Winners and Losers...and more!

Winners:

Manchester United

Jose’s gone, they’ve beaten Chelsea, and they managed to get knocked out of the Carling Cup. I refuse to believe that any team who willingly picks Dong Fangzou in their first eleven is trying to win that game, so for all Ferguson’s complaints, United can be quite happy with their week’s work. John Terry’s pre-International-break rant that Chelsea had “a hell of a gap already” on United is looking just a bit silly now. What I can’t believe is how they’re managing to do it without any strikers. If they ever get one they’ll be f**king lethal.

Fernando Torres

Left on the bench for two games that finish 0-0, and then you score a hat trick. The events of the last week and a half will surely now see Torres rotated less than any other Liverpool player for the remainder of the season. Things have come together so nicely for Torres it’s almost like Roy of the Rovers stuff, but if he keeps playing as well as he did on Tuesday, Liverpool will benefit just as much as the man himself. Personally, I can understand why he was left out against Birmingham in particular, but it’ll be a real test of Benitez’ balls to drop him again.

Arsenal

An easy game against Derby at the weekend, but the cup games saw them banish the ghost of Allardyce, their kids easily dispatching of his new club. It’s safe to say that for now at least, Wenger is free from the biggest thorn in his side, just as Benitez and Ferguson are now that Mourinho’s gone. Adebayor is actually starting to look like a real football player too, which must make a nice change.

Portsmouth

A win at Blackburn – their main rivals for a surprise top 6 spot – was a fantastic result for Harry Redknapp’s men. As he himself pointed out afterwards, the most satisfying element was the strength available on the bench. Portsmouth’s squad is far, far better than last year, and Redknapp was confident of his ability to change the game – with quality players – if necessary. They then mixed their side up a bit, and won in the cup with that rarest of commodities – a Nugent Portsmouth goal. Everything’s coming up Pompey at the moment.

Reading

Won a massive bottom-of-the-table clash at the weekend. Before anyone gets all smart-arse about Wigan being mid-table, you all know as well as I do that won’t last long, and by Christmas Reading will be looking at this as a much needed result against a struggling team. They also put up a decent fight against Liverpool in the cup (despite both their goals being so far off-f**king-side it wasn’t even funny), but will be just as happy not to have the extra games bearing in mind the size of their squad.

Aston Villa

A great result against Everton at the weekend, with a goal for John “what’s a goal” Carew of all things. Agbonlahor getting one is perhaps more crucial though, he might just be turning into the consistent goalscorer they’ll need. A disappointing cup result in midweek will have taken the gloss off things, but they’re still looking good for a major UEFA cup challenge. I can only assume they were expecting a free goal from Leicester, who failed to turn their gesture into a tradition.

Losers

Middlesbrough

Losing all of your strikers to injury must be bad enough without having to watch your ex-striker destroying West Ham the next day. Having just conceded a last-minute equaliser to your local rivals. They didn’t lose, but it wasn’t a good weekend for Boro.

Derby

A massive weekend for them coming up, and it’s all about home games for them now. Quite clearly they are the worst away side ever to grace the Premiership, getting battered wherever they turn up. In fact their result at White Hart Lane the other week was only marginally better than that of Anorthosis Famagusta, whoever they are, so that sums Derby up for you. This week it was the Emirates, and it was just as bad. Battered again.

Blackburn

What’s going on? A good win in the cup fails to disguise what has been a poor week for Hughes’ men. Beaten by Larissa (or “by a girl” as a Rovers fan put it to me) in Europe, then losing at home to Pompey on Sunday is a totally bizarre slump in form. In fact, I was so certain they’d beat Portsmouth at home that I’d bet on it, so Rovers p*ssed me off pretty bad this week. Probably fitting, since my prediction that they’d finish 5th last week is what seems to have cursed them.

Chelsea fans

As much as they deserve it, you have to admit you’d be pretty gutted if you were one of them. What’s going on at that club? The Special One replaced by a nobody – and one who makes Harry Redknapp look like an Oil of Olay model. Putting Grant’s hideous appearance aside, (not easy to do, trust me) you have to ask why he’s got the job. Nearly (but notice, NOT) taking Israel to the World Cup hardly makes you Marcello Lippi, and right now Chelsea need Jesus Christ himself to rescue their title challenge. Dour football, poor spirit and worrying injuries is hardly the combination you want to add an unproven manager to, but Abramovich’s demand for global adoration and his total lack of football knowledge has taken priority. Chelsea look royally f**ked to me.


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Team of the Season So Far

Now that Drew’s back to full health and has some sort of Internet access, I’m not running this blog alone anymore. We’ve managed to put our heads together, and along with some new features that’ll be coming in the next week or so, we’ve created a team of the players to have most impressed us so far this season. Get them in your fantasy teams…

Gk: Pepe Reina
He’s only conceded from the penalty spot this season, and he even managed to save one of those. Hardly put a foot wrong in the Premier League so far, and fast looking like the World Class keeper Benitez thinks he is. You have to go back to this time last season to find his high-profile blunders against Everton, etc – it seems harsh to hold two or three bad games (that happened over a year ago) against any player.

