid €25m for Dmytro Chygrynskiy. Do they expect us to believe that Cesc Fabregas is only worth €5m more than a Ukrainian centre-half? They paid £28m (with a potential £6m in add ons) for Sevilla’s Dani Alves, who is a fine player but if this is what they’re prepared to pay for him then they’re going to have to get real when it comes to Fabregas.

And isn’t it interesting to note that Barcelona say they won’t pay an unrealistic price for a player less than 12 months after giving Eto’o and £40m to Inter Milan for the mercurial Zlatan Ibrahimovich. Eto’o + £40m for a player who is remarkable on his day but will never produce as much and as consistently as Cesc Fabregas. It’s a bit late to talk about not paying unrealistic prices now.

Looking at what Barcelona are prepared to pay for other players I don’t think Arsenal’s reported £70m valuation of Cesc is too far off the mark at all. There might be a bit of room for negotiation but not much.

What Arsenal are not looking for is not exorbitant. It’s market value and unless Barcelona accept that and put their money where their mouth is – as they have so often in the past – I believe Cesc Fabregas will playing in red and white next season.

David Gill has been Chief Executive of Manchester United since 2003. He must know the fans of the club well at this stage. Which makes his comments about the ‘Green and Gold’ protests all the more bizarre. Speaking to the Independent, he said:

The green and gold campaign and the momentum behind that can get a bit tiring. We understand people’s desire to protest and I think it is a minority. It’s a visible minority in the stadium.

Would we prefer not to have them [green and gold scarves]? Yes. I think that minority will go away. A lot of people understand what it means but a lot of them don’t.

Obviously he has to protect the position of the owners but it’s quite clear the Green and Gold protesters are a bit more than a minority protesting at against the Glazer ownership. They’re almost ubiquitous at this stage. There’s nearly more green and gold than red at Old Trafford on match day.

The United fans have seen the Glazers come in, load a club which was previously free of debt and highly profitable with the cost of their takeover and seen promises broken. Gill said they would never use the training ground or the stadium to mortgage the club, they have done just that and should things go wrong on a financial level the foundations of the club are at risk. It’s little wonder fans are protesting.

Gill’s comments are an insult to the fans who care about the long term future of their club and let’s be clear – United’s current level of debt makes that future far more uncertain than it should ever have been.

And what makes it worse is that Gill knows exactly the depth of feeling about the Glazer ownership. It was under his watch that a new club was formed, a breakaway founded by fans who could no longer tolerate the way Manchester United was being run. FC United of Manchester are growing steadily and improving all the time. Yet it should never be underestimated how much it costs people to turn their back on the club they have supported all their lives.

Gill has presided over the slow financial violation of one of England’s greatest football clubs. The idea that they might go under is inconceivable given the supporter base, the fame of the club and everything else, but United’s finances are a disaster waiting to happen.

Not only does he dismiss them as a minority, when clearly they are not, he insults their intelligence by suggesting they don’t know why they’re protesting.

You can’t help feeling Gill has scored an own goal of Andrés Escobar proportions here.

Ivory Coast striker Aruna Dindane, who spent last season on loan at Portsmouth, has just signed for Quatar League side Lekhwiya.  Although I’ve not yet seen any quotes from the player, I’d hazard a guess that the move is motivated by more than just a desire to test himself in a new country.

Aged just 29, Dindane has turned down offers from Premier League clubs including Wolves and Blackburn to take the Quatari millions. The move comes after Dindane played a key role in Portsmouth’s run to the FA Cup Final – a run he was only able to take part in after cash-strapped Pompey were forced to negotiate a deal with Lens to escape a pre-arranged £3.5m fee.

Dindane impressed many with his work ethic and desire to keep playing for a club who were already doomed.  He was playing, we assumed, for pride, and a second crack at the Premier League with another club.  How wrong we were.  It seems that the Ivorian has learnt one thing from his time of Portsmouth: the importance of making sensible economic decisions.

Germany’s Michael Ballack has been ruled out of the World Cup after the ankle injury inflicted on him by Portsmouth’s Kevin Prince Boateng was much worse than feared.

While I have sympathy for any player injured after a bad tackle – and Boateng’s was certainly that – I do wonder if Ballack might now wish the cup final ref, Chris Foy, had been a bit stricter. A few moments before the tackle which injured him, Ballack was involved in an incident on the edge of the Portsmouth box which saw some pushing and shoving as the Pompey players believed the German had slapped Hayden Mullins. It was very much a case of flailing arms and I think Ballack knew he could do that, and possibly make contact without anyone being able to say it was deliberate.

