Concern For The Future?

Having watched the U21’s demolish Slovenia 5-0 many people would have thought that the young lions would be able to overcome the Czechs with similar ease. However the senior side beat Jamaica 6-1 before jetting off to Germany, and we all know what happened over there.

Why didn’t we beat a team delighted to achieve a 0-0 draw? Playing with one striker upfront when the Czech centre backs are both at least over 6ft might be something to look at. Or, is Stuart Pearce able to drop any of his young starts if they aren’t performing? Take Richardson for example. He cant play out wide because Pearce wanted Milner and Young on the wings, so where do you put him? We've had Reo-Coker and Huddlestone in the centre of midfield for a while now so no need to disturb them, which meant Pearce played Richardson behind a lone striker. Fair enough if that lone striker can hold up the ball for his team mates to join in the attack but the wide men didn’t get involved in the game, so much so even Milner had a crack at playing off the striker, without any luck.

It seems to me as with the senior squad that if there's a big name player that can play the manager will do anything to fit him in rather than set a balanced starting 11 with pace, technique and passing abilities. One way for an English team to beat any opposition, especially abroad, is to hit them with pace and a high tempo and I saw neither of those on Monday night.

Fair enough we didn’t get beat like the Italians did, but they dominated the game from start to finish and would have been very lucky to walk away with a point never mind the three that they stole. And the Dutch managed to scrape a 1-0 win as well. This tournament isn’t over just yet and with no side looking in dominant form any of the 8 sides could walk away with this trophy.

Transfer Scramble Begins

Manchester United caught everyone a little bit cold with their sudden swoop for Anderson and Nani. Following a World Cup summer, during which all moves took place mid-July at the earliest, no-one seemed to be expecting a mad rush to complete transfers for a good few weeks yet. As Man U announced the three signings they'd promised within a week of the Champions League Final, the idea that we weren't going to see much activity yet was totally blown out of the water.

Now every f**ker's at it. Newcastle are the latest ones to go transfer-crazy, selling their club captain whilst bringing in a mentalist and a whale. It was West Ham who took Scott Parker of course, and they look set to ship out their own captain, Nigel Reo-Coker, to Aston Villa. Who may well be letting Steve Davis go to Fulham - who may be letting Collins John go to Middlesbrough to replace Mark Viduka, who is of course set to be the newest fat b*****d to attend St James' every week. It's all a crazy inbred transfer cycle that's started up, and moves are being completed all over the place.

But there are plenty more deals to be done, and some big f**king scraps look set to break out for some of Europe's most wanted. Florent Malouda looks like he can choose between Milan, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Liverpool and Juventus, whilst Dani Alves is wanted by Liverpool, Chelsea, Barca, Madrid and Milan. Samuel Eto'o is said to be wanted by Arsenal, Liverpool and Milan (three clubs who seem to want every player in Europe), whilst Bayern Munich look to have won the Europe-wide race for Franck Ribery. It doesn't stop there either, with Real Madrid today announcing negotiations with Arjen Robben. To which Darth Kenyon has objected hugely by the way, being as he is, well renowned for never tapping up an opposing player. Yeah.

So that's the state of play in the world of transfer moves at the moment - f**king mental. Who's going where? How much can Liverpool and Arsenal really spend this summer? Is a Sam Allardyce / Mark Viduka press conference the heaviest in Premiership history? Well we don't know. What we do know though, is a rumour that has yet to hit the back pages.

Yes, The Late Flag has an exclusive for you. You've read our s***e for about a month now, and you're finally getting something you didn't know already. There is a rumour, and a growing one at that, suggesting that Thierry Henry is negotiating a move to Liverpool. This one had me laughing when I first read it, until I saw these quotes, from a William Hill spokesman:

'We started to take calls asking for odds for Henry to join Liverpool a couple of days ago and initially offered 10/1, not believing it was that likely a move for the Frenchman. However, after taking increasingly more calls and bets - predominantly from the Liverpool area - we have shortened the odds significantly just in case there is something to the story, which has yet to emerge into the public domain.' said Hill's spokesman Graham Sharpe. Further information.....graham sharpe...0208 918 3731

I'm sceptical, but give the man a ring, he's put his number up in that statement on their official website! Ask him if he thinks there's anything in it, and let us know! I can't get through, writing as I am outside of office hours.