RB: Alvaro Arbeloa
A revelation at Anfield this season, has played all across the back four and hardly put a foot wrong. Comfortable going forward, it’s his defending that’s really come on leaps and bounds. Seems to have put in more than enough work at the gym over the summer, and has started the new season far more prepared for the physical demands of the Premiership. Has played every minute of Liverpool’s season, a sign of Benitez’ faith in the former Real Madrid and Deportivo man.

LB: Charles N’Zogbia
If Sam Allardyce will keep playing him out of position, so will we. He’s never looked anything like a defender before, but has somehow coped remarkably well with being an emergency full-back. Has probably been the only player to provide Newcastle with attacking width this season, and yet he’s managed not to be a noticeable weak link in defence either. He’s also weighed in with a fair number of goals already for a full-back, so edges in here ahead of Gael Clichy.

CB: Micah Richards
He’s a bit good you know. He’s broken into the England side, playing at both right back and centre half. He’s got an amazing physique considering he’s only 12, and Sven has already made him captain at City. Was totally immense in that win over Man U.

CB: Nemanja Vidic
Man Utd’s defence looks very weak without him. His ability to even make Rio look world class at times justifies his choice in this team. Extremely powerful and his heading ability has shone this season, making him our choice ahead of Klingon burns-victim Joleon Lescott.

RM: Elano
When Sven was asked why his Man City team already looks more creative and attacking than England ever did, his answer was simple and revealing. “England don’t have Elano.” This lad was criminally under-rated when he came to England, although his displays so far should ensure no-one makes that mistake again. He must now be the best-ever import from a Ukrainian side, overtaking such luminaries as Sergei Rebrov and Oleg Luzhny.

LM: Martin Petrov
Has made an excellent start to his Premier League career. I’m not just excited about him because of his two goals against Fulham last week, he’s been quietly playing well for weeks. It’s always been said about Petrov that if he stays fit, he can be a world-beater. Well - so far, so good for the Bulgarian’s dodgy knee.

CM: Cesc Fabregas
Here at The Late Flag, we quite rate this kid. In fact, we’d go so far as to label him a “decent prospect”, who has “potential”. Remember, you heard it here first.

CM: Javier Mascherano
Unrecognisable from the player he wasn’t during his time at West Ham, he has been superb in his Liverpool performances this season. Arguably (since I don’t have any stats to hand) gives the ball away less than anyone in the league, and absolutely hard as nails. Derby’s Robert Malcolm will never forget being absolutely clattered by Mascherano after dithering in possession at Anfield, and watching the loose ball roll to the about-to-score Fernando Torres. He can probably still feel it. (And by the way, can you imagine a Mascherano / Fabregas midfield? Nice.)

ST: Nicolas Anelka
Even in a poor Bolton team he has shown that he can still score goals. His pace still frightens defenders whilst his attitude and work-ethic have been surprisingly impressive. Has scored a couple of cracking goals, and is single-handedly Bolton’s best chance of staying up. Just think what he could do playing with Tevez or Rooney at Man U, it’s a terrifying thought.

ST: Fernando Torres
This week Steven Gerrard said of Torres “he reminds me of Ian Rush”. As a Liverpool fan, there isn’t a much higher compliment you can give to a striker. Coming from someone as experienced as Liverpool’s captain, that’s high praise indeed. Luis Aragones’ claim that Torres “never scores the same goal twice” seems accurate so far, his 6 goals have demonstrated a startling array of skills. Whilst his finishing can be erratic at times, he seems to escape Premier League defenders with such ease that getting chances doesn’t look like it’ll be a problem for him at all. If you’re getting 10 chances a game, even a 25% conversion ratio will see you finish top scorer.

Subs:

Casper Schmiechel
Gael Clichy
Joleon Lescott
Mikel Arteta
Emmanuel Adebayor


Disagree? It's probably Drew's fault. Leave us a comment detailing what you'd change in that team, then I'll print them all off and beat him round the head with the results. You know you want to...

...And don't come back

There won’t be too many tears outside of West London this morning. The Special One has gone, and despite any amusement we may have gained during his interviews over the years, I expect the majority of you are feeling much the same as I am about the situation. Good f**king riddance to the t**t.

Throughout today, tomorrow, and over the weekend, I guarantee you’ll be subjected to nostalgic montages of Mourinho’s tenure, probably in soft focus, with flowery lovey-dovey music played over the top of it. Soccer Saturday will have a selection of the best Mourinho quotes packaged together in a 4 minute video clip, and SkySports News will probably have a minute’s silence in mourning for the most controversial character in Premier League history. By the end of all this, you’d be forgiven for feeling a slight sense of loss, and for feeling that our game will never quite be the same again.

Allow me to help you in advance, by taking a tour through the very worst moments of Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea career. The following is a list of arguments to use on any w**ker that says we should miss him…

1. He makes Alex Ferguson look benign

Does anyone remember an era in which Manchester United were the most hated club in English football? I certainly do. And despite what Gary Neville or Ryan Giggs would have you believe, it had absolutely nothing to do with jealousy. It was because they were all c**ts. They got soft penalties, especially at home. They whinged about every decision that went against them, surrounding the referee at every conceivable opportunity. There were suggestions that it was this very pressurising of officials that led to them receiving favourable decisions. Ferguson could never accept a defeat to a superior side on the day – there was always an excuse. Injuries, unjust decisions, you name it and Man U could whinge about it. But Mourinho and Chelsea have surpassed even those levels of bitching.

