Three and in – not just another football blog

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.

One could understand if ‘Big’ Big Sam was feeling a little down in the dumps earlier in the week.  Unceremoniously dismissed from Blackburn by, of all things, a foreign woman.

Reading this morning’s papers, however, he will have afforded himself a smile for the first time in a week or so.  No sooner is he out of work that another vacancy, far better suited to him, has appeared.  It’s unfortunate for Rafa Benitez, but Inter Milan and Sam Allardyce were made for each other.  Just ask the latter:

“I’m not suited to Bolton or Blackburn, I would be more suited to Inter or Real Madrid.  It wouldn’t be a problem to me to go and manage those clubs because I would win the double or the league every time. Give me Manchester United or Chelsea and I would do the same, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not where I’m suited to, it’s just where I’ve been for most of the time.”

Being sacked by Blackburn and then taking up the reigns at a European giant like Inter Milan is an unusual career.  But not an untrodden one.  Roy Hodgson left his post at Ewood Park in 1998 and shortly found himself in caretaker charge at the San Siro.

In reality, despite his boasts, Allardyce would never be considered for such an illustrious role.  His most promising lead on the job front at the moment is the currently occupied spot with West Ham, two points adrift at the bottom of the Premier League.

Allardyce’s sacking at Blackburn came about because he has a reductive style of football that is designed purely to bring safety and stability.  For some Premier League chairmen, that is enough.  But not for the ambitious Anuradha Desai.  He is never going to be able to bring the attractive, attacking football Blackburn’s new owners see as essential to climbing the domestic table and strutting out on to the continental map.  It is these same limitations that prevent Allardyce from being a candidate for jobs like the Inter one.

Allardyce would argue that his tactics are a consequence of necessity – that given the resources of a top club he’d be able to produce something easier on the eye.  But the fact is, he will not get that opportunity in England.  His sacking at Blackburn shows the glass ceiling that his head is constantly banging against: he is perceived as a manager for a relegation scrap, and little more.

He has long suggested that were his name ‘Sam Allardici’, perceptions would shift.  Perhaps so.  Whilst emulating Hodgson’s time at Inter Milan remains an unrealistic ambition, perhaps the man from Dudley should follow his lead in heading abroad.  Steve McClaren may be struggling at Wolfsburg as we speak, but he is proof of the augment to a reputation that leaving Britain can provide.

Even if Allardyce went to a more unfashionable league – Hodgson spent swathes of time in Scandinavia – winning a few trophies would add significantly to his credentials.  Only then will he be a realistic candidate for the jobs that ‘Allardici’ claims he deserves.

So Mario Balotelli won an award. It’s the ‘prestigious Golden Boy’ award, organised by Tuttosport. He then said of runner-up Jack Wilshere:

What’s his name? Wil…? No, I just don’t know him, but the next time I play against Arsenal I’ll try to be careful. Maybe I could show him the Golden Boy trophy and remind him that I won.

Yeah, that’d show him. An award most people have never heard of. Perhaps Balotelli was just making a little joke. I have my doubts though as he seems to be a young man who takes everything very seriously. Except professionalism.

Still, let’s look at Wilshere v Balotelli this season:

Appearances

Wilshere, in his first full season for Arsenal has 20 in all competitions plus 1 international. Balotelli 9 for Man City. The Italian has played 90 minutes just twice since his arrival in the summer.

Discipline

Wilshere 2 yellows, 1 red. Balotelli 3 yellows, 1 red. Clearly the City man has a much higher cards to games ratio.

Goals

Wilshere 1 league, 1 Champions League. Balotelli 2 league, 3 Mickey Mouse European competition. A decent enough return for Balotelli given the small number of games he’s played but he needs to score against better opposition than FCU Poli and Salzburg.

Assists

Wilshere has a a grand total of 5, 2 in the Premier League, 3 in the Champions League. Balotelli a whopping 0 in all competitions.

Ego

Wilshere:

Last year, I had to go out on loan to get some games because there were some world-class players at Arsenal, but I have come back with more experience and the boss thinks I am ready to challenge for a place. All I can do is challenge and show them what I can do.