Messageboards all over the internet are even claiming many bookies have now fully suspended betting on Henry moving to Anfield. Of course, the bookies cutting the odds really means nothing, as they're just responding to the bets. The chances are a rumour has done the rounds in Liverpool and got a lot of Reds very excited, prompting a lot of bets. But Henry has stated a love for Liverpool in the past, and a desire to link up with Steven Gerrard. This is something no newspaper has reported on yet, and I reckon it's likely to hit at least the Daily Star tomorrow. Remember, you heard it here first!

Players Backing McClown Regime - For Now

England face Estonia tonight knowing only a win – and a bloody impressive one – will ease the growing pressure on McClaren and his team. There have been numerous England stars, most notably John Terry and Steven Gerrard, publicly backing Frank Lampard this week, the fat waste of space having finally been recognised as what he is by the nation. This is not surprising, as Terry’s his best mate, and Gerrard knows that if the Lampard / Gerrard partnership is broken up, there’s a chance (bearing in mind the lunacy of McClaren) that he’d be the one dropped, at least in certain games. So the backing of Lampard means precisely nothing, coming as it does from the mouths of the two players with the biggest reasons to see him in white.

What is perhaps surprising though, is the strength of support from the dressing room for McClaren. Players are always going to come out in support of an under-pressure manager, but the extent to which they do this hints at the real picture. You’ll often see players say “yeah, we’re right behind the manager, obviously we’ve heard all the speculation, but he’s not done a bad job, and we’re hoping he doesn’t get the sack”. Notice in a statement like that the player actually mentions the sack (and so admitting it’s a possibility), and stops short of saying the manager is doing a good job, saying something like “not bad”, or “bearing in mind the injuries…” Glenn Roeder can tell you all about these sort of statements. They really mean “he’s crap, he’s going, and we’re glad”.

But Gerrard, Terry et al have this week given McClaren real words of support. John Terry is claiming he’ll take full responsibility if England fail to qualify for Euro 2008, inviting the kind of stick that Beckham, Lampard, Graham Taylor and Sven Goran Eriksson will tell you really isn’t what you’d want. He could easily be pinning this on the manager, saying something along the lines of “the team is good enough, and we just have to trust that Steve will get us there, we believe in him” which would show support for McClaren whilst still saying it’s his fault if we don’t qualify.

It’s easy to suggest that a new Captain and Vice-captain would naturally come out in favour of the man who gave them their roles in the squad, but trying to take blame for failure upon themselves and a reluctance to use language that would increase pressure on the manager seems to suggest that McClaren still has friends and supporters inside the England dressing room. Things haven’t been bad enough for long enough for him to have lost the players. Yet.

We’ll have to see whether another couple of poor performances would tip them over the edge. The Late Flag is eagerly awaiting the first quote from an England player that sounds like the sack for McClaren is inevitable - a poor performance tonight and we might not have to wait too long at all.


Barton In At Toon

In a move that has placed the RVI, the North-East Ambulance Service and Northumbria Police on red-alert, Sam Allardyce seems to have concluded a deal to bring Joey Barton to St James’. More unhinged than a combination of Lee Bowyer and an actual door with no hinges, Barton nevertheless comes with quality. This though, is clearly his last chance. He’ll bring passion and energy to the Newcastle midfield, and perhaps crucially, 10 goals a season.

The Geordies have missed a Gary Speed-like character in the last few years, someone to anchor the midfield whilst chipping in with vital goals. Parker has brought a cultured right foot and an impressive work-ethic, but has neither the bite nor the eye for goal that Barton brings to a side. Parker out, Barton in plus a small profit is, on the playing side of things, an excellent deal.

But questions have still to be answered. Whilst replacing a one-paced hard worker with an all-action player like Barton seems to make perfect sense, on the other hand replacing your club captain with a bloke on remand for destroying a team-mate’s face, seems psychotic. With the likes of Dyer, N’Zogbia, and Owen around, there are plenty of ego’s still at St James’, and the question is whether the Toon is big enough for all of them. “You’re not as good as you think you are” were apparently the words that cost Ousmane Dabo a good hiding, and there’ll certainly be more than one Newcastle player prepared to testify that Barton isn’t the best he’s ever seen. How Barton will react to not being the biggest fish in the pond will ultimately decide whether this move is a success.


Hicks Gets Reds Onside and Excited, Whilst Platini Takes it Back

A bizarre week for Liverpool fans. UEFA, from nowhere, accused the club of having the worst fans in Europe, following publication of a report into European games since 2003. According to the report there were more reported incidents involving Liverpool fans than any other club, leading UEFA spokesman William Gaillard to label the clubs fans “the worst in Europe”.

