Three and in – not just another football blog

No, those of you looking for him to follow will be disappointed. What I meant is he talks about Twitter in the light of some ill-judged Tweeting from Greg Halford.

He told the world, via his 140 characters, that he was sitting at Molineux with Steve Sidwell, leading to lots of speculation that he’d sign for them from Aston Villa. Then Fulham came along and he signed for them instead.

McCarthy said:

They should call it Twatter – and anyone on it should be renamed! Too many tweets make a twat.

It is interesting though. How are football clubs, usually so restrictive in terms of what they allow players to say in public, going to cope with the upsurge in social media? Twitter and Facebook are not going away. Young men are young men and footballers, let’s face it, are not renowned for their tact or discretion at the best of times.

Sometimes they’re going to say things in the heat of the moment. The permanancy of the internet is the issue though. Saying something then deleting it won’t make the slightest difference. As they stand by the now-closed stable door the horse is galloping away into the distance, powered by ‘OMGs’ and RTs. You can’t take it back.

Another interesting angle is the story out of nothing which is becoming more and more prevalent. There’s a good piece on They All Count about football journalists using Twitter for stories based on the random Tweets of footballers. Worth a read.

Bonus reading: Mick McCartree

I can’t remember a time when so many Premier League managers were as close to losing their jobs. Look:

Roy Hodgson – if he lasts to the end of the day I’d be surprised

Avram Grant – it’s hard to escape the feeling he really doesn’t have a clue and the fact that Wally Downes is being tipped for the Crystal Palace job is hardly a sign of forthcoming stability.

Carlo Ancelotti – crazy as it might seem last season’s double-winning manager is under real pressure at Chelsea. Some of their players have admitted privately they think it’s just a matter of time. He’s a dead eyebrow walking.

Gerard Houllier – Villa haven’t shown any improvement under the Frenchman. Quite the opposite. A team that finished 6th, two years running, under Martin O’Neill is now thoroughly embroiled in a relegation fight. Houllier’s calmness might well be the benefit of his experience but Villa fans will take no comfort from it. Has he ever had to fight this kind of battle before? The Villa board have to make a decision, stick or twist.

Mark Hughes – whispers from the Cottage suggest Hughes isn’t exactly popular for his approach. They’re just a couple of points above the relegation zone. Unless they move away, and quickly, he might find himself out of a job.

And while Wolves, Wigan and West Brom have all shown great loyalty to their managers, when the pressure’s really on and the season is coming to a head they won’t rule out the possibility of a short-term fire fighter.

Oh, and not forgetting:

Alex Ferguson – top of the league and unbeaten so far this season but everyone says this is the worst United team, like, ever. Must be true.

It looks like it’s curtains for Roy Hodgson. A 3-1 defeat to Blackburn compounded by a penalty miss from captain Steven Gerrard which was a clear signal to the board.

“I’ve had enough of Woy”, it said. “My furrowed brow of self-importance demands a new manager”.

And so it will come to pass. I know he’s not popular with Liverpool fans but he came to the club at a difficult time and, in my opinion, has been let down badly by some of the players. Every Premier League manager has a right to expect better defending that he got last night from that clown Johnson or Kyrgiakos. Slam him for picking them, if you like, but what choice did he have?

The players have underperformed, not just the ones Hodgson brought in, and regardless of how fans feel about the manager they can’t ignore the fact these players have let the club down most of all. It’ll be interesting to see what Liverpool do. Dalglish is obviously popular but he hasn’t managed a team since the 90s.

It could get worse before it gets better. Still, we’ll always have this (hat tip James).

I’m struggling to make a great deal of sense of the Beckham to Spurs story.

Ok, there’s no doubt he’d add some experience to a squad light on players who have gone the distance. Beckham has been there and done that with United and Real Madrid.

There’s the thing though. Been and Done. Past tense. For the last three years he’s played in the MLS and regardless of what anyone might say the standard is a long way below that of the Premier League. His loan spells at Milan were a relative success but Beckham’s impact was hardly sensational and he benefitted from the slower pace of the Italian game.

Harry Redknapp might bemoan his lack of right-sided options, and it says a lot that he’d take a punt on a 35 year old just back from a very serious achilles injury than play David Bentley. However, as professional and dedicated as he is you can’t help feeling Beckham is just too old for the Premier League.

It’s an incredibly fast league, physically intense and while his set-piece delivery would be a bonus to any team it’s hard to imagine him keeping pace with the Premier League flyers. If he was just there to take corners and free kicks, fine, but otherwise he’ll struggle.

You only have to look at Robert Pires at Aston Villa. After a start against his old club he’s yet to score and has barely played 60 minutes since. You can’t doubt the quality of Pires but it’s obvious the physical demands of the Premier League are too much for him.