Balotelli:

There’s only one that is a little stronger than me: Messi. All the others behind me.

The ‘others’ that Balotelli is referring to include Cesc Fabregas, Pato and Rafael van der Vaart, former winners of the Golden Boy. Fabregas, with his 300 or so senior appearances, European Championship and World Cup medals, is clearly behind Balotelli. We just needed someone to point that out to us.

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So, to conclude, Balotelli wins ego by a mile and may just edge goals but in everything else Wilshere wins. Balotelli might have a higher profile but that’s more to do with his short fuse and his off-field antics than anything he’s done as a player. There’s no doubting his talent but you have to think the fact it’s an Italian paper giving out the award that’s won it for him.

And you get the feeling he’ll never really know Wilshere because it would be a brave man who’d bet on him being in England long enough.

Perhaps the ‘leaf/book’ one is an odd analogy to headline with.  Despite Harpersport’s publication of ‘Wayne Rooney: My Story So Far’, neither Rooney or Tevez strike me as particularly literary figures.  However, they are united by the one book they both understand perfectly well: the cheque-book.

Tevez and Rooney are from opposite sides of the globe, yet their lives and careers have shared several parallels.  Both emerged from urban poverty to make themselves global football superstars with a distinctive, all-action style.  They even went on to become twin strike partners at Manchester United – all too often split up because their games were ‘too similar’.  And latterly, since Tevez’s switch across the city, they have become emblematic of the blue and red divide that splits Manchester.

It’s probably fair to say Tevez’s move to City was motivated, in large part, by money.  Whilst his wages are already exorbitant, he and his agent Kia Joorabchian will have glanced with interest at Wayne Rooney’s flagrant, and successful, wage-raising tactics at United.

Rooney’s demands were eventually met, and a resolution reached.  It’s not hard to imagine that Tevez looked at his importance to City, and wondered if a similar proportional increase might be possible.  Statements talked of missing his family and ‘irreparably broken’ relations with un-named board members.   The reality seems to have been rather different: one meeting today was able to resolve all Tevez’s concerns, and just as with Rooney, his transfer request was withdrawn with immediate effect.

City say no pay rise will be forthcoming, but one wonders if that policy will hold come the summer.  Just a few weeks ago, club and player were renegotiating image rights.  Who would be surprised if a settlement favourable to Tevez and Joorabchian was soon reached?  The Argentine has followed Rooney’s rebellious lead, and strengthened both his hand and his position.  If results like last night’s home defeat to Everton continue, manager Roberto Mancini could find himself the first of the quarrelsome pair out of the door.

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 Arsenal’s defence

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Around this time of the year my thoughts turn to my father. No time is a good time to lose a parent but on Christmas Eve, mown down by a drunk santa who had been fired from the local department store for pilfering the Beefeater, is particularly hard.

I remember him as a good man with enormous hands and a smell which was a mixture of carbolic soap and Sweet Afton. He taught me everything I needed to know about life. Such as how to take care of myself. Despite the fact I’d had my nose broken twice by the time I was six it was a valuable education.

It didn’t go well at first. “Keep your hands up at all times”, he’d say and I’d try but the moment I let them down … *POW* … I’d get one right in the mush. I admit I became frustrated and rather tearful. No child likes to be punched in the face by their father even if it is for their own good.

As one lesson became more fraught, my tears mixing with the blood streaming from my nose and lips, my father, who was a real man’s man, lost his temper and yelled “Do you know what your problem is? You can’t defend. And until you learn to defend you’ll never win a fight”. I went at him, ball-headed, determined to land a knock-out blow but he back-handed me across the face and when I woke up hours later he’d gone to the pub.

All of which brings me nicely onto the subject of Arsenal. On Monday night Manchester United were my father and I was Arsenal. I really wanted to win but I just couldn’t because I couldn’t defend. So it is with Arsene Wenger’s men. On their day they can play some wonderful football but to me they’re like a blind acrobat on a tightrope wire. It just takes one small mistake and they’re splattered on the ground with their guts sprawled across the road.

They have no safety net. Alex Song, last year a defensive minotaur, snarling with his four legs and glistening muscular torso, has been transformed this time around into a sort of graceless attacking midfielder. It’s as if someone broke into his house and injected him with a massive dose of Carlton Palmer.