Everything written above about Ferguson applies at least as much so to Mourinho, and he even managed to take it further. He added a new dimension to cheating and pressurising officials, thanks to the way he encouraged his teams to dive. Anyone who doubts Mourinho’s influence on this aspect of Chelsea’s game need only watch Porto’s UEFA Cup or Champions League triumphs, to note how integral it is to Mourinho’s style of play. This perhaps, was necessary with Porto, in order to level the playing field against more talented opposition. But when you have the most expensively assembled (and some would say best) squad in Europe, why resort to such methods? Ferguson’s United were the “neutral’s choice” for the Premiership last season, which just serves to highlight what a b*****d Mourinho really is. That most of the country could bring themselves to root for the red-nosed Scottish t**t speaks volumes.

2. Anders Frisk

When a referee gets death threats and decides to retire from football purely due to the comments of a manager, something has gone wrong. It’s an old truth in football that referees are only human – even the best sometimes get decisions wrong. Managers often forget this, and can occasionally go way too far in criticising an incorrect decision by a referee. If this was Mourinho’s crime here, I’d be tempted to forgive him. But it wasn’t.

Following Drogba’s dismissal in the Nou Camp, Mourinho claimed he had witnessed Frank Rijkaard leaving referee Frisk’s dressing room at half-time, with the suggestion that this led to Drogba’s dismissal, that there was either pressure placed on the official, or (even worse!) a pre-conceived plan to screw Chelsea. An allegation of collusion between home manager and referee had never been made before in Champions League history, and was an incredibly serious complaint. Or it would have been, if it was true.

A full UEFA investigation found that Mourinho had, quite simply, made it all up. It was just b******s. To be fair, Mourinho was fined, and forced to complete a touchline ban, but that hardly matches up to the fear, misery and loss of earnings incurred by Mr Frisk after he received death threats from Chelsea fans and decided to give up the game he loved. Especially when you consider Mourinho flaunted his suspension by hiding a receiver in his assistant’s hat, and hiding himself in a dressing room laundry basket for the following games against Bayern Munich. His teams dive, whinge and cheat – and he lies, whinges and cheats.

3. Cashley Hole

He tapped him up. You know it, I know it, Mourinho knows it. He got fined £200,000, but somehow had this reduced to £9000 on appeal.

4. Crimes against Football

He has spent more money than any other manager in the history of the game, and yet this squad of superstars ground out 1-0 wins at home to pure s**te. True, just one look at Manchester United this season tells you how teams come to your ground and try to frustrate you, but a total lack of flair and invention in his teams led to a huge anti-Chelsea feeling throughout Europe. Creative talents like Wright-Phillips, Joe Cole, Damien Duff and Arjen Robben have spent huge amounts of time side-lined in favour of more prosaic, pragmatic players - with Tuesday’s final straw against Rosenborg a classic example.

Drawing 1-1 going into the last 20 minutes, Mourinho replaced the attack-minded Ashley Cole with centre-back Tal Ben-Haim, in order to send John Terry up front as a battering ram. Had Chelsea been playing a Polynesian pygmy tribe this may have been understandable, but against the hardened, 6-foot-plus, battle-scarred frames of the Norwegians this was a futile gesture which only served to limit Chelsea’s play.

It’s not the first time Mourinho has used this tactic. Following Liverpool’s 2006 FA Cup Semi Final defeat of Chelsea, Rafa Benitez quipped “When you need a goal and are chasing a game you can do one of two things. You can throw a centre half up front and hope for the best, or you can bring on a player like (matchwinner) Luis Garcia, who can play between the lines and give defenders problems.” Throughout his Chelsea career Mourinho has never been short of potential matchwinners, but he seemed intent on playing as few of them as possible, preferring to rely on athleticism, brute force and aerial ability to pound the opposition into submission. This will only get you so far, and won’t win you many friends. Why should we see the Premier League as poorer for having lost this sort of philosophy? When you’ve bought the players Mourinho did you can play whatever style you want – and he chose that style, it wasn’t forced on him. We should be glad to see the back of it.

I could go on and on and on, but I think you’ve pretty much got the point. Mourinho’s teams cheat, and play horrible football. He himself is narrow-minded in terms of playing style, and has no regard for the laws of the game, or for the people he tramples in his quest for success. Following the Frisk affair, Mourinho was branded an “enemy of football” by one UEFA official. Bear all of this in mind next time Paul Merson is telling you how much he’ll be missed from the Premier League, and ask yourself – Is the occasional humorous interview reason enough to miss him bearing in mind all the negativity he’s brought to the English game? I for one don’t think so.

It's Back! Winners & Losers -

Winners:

Arsenal
Completed their customary win at White Hart Lane following an early scare. Spurs aren’t the greatest at the back this season, but I couldn’t help wondering whether last season’s Arsenal would have been able to come back from a goal down. It’s far too early for any team to answer all the pre-season questions about them, but so far at least, goals aren’t an issue for Wenger’s men.