Beckham is a couple of years younger than Pires and pace was never his strongpoint. Perhaps it’s a case of not missing what he never had, but if Redknapp is serious about a title challenge, or at least cementing a top four place, wouldn’t he be better off spending some real money on a player who would bring something to the squad in the long run, not just a tabloid-heaven short term loan?

You just can’t help feeling that this is a bit of a ego-trip on both sides. Beckham to strut his stuff in the Premier League again, Redknapp to showcase his wheeler-dealer (fack off!) savvy again.

Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to another Transfer Window – sponsored by Manchester City.

The window hasn’t yet been open for a single UK working day, and they’re already on the verge of buying their supporters a belated multi-million pound Christmas present: Wolfsburg’s Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko. According to multifarious sources on the heir-apparent to the Sky Sports News’ ticker, the Twitter timeline, a £27m fee has been agreed and the player is due to arrive for a medical on Tuesday.

Dzeko is undoubtedly a talented footballer, and one seemingly well-suited to the Premier League. Tall, powerful, and skillful, he’s a modern target man.

The question is: where does he fit in?

All season long City have played a 4-3-3, spear-headed by Carlos Tevez. In the lone striker role, Tevez has been exemplary, netting 35 goals in just 52 games. Moving him in to a wide position would be a madness, whilst changing to a 4-4-2 halfway through the campaign would be a radical move and one out of character with Roberto Mancini’s inherent caution. One wonders: is Mancini going to change the shape of the side to accommodate the new boy? Or is the £27m Dzeko simply going to replace the £25m Adebayor as an outrageously expensive substitute?

Making the wrong signing halfway through a season can be incredibly costly – just ask the Newcastle fans who saw the undoubtedly gifted Tino Asprilla disrupt their rhythm and cost them a title.

Perhaps Dzeko will become City’s starting striker, and Carlos Tevez will move on after all – after this weekend’s display, he’s got an intriguing new suitor.

What do you reckon City fans: rotation or reinvention?

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 he looks at Roy Hodgson’s Liverpool plight.

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It was with great sympathy that I read the comments of Roy Hodgson after Liverpool’s defeat to Wolves last night. I fully understand that it was a terrible result from a team who are struggling badly this season. I also fully understand how Liverpool fans are upset that a team which finished second just a couple of seasons ago is now struggling to make the UEFA Cup places.

But who could not have been moved by Roy when he said:

Ever since I came here the famous Anfield support hasn’t really been there. I have to hope the fans will become supporters because we need support – we are not deliberately losing.

It’s been obvious since day one that Liverpool fans don’t like Roy Hodgson. To them he’s like a step-parent who has taken the place of their real dad. Yet they ignore the fact that their real dad was a rioja swilling buffoon who spent £20m on Robbie Keane. If Benitez was their real dad and Liverpool was their mum then their dad used to get into bad moods and slap her about the face a bit.

Yet when it’s your real dad you’re willing to overlook his flaws. Forget that he alienated your best midfielder so he could bring in the honest but limited Gareth Barry. Forget that when the title was there to be had his team conceded four goals to a Russian who barely moves from a 20 yard patch the entire game.

Along came Roy and he is kindly. He tried to win the Liverpool fans over by bringing them a present. “Hi”, he said, “I’m not trying to take the place of your real dad but here’s a Joe Cole to play with”. Granted, it’s a bit like getting second hand lego that has been chewed by a dog but at least the thought was there. From the start the famous Liverpool support turned their nose up at him.

That’s not support. That’s the opposite of support. You know the Scousers, so happy to wallow in misery that I bet many of them are enjoying this season much more than title winning ones because it means they always have something to cry about. I fully expect a group of celebrities to make a video about how Hodgson is killing their club. First it was Hicks and Gillett, then Hodgson, whoever comes next will be to blame I imagine.

The Brazilian Robbie Savage is the driving force of the Liverpool midfield

Is it Roy Hodgson’s fault that Liverpool only have two good players? Fernando Torres stayed loyal this summer, while the midfield brilliance of Lucas will certainly see him move to a Champions League qualifying club. The rest of the squad is average but Hodgson didn’t sign most of them. Most of them were signed by their real dad. A man who had quality strikers like Crouch and Bellamy on his books yet sold them so he could bring in a left back like Dossena.

I’m loath to criticise an Englishman but where exactly is the captain Steven Gerrard? His furrowed brow is all well and good, we know he cares about the club, but in recent games he’s been nigh on invisible. Why does he not find himself on the receiving end of some fan disgruntlement? It seems as if it’s one rule for Roy and one for special Stevie.