Young Jack Wilshere looks as if he has the talent and ability to be an England regular but his natural game is more offensive and he doesn’t really have the experience to play in the role he’s being asked. He’s a medical student being asked to carry out complicated surgeries and the patients are waking up to find their routine appendectomy has left them most of the way to a sex-change.

And then there’s the back four. Espagna, Koscielny, Squillaci and Clichy. Individually fine players but put them together as unit and there’s just too much … well I have to say it … Frenchness about them. If you’re looking for togetherness and unity in the face of adversity they’re hardly the right people, are they? If you can meekly surrender when your country is being taken over by Germans what chance do you have to get them to fight over a game of football?

What Arsenal fans wouldn't give for three English defenders like these

Since the great English defenders left the club Arsenal have been defensively weak. The team which went unbeaten had Campbell and Cole as regular members, backed up by the African enthusiasm of Kolo Toure and the menacing cannibalism of Laurence. It’s a tough job replacing home grown brilliance like Adams, Keown, Bould, Caton, Pates, Linighan and Stepanovs but I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest Arsene Wenger hasn’t tried that hard.

Anyone could have bought William Gallas but here was another Frenchman who played only for himself. As a nation they like to please and think, not with their heads, but their groins. You could almost see Squillaci let Rooney have room on Monday night so he might make the player’s acquaintance on a social level just so he could instigate an affair with the fragrant Coleen. And well she might when you consider the England striker’s behaviour.

“You’ll never win if you can’t defend” said my father. Equally you’ll never win if your defenders are more interested in masked orgies and wife swapping. And that’s an inescapable fact to which there is simply no answer. I spoke with an Arsenal fan down my local last week and he told me he was sick of the way the team couldn’t hold a lead and he wanted English defenders. “When we had English defenders we won things, Laurence. Why doesn’t Wenger realise that?”

When you look at the incredible array of talent out there you can only come to the conclusion that Arsene Wenger is essentially the most racist man alive. Why would he choose Koscielny or Squillaci over the likes of Jagielka, Cahill, Ferdinand Jr, Upson, Bramble or Richard Dunne. Even when Ryan Shawcross begged with Wenger to sign him, by getting in that famous reducer on Ramsey, Wenger threw a tantrum and complained.

There was Shawcross showing Arsene Wenger exactly what his team was missing and instead of thanking the player and acknowledging it he bitched about so-called dirty play! The man is a stubborn old goat and until he accepts the fact that English defenders are simply better than foreign ones he won’t win another thing with Arsenal.

They used to call Arsenal the ‘Bank of England’ club. At the moment they’re Credit Lyonnais, a town more famous for its potato based dishes. And as the chips are down at the Emirates that seems more than appropriate.

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You can comment below or you can contact Lawrence by email.

Footballers careers are curious things. The smallest things can make or break you. Take Ashley Cole. A left-back that Arsenal were willing to sell to Crystal Palace until they realised Silvinho had made his passport at home with some dodgy photocopies and a couple of bits of double-sided sticky tape.

As he fled to continental Europe, where such passports are the norm, Cole took his chance and won a stack of trophies at the Gunners before becoming public enemy number 1 by being an unspeakable twat and moving to Chelsea.

Other have had their careers ruined by demons. George Best – drink. Mark Bosnich – drugs. Gazza – drink and drugs. David James – Nintendo. Mikael Silvestre – having a giant head and being quite shit at football. Not sure if that’s the same thing but it’s worth mentioning.

Others have managed to come through their troubles yet have had their careers affected. And at the moment the most obvious example is Joey Barton. He’s dealt with drink, by all accounts, but is hampered consistently by the fact he has a temper as short as a bodybuilder’s cock and is, to all intents and purposes, probably psychotic.

The thing is that if you can leave the temper and lunacy aside Barton is a very good footballer. His set-piece delivery is fantastic, he uses the ball well, can tackle (I know, I know) and can score goals. Witness the belter against Villa.

Yet even that piece of fantastic football was marred because it looked as if Barton’s celebration was a Hitler salute. The fact he was sporting the most dodgy tache you’ll ever see didn’t help him there.