Manchester United
Winning this weekend has seen them fly up the table and all of a sudden the question is “Crisis, what crisis?” Of course, this doesn’t tell the whole story, not by a long chalk. Were it not for two sweetly taken (and poorly defended) corners, United would be four points worse off, and effectively out of the title race. Whilst playing poorly and winning is the mark of a great side, sterner tests than Sunderland at home and Everton at Goodison (where United have won 14 out of the last 16) await, and improvement will be required. Still – they won, and they’re right back in the mix.

West Ham
After getting battered by Man City on the opening day, few would have predicted the remarkable turnaround in West Ham’s fortunes. Despite a huge injury list Curbishley’s men just keep on winning, and find themselves nicely placed early on. God I hate them though.

Man City
Up to 2nd after a win over a lacklustre Villa. Interesting question though – for all Thaksin’s millions spent this summer, where would Eriksson’s men be without Kasper Schmiechel, Micah Richards and Michael Johnson? Perhaps credit is due to Stuart Pearce – or more likely, his academy director.

Roy Keane
After an impressive start, Sunderland’s recent run of form has had many questioning whether the sun does, after all, shine out of Roy Keane’s arse. Eyebrows have been raised at his £6m signing of Kenwyne Jones, but in this weekend’s meeting of the two out-of-form clubs in the league, Jones stole the show with a raking goal on his home debut, before creating a second for Ross Wallace. I’ve said all along that Sunderland will be ok this season, but if I’m proved right many may look back to this game as a key milestone to safety. In the meantime, expect the brown-nosing media to get the sunglasses back on.

Blackburn
How do they keep doing it? They’re a hell of a lot better than most people give them credit for, but even then a point at Stamford Bridge is an achievement. True, the linesman helped, but Chelsea were probably due a bit of that anyway, and Rovers were good value for a point. Hughes’ men now look a good outside bet to finish 5th.

Birmingham
They won, if anyone really cares.

Losers:

Martin Jol
Not long for his job, surely. True, having faced Everton, Arsenal and Manchester United they’ve not had the easiest of starts, but games against Fulham and Sunderland should have yielded maximum returns. Several papers are suggesting Jol has until the next international break to save his job – his make or break game then could well be at Anfield on October 7th. Ouch.

Bolton
Just how bad can they get? So far all Sammy Lee has achieved is a total vindication of Sam Allardyce’s methods. We often heard Allardyce respond to critics of his style by asking “And what would Arsenal have us do instead? Try and play like they do and just get hammered every week?”

No-one thought Bolton would ever try to play real football, or even that if they did the results would be as disastrous as Allardyce suggested. We were all wrong. They are trying, and it’s car-crash football at the Reebok.

Chelsea
Mourinho promised a more free-flowing, entertaining, attacking Chelsea this season. Which makes it even funnier that they’re worse than they ever have been under his stewardship at the moment. I guess being able to take the best side in the league by a country mile, spend freely from the fattest chequebook in the land and manage to go backwards really does make you a “special one”. But probably not in the way he meant it.

Reading
Last season’s success story looks like a long time ago now. Steve Coppell must surely be regretting failing to strengthen the squad pre-season. For all the talk of their difficult start against Man U and Chelsea, it’s been the games afterwards that they’ve stumbled in, and they’ll be sucked into a battle at the bottom unless they turn a corner soon. Nowhere near good enough to deserve a point on Saturday.

Middlesbrough
Are they the most inconsistent team in the league? Quite possibly. What they’ll do from one week to the next is a total mystery. Fluking a win at Fulham, rising to the occasion to secure a spirited draw against Newcastle, battering Birmingham…and then getting t**tted 3-0 at West Ham? A strange old season for the Boro so far, god only knows what’ll happen in the Tees-Wear derby coming up.

Aston Villa
Another contender for the crown I’ve just awarded to Boro. Losing at Man City is no real disgrace this season, but their performance level paled when compared to their recent win over Chelsea. Consistency required, especially up front. I’ve said it before, but Villa don’t have a consistent goalscorer in their squad, and unless one of their kids steps up and delivers on a regular basis, these frustrating blanks in front of goal will continue.

Fat Frank Lampard
Never darken England’s door again. Thank you.

Back for the ladies by popular demand

I know people have missed me while ive been away for 4 weeks but im here to tell you im back for good, which i know will excite Rich into a state of gayness but someone has to be his friend. Since ive been away ive received lots of fan mail mainly from my female fans (as i have plenty) wanting to know when il be back and wishing me a return to full health, all your 'get wells' made me push through the pain barrier.

