There seems to be a peculiar ailment spreading throughout the football world this week, and for once it's not the dreaded metatarsal, this one's a little bit higher up - football figures ranging from Premiership to international managers have been hit by the terrible condition of talking bollocksitis.
Fabio Capello's talking bollocks were in full effect as England were roughed up and outplayed by the Czech Republic, who were the better team throughout and deserved more than the draw they came away with after Joe Cole spared everyone's blushes. Once again the midfield was an absolute bloody shambles, and once again Capello seems to be stuck in the rut of playing the players with the biggest egos rather than the players with the most cohesive ability as a team - Gerrard on the left for almost an hour just to accomodate Frank 'Shit-Since-2003' Lampard? Defoe up front instead of the infinitely more promising Walcott or Agbonlahor, the latter of whom wasn't even in the squad, sacrificed to accomodate a player who has never, ever had a reasonable game in an England shirt, despite his nearly 30 chances? It really is a sad indictment of the standard the national football team has fallen to that we have to rely on an ageing fashion model who sells pens to dig us out of our rut, but the fact remains that Beckham was the closest thing we had to class the other night. Are you McClaren in disguise?
Speaking of McClaren, the other serious talking-bollocks case of the week was his next opponent, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who still thinks he doesn't need to buy players despite losing 1 - 0 to a team that only just evaded relegation last season, barely registering a shot on Mark Schwartzer's Fulham goal. He's spent the week talking about Gareth Barry having no resale value at 27, but resale value means nothing in football. The only true currency is silverware and in recent times Arsenal have been paupers, largely because of their mizerly misbehaviour in the transfer market - yes, Nasri is a promising footballer and Ramsey might be good in a few years, but the other signings this month have been distinctly uninspiring; who is Amaury Bischoff anyway? Mickael Silvestre is over the hill, always injured, and in fact didn't play yesterday because he was perched on the treatment table, much like he was for the entirety of his last season at Old Trafford. Francis Coquelin is another typical Wenger signing in that he's 17, French, and nobody's ever heard of him.
Wenger's degree in economics is clearly eating into his ability as a football manager. A supreme coach with a stunning ability to pluck uncut diamonds from the youth teams of world football and mould them into world-beaters, his failure is an inability to move with the times. Chelsea have changed the face of world football, and it is now impossible to achieve success without debt, and there are only two ways to get rid of that debt once it's rooted into your club - have a billionaire owner who is willing to bankroll you all the way to the Champions League, or drive yourself into deep, dark debt to achieve international fame, and then let your worldwide fan base of 500 million Chinese people pay off your debt by all buying a wooly hat with the club crest on it. Cristiano Ronaldo probably has the currently highest 'resale value' of any player in the world, but if you were to ask Sir Alex, and every Manchester United in the M25 commuter belt, you wouldn't find one that wouldn't want to have the Portuguese tied to the club until he's 35.
Arsene Wenger is running a real risk of losing his better players because they are sick of failing to achieve trophies. Cesc Fabregas is an absolutely brilliant player, and a worldwide prospect who is going on to become a better footballer than even the wildest predictions made him out to be when he came to the Premiership as a 16-year-old kid with funny eyebrows, but how long is he going to stay around at a club that, frustratingly, would rather sit on a bulging bank balance than look at a glimmering trophy cabinet? And make no mistake, if he goes, Arsenal really will end up where the doomsayers say they will every year, midtable or worse. Just hope that Arsene never realises just what some of the big clubs of Europe would be willing to pay for him - the Gunners would be down scrapping it out with Fulham and Wigan in one swoop of economics.
Frankly, I don't know what it is that's befuddling these great managers - Cappello, Wenger, and so on. Perhaps Wenger really is of a different age, when economics really were a part of football and there wasn't this culture of silly money and silly debt, but he really has to move on and learn to spend, even if it is against all his principles, because not doing so is surely against the terms of his contract to bring success to his club. Perhaps Cappello is too rooted in Italian football to understand the English game, and an extremely private man too worried by the media backlash to drop the big-name players that have now failed to perform under three managers - and there is absolutely no technique, not even from the greatest man-managers in the world, that will motivate a player who thinks the name on his shirt gives him a free pass into the team.
The two of them, truly, have opposite problems and need to tackle them in opposite ways - Wenger is overrun with youth, and has no-one of experience in his team that can teach the younger players how to win trophies - he has talked up William Gallas, who is at best an uninspiring captain and at worst a wet flannel of a center half, and Mickael Silvestre, who has won six league titles but the majority of them on the treatment table, or the bench. Experience and quality the like of Gareth Barry or Xabi Alonso - both mooted targets before he shot down the idea of Barry due to the dreaded 'resale value' - are what he needs to win trophies or at the very least hang on to his players of true quality, which are fast becoming few and far between.
Capello is the opposite - he needs the youth. His current players are complacent and know that they are guaranteed their place in the side regardless of how they perform. For all his talk of nobody being untouchable, you have to question the powerbase of a manager who plays Steven Gerrard wide on the left because he can't be dropped, but equally neither can Frank Lampard and David Beckham, both of whom play worse than Gerrard in positions Gerrard is better in - the net result being that left-sided talent such as Ashley Young, who has been knocking on the door for a couple of years, Stewart Downing, who had a superb game against Trinidad, and even the mercurial Joe Cole, who always seems to be England's best player when he comes on, are restricted just so the Big Three get to keep their places. Other players like Gabriel Agbonlahor, Theo Walcott and even potentially James Milner have earned their chances as well, but have not been given them, as another England manage clings to a failed system.
All I can think is that Lampard has pictures of Brian Barwick in a compromising position with Lord Triesman's missus. Oh well, he'll be gone soon, so we might get a change in the near future. There might be no hope for Arsenal this season if they don't think of a reason to change as well.