What this report seemingly failed to mention was that Liverpool have probably played more games in Europe than any other side since 2003. 2 finals and a hell of a lot of qualifying rounds – the likes of Milan and Barca have gotten as far in Europe as the Reds, but not had to play as many games to get there, thanks to their league positions. Liverpool also take twice as many travelling fans to games than any other side in Europe, except Celtic, who never get past the quarter finals anyway.

So more fans, at more games, you’re probably going to get more incidents of trouble. But that doesn’t mean that a higher percentage of Liverpool fans are troublemakers at all. Every club has a hooligan or troublesome element in their support, and Liverpool's have had more chances to kick off than any other club. Even then, trouble has been on a remarkably small scale. We've not seen Man Utd or Spurs-like incidents, with riot police battling with chair-throwing fans. In fact, when you consider Spurs have played only about 8 European games since 2003, and have had trouble during at least one game, surely a 15% trouble ratio would make THEM the worst fans? Or Feyenoord, who were thrown out of Europe due to serious crowd incidents. Just because there have been more incidents of Liverpool fans causing trouble proves nothing when you consider that the percentage of Liverpool games in Europe involving crowd trouble (including games away to Galatasary, for f**ks sake!) has been tiny.

What is even more bizarre is that Gaillard himself, on the eve of the Champions League final hailed the Liverpool and Milan crowds as “two great sets of supporters, and we anticipate no trouble tomorrow”. Cue one great UEFA cock-up with the ticketing, and all of a sudden Liverpool fans are all a bunch of boozed-up Joey Bartons. Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks put it best: “The guy from UEFA is a clown, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about”. This prompted gratitude from genuine Liverpool fans, agreement from Sports Minister Richard Caborn, and an apology from Michel Platini. “Liverpool fans are not the worst, that is official”, he said.

AC Milan players testify that at the end of the Champions League final, when about to leave the pitch, they became aware of the applause coming from the Liverpool end of the ground. They then spent longer applauding the Liverpool fans than they did their own, which tells its own story about the quality of football fan that was in Athens.

Hicks has also excited Liverpool fans by assuring them that a lot is going on in the background at Anfield. Re-design of the new stadium is complete, and about to be unveiled amidst much fanfare. Hicks also half-promised a new signing next week, and has indicated that the players coming in this summer will be of impressive calibre, going above and beyond the bracket of player Liverpool can normally afford to target. The message from Anfield this week is that the future is bright, despite what the clowns at UEFA might have to say.

Wigan Sign Bramble, Will Go Down

In what can only be seen as some sort of obscene joke, Wigan will disgrace the Premiership next season by naming a Laurel & Hardy-like line up including Titus Bramble and Emile Heskey. New manager Chris Hutchings has, surely, only turned to the ex-Newcastle man after failing with bids for every other player in the world, including this correspondent.

This was a problem for Wigan that The Late Flag saw coming, and predicted in earlier posts. Whilst it’s all well and good for Dave Whelan to pledge £20m to strengthen the squad, the free transfer capture of the worst defender in the Premiership proves how few players actually want to sign for Wigan and get beat week-in, week-out, in front of about 15,000 rugby fans. A look at their ins and outs from last summer clearly shows an exodus of quality in the likes of Bullard and Roberts, and an influx of Scandinavian nobodies and Emile Heskey. Should a similar trend develop this summer, expect Baines and Camara to leave, and Wigan to beat Sunderland’s record for lowest Premiership points tally.

Interestingly, Portsmouth seem quite happy to have allowed Bramble to head for the North-West, suggesting (at least to me) that Sol Campbell will be staying on the South Coast. In a similar “we’ve plenty of cash but no-one wants to come here” position to Wigan, it was widely assumed that Pompey would be part of the bidding for Bramble, as Campbell was off to Newcastle. As it happens, Dirty Harry Redknapp seems quite content with the signing of Sylvain Distin, who will surely be a replacement for Primus, rather than Campbell. A Portsmouth bid for Bramble would have signified the end of Campbell’s stay at the club, but the lack of a fight for the fat-arsed one’s services suggest Pompey won’t be selling their best defender this summer.

Which all means further headaches for Newcastle and Sam Allardyce. Rumours abound that a predicted move for Tal Ben-Haim may flounder due to the breakdown in relations between defender and manager during Allardyce’s last few months at the Reebok. Bearing in mind that situation involved a player refusing to sign a contract and a manager refusing to let him become a millionaire at Chelsea, I’d be guessing there was a fair amount of animosity there, and I’d be surprised to see the Israeli captain wearing black & white next season. In fact he may well end up at Liverpool.