I dont have enough time to write posts yet because i havent been keeping up to date with the football, give me a day or so and il be back on track. Mean while here is a photo of me for all you ladies and Rich. Enjoy

You Don't Know What You're Doing

Earlier this week, Sir Trevor Brooking – the new head of the FA’s Youth Development Programme – spoke to the BBC about his concerns for the future of English football. According to cockney Trev, the influx of foreigners into the Premier League is preventing English kids from breaking through into first teams, and creating an ever-smaller pool of players for Steve McClaren to choose from. He points out that in 1992, at the start of the Premier League, the percentage of English players in our top-flight was around 60%. Now it’s around 30%, and dropping. Brooking is in a position where he can assess very clearly the state of youth development at the moment, and he’s backed up his argument with figures to demonstrate his point. Looking at it that way, it’s easy to suggest he makes a fair argument. Easy, but wrong. I’m about to show you that Brooking is talking b*****ks, in the hope that as many of you as possible will cease to listen to a single word that comes out of this tw*t’s mouth.

There are so many flaws with Brooking’s argument that I hardly know where to start. But first of all we’ll not actually argue with anything he’s said. Lets just assume for a minute – wrongly – that everything Brooking has said makes sense, and is correct. Lets pretend we’ve got too many foreigners, and this means lots of young English kids can’t get a game. That scenario would in no way stop ALL young English kids getting a game, just most of them. In other words, only the very best young English players WILL get a game, and they’ll be playing – on a Saturday as well as every day in training – against the very same players they’d have to face at International level. It is surely of benefit to someone like Michael Johnson at Man City, for example, to train alongside Dietmar Hamann or Elano, and I’d much rather he was playing against Tomas Rosicky than against Michael Thomas.

Back in the day, on a Saturday afternoon the likes of Johnson learned nothing about the way foreign players played their football, but they knew all about how third-rate Englishmen played. That’s great when you’re playing away to Torquay in the FA Cup, but leaves you a bit short going away to Italy. So argument one with Brooking’s theory is actually twofold – even if there ARE “too many” foreigners over here, the cream of English players will always rise to the top (Gerrard, Carragher, Cole, Terry, Richards, Agbonlahor, Derbyshire…) and when they do, they will undoubtedly learn from these foreign players, leaving them better acquainted with the variety of footballing styles that exist in the world.

Argument two is where I start to take issue with his figures. Brooking argues that back in 1992, 60% of Premier League players were English, and this is obviously a figure that is of benefit to the national team. 1992? Wait there a second, Trev – what happened in 1992 again? Wasn’t that the European Championships where we didn’t qualify from our group, and only scored one goal? Yes. Yes it was. And what happened in 93-94 Trev? Didn’t we totally fail to qualify for USA 94? Now maybe, just maybe, that had something to do with the likes of Tony Dorigo, Carlton Palmer and Tony Daley getting a f**king game for England just because they got regular games for some of the top sides in the country.

We were absolutely s**t in the early 90’s, and this is the era that Brooking wants us to model ourselves upon. How handy for him then, that in McClaren, we have the worst English manager since Graham Taylor. We’re halfway to 92 standard already. Now all we need to do is get rid of the likes of Berbatov, Torres and Ronaldo so that Neil Mellor and Chris Eagles get their chance to play for England. Jesus Christ.

My third argument is based on quality. Much has been made of the fact that English players cost far too much money compared to their foreign counterparts, with £6m Kenwyne Jones costing nearly twice as much as Benni McCarthy. This, it is argued, leads English managers to shop abroad. I agree with that to an extent, but it’s nowhere near the whole story. By and large, when a Premiership manager buys a foreign player, it’s because he’s the best man for the job, plain and simple. Look at Manchester United. This is a club where the odd 4-5 million pounds is neither here nor there, whether they pay £8m or £12m for a player is, in the long run, all the same to them. So when they picked up Cristiano Ronaldo for £9m or so, it wasn’t because Stewart Downing would have cost a bank-breaking £12m from nasty greedy Middlesbrough. It was actually because Ronaldo is the dog’s b*****ks, and Downing is fairly ordinary by world standards.

So the foreign players coming into the game are doing so because they’re some of the best available, not purely because of cost. Taking the Ronaldo example, every English full back in the country – Luke Young, Nicky Shorey, Liam Rosenior, Stephen Warnock, every lad we’d only really rely on in an injury crisis – has played against probably the best winger in the world, on a regular basis. In argument one I commented that playing against foreign players helps young English lads learn about different styles – here my point is those players also tend to be class. When I mentioned before I’d rather see Michael Johnson playing against Rosicky than Michael Thomas, I meant he’d be learning about the way a foreign player likes to play the game in a different way, but it’s all the more true that he’d be playing against a class act. This would help him develop even more than learning about different styles. Some foreign players bring a different flavour to the Premier League, others bring a different class. And both are vital in preparing our young players for the rigours of International football.

Y

The vast majority of foreigners in the Premier League genuinely improve the quality. Take Portsmouth – John Utaka (who no-one had heard of) looks a far better buy than David “England Cap” Nugent. If Dorigo, Daley and Palmer were playing now they’d be nowhere near the England squad, or their club’s first teams. They’d be shown up as the s**t they were every Saturday afternoon, and not just when they put an England shirt on. We were genuinely surprised in the 90's, to find out these players couldn't cut it - but the likes of Ronaldo are now providing us with a weekly yardstick to measure our kids against.