I remember when I was in the middle of my career and we had a change of manager. The fans didn’t take to him at first, chanting against him because the man who came before him was popular. It didn’t matter that he’d nearly had us relegated. The fans loved the way he dealt with the press, the chairman, the players. The new man found it tough at first and we players let him down just as the Liverpool players are letting down Roy Hodgson.

During one game some of our fans showed their support by going to his house and spray-painting an enormous penis on the side of his house. Rather than watch their team they did that. And that’s what Liverpool fans are doing to Roy Hodgson. They are spray-painting a giant penis on the hallowed turf of Anfield.

Maybe the Liverpool fans need to take a long hard look in the mirror. When times are tough a real supporter supports his team, through thick and thin and all that. There are those who say the crowd should react to the team, and that’s a fair point, but what about the crowd being the 12th man? At the moment Liverpool’s 12th man is Ronnie Rosenthal against Aston Villa, a tubby Jew who isn’t much good except missing an open goal from 8 yards out.

Is that how they want to be seen across the world? Liverpool’s problems go deeper than the decent Roy Hodgson. They might start in the boardroom but they spread to the pitch, the dressing room and to the stands in which these so-called supporters sit.

Sure, they want what’s best for their club but maybe they ought to realise that their mum has kicked out their real dad for being mean and abusive. They may not like who their mum is sleeping with right now but they’ve got to grow up, stop being kids and just play with the chewed up lego they’ve got.

Nobody likes crybabies or spoiled kids and that’s what Liverpool fans are right now.

After Stoke’s game with Fulham, Tony Pulis refused to shake Mark Hughes’ hand.  After the game, Pulis confirmed it was a retaliatory gesture after Hughes refused his hand back in September.:

“He has done it when we played in the League Cup and now I have done it back,” Pulis said. “It’s two Welshmen with a bit of competition. I certainly won’t lose any sleep over it and I’m sure he won’t.”

The childish tit for tat tactics of Pulis are surprising enough, but even more so when you put them in the context of his comments almost exactly a year ago:

“Arsene Wenger has made a decision not to shake Mark Hughes’ hand, whether that is right or wrong you’d have to ask him.

But personally, whether I like or dislike someone, you have a responsibility to show the right spirit of the game.

And whether you disagreed with Mark being outside of his technical area at one stage, in the spirit of the game you should still shake hands.

That’s not only for people in the Premier League or Championship, it is also for young teams and young managers to see.

You should shake hands, you don’t have to go for a drink afterwards with them for a tittle-tattle.”

It seems this mans ethics are a good deal more flexible than his tactics.

Thanks to Zonal Marking for the heads up.

Robert Pires might not have contributed much to Aston Villa yet, but he continues to make himself a hero to Arsenal fans:

Clearly a lot of animosity between the pair. Hard to explain, until you remember that it was Pires who dived to win a crucial penalty against Harry’s Pompey back at Highbury. Managers, like elephants and Martin Tyler, never forget.

Readers based in Britain will be used to Gary Lineker’s deeply uninteresting introductory tidbits on the increasingly painful Match of the Day. Readers abroad will simply remember him as the jug-eared, crisp-pushing flop at Barcelona. But that’s by the by.

Last night, Lineker was smarmily welcoming in highlights of Tottenham’s 2-1 win against Gerard Houllier’s hapless Aston Villa, when he accidentally said something that approached a useful piece of information. I wasn’t the only one surprised: Lee Dixon’s remaining hair stood up on end, and Mark Lawrenson’s jowelly draw hit the floor with a satisfying plop.

Going in to the game, 52% of Spurs’ league goals this season had been scored with a left-boot. After the game, and Rafael Van der Vaart’s left-footed brace, it was 53.8%.

It wasn’t just their finishing that owed to the lefties. The fact Van der Vaart drifted to that flank created the space for Alan Hutton to cross for the first goal, while their second was a counter-attack started by Van der Vaart and carried primarily by the southpaw Gareth Bale.

As a left-footer myself, I can look at the Premier League top scorers charts with a degree of pride. As well as Van der Vaart, Florent Malouda features high up, with Andy Carroll on 11 goals already – though how many of those were scored with his feet is uncertain.

Of course, it’s not uncertain. It’d simply require research. Which, at this time of year, I am disinclined to do. Hopefully as the season the Match of the Day researchers will be less lazy. Perhaps next month they’ll conspire to come up with something to rival this groundbreaking news.

I don’t know about you but when I hear the word ‘flip’ I think of dolphins and dolphins are complete arseholes. Similarly, when I hear the word ‘flop’ I think of Terence Trent D’Arby’s second album.

Put them together and you’ve got a flip-flopper. Which is Nani. Check this from The Guardian just a couple of weeks ago:

And from today’s The Sun:

I think it’s fair to say Nani is a dolphin whose second album was unspeakably shit. Invert the pyramid on that, motherfuckers.