This may well be why Fat Sam has been in Cardiff all weekend, negotiating with PSG & Czech Republic defender David Rozehnal about a possible move to St James’. I don’t know much about this lad, except that I signed him for Rangers on Football Manager and he was bloody brilliant. So he’s probably a decent player, but until this weekend was expected to move to Borussia Dortmund, so Newcastle may still have a fight on their hands to land him.

I’ll be back tomorrow or Wednesday to discuss the rest of the transfer news, and to preview England’s latest must win game for McClaren.

Stevie Shines Through England S**te

Playing in a now unfamiliar holding midfield role, Steven Gerrard once again showed his capacity to carry a sub-standard team to a respectable result against superior opponents in England's (mis)match against Brazil.

The only man in white who seemed to give a f**k about the way the game was played, or even to where he was supposed to be playing, Gerrard nevertheless failed to disguise what was another shocking England performance. Thank God the Brazilians seem to have caught Arsenal disease after playing at the Emirates. Were it not for Kaka & co's compulsion to walk the ball into the net through seven white shirts, England would surely have been punished for allowing their illustrious opponents more time on the ball than is good for anyone.

More frustrating was the English tendency to treat possession like they were at Al-Qaida's annual 'pass the parcel' contest: no f**ker wanted it and no f**ker kept it either. How long is Crouch to be blamed for England hitting and hoping with high balls forward? For 80 minutes England tried it, with only Owen and Smith up against the tallest man ever to play for Brazil. It's time to realise we're a limited team with limited players and limited tactics, hoofing the ball up top is about our only way of moving it from front to back. Playing Crouch doesn't make us do it more, it makes us do it to someone who's got a chance. The tactic was play it early, play it long, and when that wasn't on they bounced it around like some sort of hot-potato, pinball, mixed-metaphoric nightmare, desperate not to have to keep possession and try something skillful, or, say...creative.

Devoid of service up front, decisiveness at the back and ideas in midfield, England were served with effort - if not much craft - by the likes of Shorey, Beckham and King, but Gerrard twice came to the rescue with biting tackles in the first half, and broke up Brazil's play effectively throughout the second. At various intervals during the match he could be seen attempting to force the tempo, but in a withdrawn role his surging, crowd-raising runs were limited to a minimum. He was the only Englishman to appear worthy of sharing a pitch with the skilled but lethargic Brazilians, and one can only imagine the potent mix of his energy, passion and drive combined in a team with the outrageous talents of Ronaldinho and Kaka.

If Gerrard was Brazilian, they'd be untouchable. But on the up side that means England only need to find one Ronaldinho...

Oh, and a Kaka. And maybe an Alves, a Robinho, a Diego...but hey - Stevie's a start.

Owen wanks over England, AGAIN!

Even though Michael Owen's meeting with Fat Sam has went well, he is still stopping short of committing himself to the club that has only seen him kick a ball for 13 games.

Owen is believed to have a £9m release clause in his contract since Newcastle were unable to qualify for European competition and quite frankly I'd snap anyone's hand off that would pay that much for a back stabbing, injury prone, England loving c**t.

Owen turned his back on Liverpool when Real Madrid came knocking and he won nothing with them, he hardly kicked a ball (but at least it wasn’t because he was injured) in vain. How I laughed when Liverpool won the Champions League without “England’s best striker.” Another thing is, he keeps claiming that he can't wait to play for England again. What about Newcastle Michael? How can England pick a striker that isn’t 100% fit and hasn’t scored at all this season? (I’ve scored more times down town Mickey and that’s saying something, have you seen my face?) He would s**k McLaren off just to get back in the England squad and McLaren would let him do it.

All I can say is that wherever he is next season he has something to prove to club and country. Enjoy your time off Mickey and I hope you’ll be on the sidelines next season because the way you’ve acted so far, you deserve it. C**t.

And the Next Watford is...Derby County!

Following a nervy, tense playoff final worth anywhere between £30m and £60m (depending on which paper you read) Derby clinched promotion to the Premiership despite being largely outplayed by a West Brom side who can count themselves extremely unlucky today. Not that I care too much about the Baggies’ misery – Derby’s win meant I predicted two out of the three teams to win the playoffs, a respectable bit of punditry even if it isn’t enough to cash in my accumulator with the bookies.