In England today, we have the biggest crop of genuinely top-class players we’ve had for generations. Gerrard, Rooney, Terry, Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, Little Mickey Owen, hell – even the likes of Crouch and Wright-Phillips when you think about it – these lads would get into most teams around the world. (Think what AC Milan could do with a target man like Crouchy, or the pace and width of a Cole or SWP. Being Italian, they’d also appreciate Terry, Lescott, and Taylor too.) We also have a superb crop of promising youngsters – Walcott, Agbonlahor, Young, Davies, Carson, Derbyshire, Bentley – and yet we’re undoubtedly underachieving. That’s pretty worrying.

But what’s more worrying is that the head of youth development, at the organisation that runs our national team, actually thinks that our underachievement is down to a lack of quality in our players, rather than looking at the make-up of the team, their style of play, or tactical know-how. In other words, he’s not looking at the Manager. Instead, he’s propagating the exact same “We don’t need Johnny Foreigner” attitude that lead to us appointing a sub-standard manager in the first place, simply because he was English. In other words, the FA still haven’t learned their lesson.

Y

Oh – and thrown in to boot, the head of youth development says the kids aren’t good enough and it’s the clubs' fault – not his. Trevor, YOU’RE the one who should be making sure they ARE good enough, not blaming others when they’re not performing. How the f**k has this xenophobic arse-hole got his job when he’s clearly so clueless? The only answer I can give is that those above him at the FA must be even more so.

Premier League Winners and Losers

Winners

Liverpool
It might only have been Derby, and a very poor Derby at that. But the way the Reds completely demolished their opponents left no-one in any doubt that they’re a much improved side this year, and they’ll take some stopping. After dominating – but failing to finish off – Chelsea two weeks ago, Liverpool are showing a new-found ruthless streak in front of goal that has been the only thing missing from their game for two years. If they keep this up, the current 2-week stretch in which they’re top of the league won’t be an isolated one.

Arsenal
Also showing a new-found cutting edge this season. Goals from midfield (Gilberto aside) were woefully lacking last season, but without Henry the Gunners’ undoubtedly talented midfield players have stepped up to the plate. They absolutely destroyed Portsmouth with the sort of free-flowing moves we’re used to from Wenger’s teams, but shocked the nation by actually finishing them off. Three times. On this form, they’re making those that wrote them off look very, very stupid.

Aston Villa
Showing signs of turning into a decent side, all things considered. Personally, I haven’t forgiven them for their part in that St James’ bore-fest a couple of weeks ago, but they’ve got a solid backline, and the raw pace of Young, Moore, Agbonlahor etc will cause many teams problems. Even more so when they can finish, like Sunday. Too many off days from those boys though – like the one at St James’ – could cost them a European place, as you struggle to find what looks like a consistent goalscorer in the Villa ranks.

Blackburn Rovers
Proving me wrong. Totally wrong. I thought that not spending money would automatically mean a move backwards for Rovers, bearing in mind the money spent by Newcastle, Man City and others. But by adding Santa Cruz and keeping the rest of his side together, Mark Hughes has put together a quality side, with depth and character. Not many teams will get a point at Ewood this season, although a few might pick up some bruises…

Mickey Owen & Steve McClaren
Beating Wigan 1-0 at home barely counts as a success for Newcastle. I mean, it is a success, but one that was entirely expected, and perhaps by more goals. So whilst Newcastle will be satisfied, they won’t be delighted. Two men who will be are part-time striker Michael Owen, and part-brained England manager Steve McClaren. Owen proved that every once in a while he can perform the feat of playing 90 minutes, scoring a goal, and not getting stretchered off. Which was probably beyond the wildest dreams of either him or McClaren.

Louis Saha
As above, but with Alex Ferguson as the delighted manager.

Everton
Somewhat scraped their result, but Yakubu scoring on his debut is good news. It seems him & Johnson could provide a decent partnership up front, and that’s something Everton have been lacking. The industry and indeed creativity of their midfield has never been in doubt, and under Moyes they’ve always been solid at the back. If those two can provide the goals their potential suggests, then watch out Tottenham – your 5th place is under threat.

Anderson & Nani
Cristiano Ronaldo paying for a few £3000-a-time hookers sounds like a nice welcome present to me. If you’re into that kind of thing.
(Which they clearly are)


Losers

Martin Jol
When you take off the best player on the pitch and lose a 3 goal lead, you know you’re going to get some comeback on that decision. When you’re already the Premier League’s most under-pressure manager it’s only going to make things worse. And the timing and nature of Fulham’s equaliser must have him feeling like the whole world is against him. A draw was harsh on Spurs, but they’ve only themselves to blame after missing a bunch of chances that would embarrass Arsenal.

Bolton
Just when they thought they’d got things going again, they go and f**k it all up. They really will be in trouble if they’re not careful, not even Nicolas Anelka’s stunner could get them something at home to Everton, a game they must have fancied their chances in.

Reading
What’s going on? They’re getting battered all over the place at the moment, and the way they started the season promised so much too. Perhaps it’s easy to get these lads motivated for games against Chelsea and Man U, but when West Ham (who they beat 6-0 last season) come calling, no-one can be arsed. Will need to fix things soon.