Here's hoping.
Goodnight.
Fabio Capello's talking bollocks were in full effect as England were roughed up and outplayed by the Czech Republic, who were the better team throughout and deserved more than the draw they came away with after Joe Cole spared everyone's blushes. Once again the midfield was an absolute bloody shambles, and once again Capello seems to be stuck in the rut of playing the players with the biggest egos rather than the players with the most cohesive ability as a team - Gerrard on the left for almost an hour just to accomodate Frank 'Shit-Since-2003' Lampard? Defoe up front instead of the infinitely more promising Walcott or Agbonlahor, the latter of whom wasn't even in the squad, sacrificed to accomodate a player who has never, ever had a reasonable game in an England shirt, despite his nearly 30 chances? It really is a sad indictment of the standard the national football team has fallen to that we have to rely on an ageing fashion model who sells pens to dig us out of our rut, but the fact remains that Beckham was the closest thing we had to class the other night. Are you McClaren in disguise?
Speaking of McClaren, the other serious talking-bollocks case of the week was his next opponent, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who still thinks he doesn't need to buy players despite losing 1 - 0 to a team that only just evaded relegation last season, barely registering a shot on Mark Schwartzer's Fulham goal. He's spent the week talking about Gareth Barry having no resale value at 27, but resale value means nothing in football. The only true currency is silverware and in recent times Arsenal have been paupers, largely because of their mizerly misbehaviour in the transfer market - yes, Nasri is a promising footballer and Ramsey might be good in a few years, but the other signings this month have been distinctly uninspiring; who is Amaury Bischoff anyway? Mickael Silvestre is over the hill, always injured, and in fact didn't play yesterday because he was perched on the treatment table, much like he was for the entirety of his last season at Old Trafford. Francis Coquelin is another typical Wenger signing in that he's 17, French, and nobody's ever heard of him.
Wenger's degree in economics is clearly eating into his ability as a football manager. A supreme coach with a stunning ability to pluck uncut diamonds from the youth teams of world football and mould them into world-beaters, his failure is an inability to move with the times. Chelsea have changed the face of world football, and it is now impossible to achieve success without debt, and there are only two ways to get rid of that debt once it's rooted into your club - have a billionaire owner who is willing to bankroll you all the way to the Champions League, or drive yourself into deep, dark debt to achieve international fame, and then let your worldwide fan base of 500 million Chinese people pay off your debt by all buying a wooly hat with the club crest on it. Cristiano Ronaldo probably has the currently highest 'resale value' of any player in the world, but if you were to ask Sir Alex, and every Manchester United in the M25 commuter belt, you wouldn't find one that wouldn't want to have the Portuguese tied to the club until he's 35.
Arsene Wenger is running a real risk of losing his better players because they are sick of failing to achieve trophies. Cesc Fabregas is an absolutely brilliant player, and a worldwide prospect who is going on to become a better footballer than even the wildest predictions made him out to be when he came to the Premiership as a 16-year-old kid with funny eyebrows, but how long is he going to stay around at a club that, frustratingly, would rather sit on a bulging bank balance than look at a glimmering trophy cabinet? And make no mistake, if he goes, Arsenal really will end up where the doomsayers say they will every year, midtable or worse. Just hope that Arsene never realises just what some of the big clubs of Europe would be willing to pay for him - the Gunners would be down scrapping it out with Fulham and Wigan in one swoop of economics.
Frankly, I don't know what it is that's befuddling these great managers - Cappello, Wenger, and so on. Perhaps Wenger really is of a different age, when economics really were a part of football and there wasn't this culture of silly money and silly debt, but he really has to move on and learn to spend, even if it is against all his principles, because not doing so is surely against the terms of his contract to bring success to his club. Perhaps Cappello is too rooted in Italian football to understand the English game, and an extremely private man too worried by the media backlash to drop the big-name players that have now failed to perform under three managers - and there is absolutely no technique, not even from the greatest man-managers in the world, that will motivate a player who thinks the name on his shirt gives him a free pass into the team.
The two of them, truly, have opposite problems and need to tackle them in opposite ways - Wenger is overrun with youth, and has no-one of experience in his team that can teach the younger players how to win trophies - he has talked up William Gallas, who is at best an uninspiring captain and at worst a wet flannel of a center half, and Mickael Silvestre, who has won six league titles but the majority of them on the treatment table, or the bench. Experience and quality the like of Gareth Barry or Xabi Alonso - both mooted targets before he shot down the idea of Barry due to the dreaded 'resale value' - are what he needs to win trophies or at the very least hang on to his players of true quality, which are fast becoming few and far between.
Capello is the opposite - he needs the youth. His current players are complacent and know that they are guaranteed their place in the side regardless of how they perform. For all his talk of nobody being untouchable, you have to question the powerbase of a manager who plays Steven Gerrard wide on the left because he can't be dropped, but equally neither can Frank Lampard and David Beckham, both of whom play worse than Gerrard in positions Gerrard is better in - the net result being that left-sided talent such as Ashley Young, who has been knocking on the door for a couple of years, Stewart Downing, who had a superb game against Trinidad, and even the mercurial Joe Cole, who always seems to be England's best player when he comes on, are restricted just so the Big Three get to keep their places. Other players like Gabriel Agbonlahor, Theo Walcott and even potentially James Milner have earned their chances as well, but have not been given them, as another England manage clings to a failed system.
All I can think is that Lampard has pictures of Brian Barwick in a compromising position with Lord Triesman's missus. Oh well, he'll be gone soon, so we might get a change in the near future. There might be no hope for Arsenal this season if they don't think of a reason to change as well.
Here's hoping.
Goodnight.
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