At the moment he’s embroiled in a row over gestures made to Fernando Torres during Saturday’s 3-1 win over Liverpool. It seems he requested the Spaniard’s presence in the region of his groin area so that the Bartonschafte might receive some oral pleasure. Or cleaning. Who knows? Maybe it was just dirty.

Frankly, I don’t see the problem with that. In a high stakes game I don’t see the difference in one player telling another to go fuck himself (about which nothing would be said) and telling a player you wish him to engage in sexual conduct with you (about which much fuss has been made).

I suppose the reason people are making a lot of it is because it’s Joey Barton. If you needed a picture definition for the word ‘previous’ he’d be it. Just a couple of weeks after punching Morten Gamst Pedersen (an act with which many football fans can empathise) there’s controversy again. And I’m sure it won’t be the last time this season.

It’s clear he can’t help himself. No matter how much he talks about maturing and growing up he’s got a switch that just goes off and that’s something he, Newcastle Football Club, Newcastle fans and opponents are going to have to live with. When you look at his ability as a player alone you can’t help feel he’d achieve a lot more but his complete mentalness is as much a hindrance to him as booze to Best or blow to Bosnich.

Still, it makes for fun viewing for the neutral observer. And I wonder if Torres was just a little bit tempted.

They wouldn’t like to admit it, but Spurs and Arsenal are actually pretty similar.  Like bickering brothers, their differences are exaggerated by their general familiarity.  They share geographical proximity, a similarly diverse fanbase, and a reputation for attractive football.

In the past week, that final quality has been discussed throughout the press.  After winning their group in a goal-happy fashion, Spurs have taken plenty of plaudits, with many pundits suggesting they looked the best equipped team to make a stab at taking home the cup with the big ears.

Arsenal, meanwhile, have come under fire in both Europe and at home for being their poor defensive record.  Whatever their attacking artistry, doubts remain about their ability to consolidate and hold out for crucial victories.

The Observer’s Paul Hayward captures the zeitgeisty dichotomy best here:

“London’s Seven Sisters Road connects two versions of one romantic urge. Tottenham Hotspur love to attack and refuse to defend beyond the minimum. Arsenal also exist to advance, but would like to defend if they could only work out how.”

So Spurs are all cavalier fun and games, whilst Arsenal’s attacking game is born out of an inability to do anything else.  What an interesting way for opinion to form.  A look at their respective records in the Champions League stages is fascinating.  Both sides have scored 18 goals, a mightily impressive tally, but Arsenal have actually conceded four goals fewer – and that doesn’t account for Tottenham’s brief collapse against Young Boys in the qualifiers.  Despite finishing second in their group, they’ve also won more games than their lilywhite counterparts.

Yet when Harry Redknapp says:

“We score goals, we let goals in. We score more goals, and we let more in.”

He is applauded for services to quality entertainment.  When Arsene Wenger, however, says of his decision to allow defensive midfielder Alex Song to roam forward:

“I am comfortable with that sometimes it leaves us open in the middle of the park. We want to play in the other half of the pitch and, therefore, we have to push our opponents back.  But my philosophy is not to be in trouble, but to fool the opponent into trouble.”

He is derided as tactically naieve.

It’s not just among the press.  Fans of each club seem to feel the same about their respective managers.  There are as many Arsenal fans who curse Wenger’s reluctance to focus more on the defensive side of the game as there are Spurs fans who embrace Redknapp’s enthrallingly refreshing attitude.

The strengths and weaknesses of the two teams are clearly very comparable.  What separates them, then, is expectation.

Due to their recent history of winning trophies, there is far greater pressure on Arsenal to deliver.  The glass of the beholder, therefore, is inevitably half-full.  They see a team whose emphasis on attacking play costs them success.

Harry Redknapp, meanwhile, manages without the same burden.  He is a master of reducing pressure, constantly re-emphasising the lowly state Spurs were in when he first took over.

They’re the same, but different.  But if the tables were ever to turn, and Harry was to find himself with the albatross of expectation swinging about his jowelly neck, he might soon find that attitudes towards his team’s style of play would swiftly change.  Just ask Arsene.