Derby
Going…going…and Paddy Power have paid out already on them going down this season. 2 or 3 more defeats similar to ones against Spurs and Liverpool lately will see that decision entirely justified. On Saturday, they were awful. Witness Torres’ 1st goal – and Liverpool’s 3rd – where Mascherano charged 20 yards to dispossess an aimlessly ambling Derby midfielder, allowing Torres to bamboozle two defenders and the keeper before finishing with a side-footer you try in training. And when you watch Babel’s goal – great as it was – it just gets worse from a Derby perspective. Not good enough in any department, frankly.

Chelsea
After going a goal down, they appeared shapeless, and completely devoid of ideas. Somehow ended up with Malouda in central midfield and Joe Cole on the right – Mourinho’s tinkering appeared desperate rather than decisive, especially when first Alex and then John Terry lumbered up front to provide a target man. As if Drogba and Pizzaro weren’t enough. I would normally be tempted to write this one off as one of those days, but the performances against Brimingham, Reading, Liverpool and Portsmouth have all been pretty much as bad. Chelsea are seriously lacking in form, and perhaps confidence. Comparisons of Liverpool’s, and then Chelsea’s performances at Villa Park show a huge gulf in form.

Cristiano Ronaldo
In the words of one of those now-infamous hookers…

“When I walked in the room I recognised Ronaldo straight away – I’ve fancied him since the World Cup, and I was thinking ‘get in! I’ll do this for free!’”

Of course, before she had the chance to make that offer, he splashed out £3000 for her services. Lesson here lads – offer your hookers a drink first, get to know them a bit, don’t just dive straight in with the cash like a flash Portuguese tw*t. You never know what you might get for free.

Rafa's Rant

"Jose said he wouldn't be talking about Liverpool this season - maybe his memory is not so good".

This is the kind of comment we're used to hearing from Rafa Benitez, and it's as close as he normally comes to controversy. Barbed, but understated - he gets his point across without coming off as a rabid madman infuriated by (usually) Mourinho's comments. It has appeared, for four years, that Benitez is a quiet, laid-back student of the game, a hard man to rile. It's hard to imagine him throwing tea cups around a dressing room, or giving any player the Alex Ferguson hairdryer treatment. This, lets not forget, is the man who sat cross-legged, Buddha like, whilst watching penalties in the Champions League semi-final against his greatest managerial rival. Cucumbers envy his cool.

This week however, Rafa has well and truly "chucked a mental". Totally and utterly lost it. Maybe it's his new beard, and he's totally f**ked off with being called "Max" every day in training. Maybe Mrs Benitez isn't putting out this season, because of his newly spiky face. Maybe his fantasy football team is as s**t as mine, cos Dean Ashton can't get a f**king game. Whatever the reasons, Rafa has clearly had some steam building, and the Heinze ruling this week has been the catalyst for one almighty venting.

In what will surely come as a shock to all of you reading, I have to say I agree with pretty much everything he said, although I'm certainly surprised at the extent to which it's upset him. I'll deal with his points one by one, because as funny as it was hearing him go off on one, he raised some pretty valid questions.

Firstly, the Heinze ruling itself. I'm certain there's only a fraction of the information on this one that has made it into the public domain, nobody knows what the f**k has been going on there. I don't believe for one minute that Liverpool FC and it's numerous lawyers took the matter this far purely on the basis of a bit of paper nowhere near as legally binding as Heinze's actual contract. This has indeed been a murky matter, hence the need for an arbitration panel rather than a statement of "don't be so bloody stupid, he's Man United's player". European contract law comes into things, as do certain quotes (which haven't been made public) attributed to Man Utd's Chief Exec, in conversation with Heinze's agent. What we do know though (and even Alex Ferguson pointed this much out) is that Liverpool thought they had a watertight case, or the whole thing wouldn't have happened. Benitez is clearly frustrated with what he feels is an unjust decision.

What REALLY p**sed Benitez off though, was the implications coming out of Old Trafford that Liverpool were involved in tapping up Heinze. From a club that is well known for sending out replica shirts to transfer targets with their name on the back, (Paul Ince, Mexes, Hargreaves) accusations of transfer irregularities seem rich. These accusations were apparently levelled again at the tribunal, presumably with the aim of bringing Liverpool to book for the supposed infringements. Reading back over the quotes Benitez made about the affair prior to the tribunal, it's hard to back these claims up.

If that was all Benitez had got angry about, not many would have been surprised. However, he's clearly decided the men in charge of English football are a complete bunch of f**kwits, and decided to let loose on a range of issues. Between now and the end of the season, Liverpool are already scheduled to play FOUR early Saturday kickoffs following International fixtures. By anyone's reckoning that seems excessive, and Benitez has rightly pointed out that Liverpool were the Premiership side most involved in early morning kickoffs last season, following both International and European fixtures. When your key players (or whole squad) have just travelled half the length of Europe, the last thing you want is to have to play at noon on a saturday, especially when all your rivals have convenient 4pm Sunday kickoffs. Now I'm not suggesting there's a hidden fixture agenda at the Premier League, and neither is Benitez. All he's saying (and rightly) is that someone should have probably noticed and amended this discrepancy. For it to happen over a whole season is an oversight. For it to happen over two is downright incompetent.