Speculation is still lingering that Derby boss Billy Davies won’t be joining his side on their probably doomed, Watford-like incursion into the top flight though, persistent problems with the club’s new managing director could see the Scot walk before tasting Premiership management. Victory yesterday may delay things – this is the 3rd year running that Davies has taken a team into the playoffs, but the first time he’s been successful. If that was me I’d be wanting to reap my reward, even if my managing director was Charles Manson.

Unless he supported Everton or something.

Regardless of who Derby’s managing director supports (probably Derby to be fair) – or how many serial killings he may have orchestrated – I’d expect Davies to stick about for at least the next few months. Although squabbles over transfer budgets or a poor start to next season could well see him gone before Christmas, I think the lure of the Premiership will encourage him to put up with his superior’s character flaws for a while yet.

Presumably due to the fact that they only got promoted yesterday – and so have had no idea where they’d be playing next season – Derby haven’t really been linked to anyone so far this summer. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll have to spend big this summer to survive, but the cash is certainly there, the question is ambition. They may try to do a Charlton – take the Premiership money the first time round, don’t really strengthen the squad, then go back down and come straight back up again, spending TWO lots of promotion cash the 2nd time round. It’s worked before, but the risk of getting stuck in the Championship may discourage this sort of behaviour in the future. Nonetheless, the Championship is where I’d be expecting Derby to start the 2008/9 season. It seems the likes of Fulham and Wigan managed to avoid finishing bottom next season by virtue of Derby’s win yesterday, West Brom would have been a much tougher proposition for the league’s perennial strugglers.


God Only Knows What’s Going on at Newcastle

Surprise, surprise, Newcastle appear to be in crisis-mode again. “Urgent” talks have apparently been called between Chairman Freddy ‘Mao’ Shepherd and new majority shareholder Mike ‘What the hell is football anyway?’ Ashley. Shepherd doesn’t want to sell, although could probably be persuaded if Ashley will bankroll an Abramovich-like transfer spree, and would guarantee him a major role at the club. He’s probably wishing he didn’t just appoint a new manager, he seems to have always fancied that job himself.

The manager he has appointed meanwhile, has been able to get absolutely nothing done yet. To be fair, he is on holiday, but the total confusion over how much money he’ll have to spend seems to be preventing him from making a proper list of summer transfer targets. A free-transfer move for Bolton’s Tal Ben-Haim has been much rumoured, but so far nothing has materialised, certainly making me wonder whether Allardyce even wants him, or is just totally fed up with the Israeli, having spent the last 8 months begging him to sign a new contract at the Reebok.

So we’re no closer to knowing whether Allardyce will be able to stop the rot at St James, or how he’ll actually go about it. I’d expect this ownership/share holder story to run and run, and wouldn’t expect a major Ashley-backed transfer fund to be available to the Magpies until at least January. Fat Sam would be well advised to just get on with his summer spending, and forget about any major future war chest for the time being.


Abramovich to make Chelsea Real Club?

Newspaper reports on Sunday claim that Roman Abramovich has told Chelsea directors the free ride is over. He apparently wants to make them a real club with a real budget, and the days of him pouring in £100m here, there and everywhere are long gone. This probably has something to do with him looking pretty damn stupid by paying ludicrous amounts of money for Shevchenko and Ballack, although his massively expensive divorce will also have bruised his wallet. But it’s not just transfer fees that will be capped.

Wages have also to be brought under control, apparently, and that means no Sheva-style deals for John Terry and Frank Lampard, who could both be heading out of England this summer if you believe what you read. I for one genuinely hope this is the case, and will gladly chip in to cover their taxi fare to the airport, poor underpaid orphans that they are. Plenty of column inches over the last four years have been devoted to Chelsea Doomsday scenarios, but if this situation pans out like it appears it will, we could be witnessing the beginning of the end of the Abramovich revolution.

We can only hope.

Hoops 40 years on

40 years ago tomorrow on the 25th of may 1967, 11 men within a 30-mile radius of Glasgow, became the first British team in history to lift the European Cup
40 years on, it is still the most celebrated cup run in Celtics illustrious history, although it is followed closely behind by Celtics 2003 UEFA Cup run, where they took 100,000 fans to Seville. To quote the famous hoops fans during the final “were only here for the party”
To honour that amazing day in Lisbon, Celtic have released a new kit, its a more modern day version of the hoops kit of that famous season in 1967, where Celtic picked up every trophy they entered that year.

By Johnpaul Johnstone

Can you tell he supports Celtic???