There was then a bit of pushing and shoving and Ballack pushed one of the Portsmouth players in the face. It might even have been Boateng himself. The letter of the law says that if you raise your hands like that it’s a red card. It might have been soft but we’ve seen them given before.

I’m not saying the injury was karma but I bet he’s not as relieved now as he was then to get away with it.

Continuity is a much underestimated quality in football. Chairmen and fans are too quick to seek change when they’d be better off sticking with what they’ve got.

Aston Villa’s owner Randy Lerner confirmed Martin O’Neill would continue as manager next season, saying:

It has already been settled. He and I spoke on a number of occasions in person and over the phone. Yesterday I dragged him out of a series of meetings with chief executive Paul Faulkner trying to get plans for the summer underway.

While O’Neill said:

I think next year will be exciting and worthwhile and I look forward to it.

Getting it sorted early is sensible. Uncertainy over the future of the manager would make doing transfer business very difficult, so Villa can concentrate on that and look to bring in players who will improve them.

I think it’s a good move for both parties. I don’t think Villa have the clout to attract a better quality manager than O’Neill, nor does O’Neill have the quality for a ‘bigger’ club. There was talk of Liverpool but Benitez is still there and the job looks like a step down as long as Liverpool’s financial position is so precarious.

Villa and O’Neill fit each other perfectly right now, common sense prevails.

Congratulations to Chelsea, the table doesn’t lie and all that, but I can’t help but sit here this morning and wonder about the overall quality of the league this season.

Yes, there have been some stand-out stats. The amount of goals Chelsea have scored for one but that begs its own question – is a league in which you score 7 goals three times and 8 once really competitive?

Does the fact that the smaller teams have beaten the established big teams mean it’s more competitive, that anyone can beat anyone, or is it down to a lack of focus or a measure of arrogance on the part of the big teams? How do you tally Wigan’s 3-1 win over Chelsea with their last day hammering (10 men notwithstanding)?

Liverpool, many people’s tip for the title, ended up in 7th, financially broken and it looks like a long way back for them. The only thing lesson we can take is that pundits, most of whom thought they could win the league, talk an awful lot of rubbish.

Spurs finished in 4th and you can point to the wins over Arsenal and Chelsea as being crucial – they really were, but City could have done it and lacked the bottle, Villa never looked like they wanted it and Liverpool, from a footballing point of view, have fallen on the stubborn sword of Rafa. That Harry Redknapp has been named manager of the year for scraping into 4th tells its own story – and Fulham’s fans will feel rightly aggrieved that Roy Hodgson’s achivements, accomplished without the millions Redknapp has had to spend, haven’t been acknowledged.

At the other end the three worst teams undoubtedly went down but look at those above them. West Ham on 35 points, Wigan on 36, Wolves on 38, Bolton on 39. It used to be a case that you absolutely needed 40 points to be safe, that was the target everyone spoke about, this season you could have survived in 31. Hardly suggests the league is better, does it?

For years the Premier League has been widely regarded as the best in Europe – although I’ve long been of the opinion that the Spanish league’s technical superiority would provide better football and win more matches – but this season’s league, along with the relative failure of English clubs in the Champions League means the tide has well and truly turned.

The product is still glossy, well package and overly marketed, but the proof is in the pudding – there were more empty seats in Premier League stadiums than in any previous campaign. I’m sure that has to do with the times we live in, but like the economies around the world, the Premier League is suffering a football recession.

“Representing your country is the ultimate honour, especially in the World Cup.

Not to me.”
Jamie Carragher, September 2008

So apparently Franco Baldini has put Cameron and Clegg to shame with his negotiating skills, and managed to persuade Jamie Carragher to come out of retirement.  Whatever next – will he be making an SOS call to Darius Vassell?

One can understand Capello having concerns over the form and fitness of Ferdinand and Terry, but Carragher has spent the season looking a good deal older than his 32 years in a Liverpool side set to slump to a disappointing seventh place finish.  Setting aside his previous lack of interest in representing his country, selecting Carragher simply doesn’t reflect the manager’s claim that he’ll pick the form players.  The likes of Tottenham pair King and Dawson have both outperformed the scouse stopper this year, and if it’s versatility that you want then Everton’s Phil Jagielka looks a much better bet.

If Carragher is selected in the final 23, it’ll be as a right-back rather than a centre-half, making a mockery of his initial retirement on the grounds of not being selected in his best position.  Those who’ve got England this far, the likes of Upson and Wes Brown, will have every right to feel aggrieved if they miss out in favour of this Jamie-come-lately.