Next he turned his attention to the Rob Styles debate, still raging from Sunday. In the bearded one's opinion, (that's Rafa, not me) it's not referees who should carry most of the blame in situations like the one at Anfield. That's an area where I disagreed, until I heard what came next. I still think Styles is a useless c**t, who should never referee in this country again, but Rafa rightly pointed out some mitigating circumstances. Firstly, Florent Malouda wants hauling by the balls over the embers of a Newquay hotel, so blatant and disgusting was his dive that conned the ref. He didn't just fall over, he fell INTO a player in order that there'd be contact. He really tried to back up his theatrics, and is clearly a pro in the art of being a cheating t**t.

Secondly, Styles perhaps felt he owed Chelsea, so incredulously did they surround him every time he gave a decision Liverpool's way. The (clearly organised) protests of the Chelsea players must have had Styles thinking he'd dropped more than one clanger in Liverpool's favour. Watching on TV, from time to time even I thought Chelsea had been hard done by on occasion, so vehement were the denials. Except we had the benefit of replays, where we could see they were just being a bunch of cheating cockney b******s. Benitez' point, basically, is that referees are human. If you've got eleven guys deliberately trying to con them, by going to ground whenever possible and by debating every possible decision in order to undermine their self-belief, then they ARE going to make mistakes. He even suggested that certain clubs (Chelsea) target certain referees (Styles) as they know they're more prone to folding under the pressure. This is clearly a disgraceful and disgusting state of affairs, especially from the most expensively assembled group of players in English football history, who shouldn't have to resort to such tactics.

I always loved the understated, studious Rafa. And I must be honest, when I first heard his rant I was slightly amused, but also slightly alarmed, thinking back to the cracking-up Kevin Keegan's "I'd love it" monologue. It wasn't until I'd read his quotes through a couple of times and gone away and thought about it that I realised two things - A) pretty much everything he said was true, and B) it's about time somebody in the game said it. And you can say what you like, but a mild-mannered slightly shy performance in a press conference doesn't get your comments noticed half as much as a balls-out mentalist rant.

I still think he's sick of being likened to Peter Kay, and if he's got Ashton in his fantasy team that'll be p**sing him off just as much as it is me, but I also think he was 100% justified in not only saying what he did, but in how he said it. More of the same please Rafa, it's time we told the whingers, the divers, the tappers-up and the authorities exactly what we think of their antics. They've all got away with it for too long.

Why bother?

I’ve never understood the point of International friendlies, except for those in the run-up to a major tournament. So maybe I’m not coming at this from the most objective angle possible (in fact, my hatred of International football means I’m certainly not), but that doesn’t disguise the fact that England’s forthcoming friendly with Germany is the biggest waste of time since the last time Italy went 1-0 up.

I can just about understand the need for friendlies where the International manager is an open-minded, meritocratic sort – a man who likes to mix things up and who guarantees no-one his place. I think we’re all in agreement, however, that Steve McClaren is not this man. If Theo Walcott, Joey Barton or even Pele himself was part of this squad, got 90 minutes under his belt and bagged a hat-trick, you can guarantee that come Euro 2008 (should England qualify) he wouldn’t be part of the starting XI.

Barring injuries, we all know McClaren’s favoured eleven reads Robinson, Neville, Cole, Terry, Ferdinand, Beckham/Lennon, Gerrard, Lampard, Cole, Rooney, Owen. So for a start, lets get away from this idea that friendlies are a chance for the manager to try things out, to experiment. Any experimenting McClaren does in a friendly is instantly forgotten when he has a full-strength squad to choose from, much as it was under Sven, with the same depressingly dour performances the result.

The only other justification I can see then, is to give our first choice side more minutes together, to get them all reading from the same page, so to speak. Once again this argument is paper-thin in this case. Rooney, Gerrard, Hargreaves, Johnson, Bent…this list of players unavailable is growing all the time. When you factor in the likes of Woodgate and Gary Neville as long-term absentees, you can’t tell me this is going to be anywhere near a first choice team, or even that the team to face Germany will ever play with each other again.

So we’ve got a largely reserve squad playing on Wednesday, and even those that impress won’t force themselves into the first-team picture when everyone is back fit. So what the f**k is the point? Some would argue getting the squad together and giving them a match against quality opposition is perfect preparation for the upcoming games against Israel and Russia, but try telling that to Rooney or Gerrard, both of whom have been injured recently. Neither injury took place in training, playing another game this close to vital qualifiers could be costly, should the likes of Terry break down again we'd be f**ked.

We’ve just got a Premier League season in full swing, we have controversy, goals, shocks, managerial shenanigans…and before we even get the chance to settle in and enjoy it, we’ve got that grinning ginger t**t plastered all over our TV again, tainting the game we love with his negative, unbalanced "game plans".

For those of you that are looking forward to “locking horns with the Old Enemy” and “England back at Wembley”, genuinely, best of luck to you – I hope you enjoy the game and get the result and performance you’re hoping for. Just don’t expect a match report on this page, I will not be watching.

F**k England reserves, f**k McClaren, and f**k friendlies too.