'I Give Liverpool A Week' & More Conclusions

• 

If you have anything to say on any subject, mail us at theeditor@football365.com


Last Few Thunderbastards
A late entry for the thunderb****** 11 is one Johnny Metgod.
Nelesh Kotecha


...I might be a little late to the party but any list consisting of players who can give the ball a good tonk has to have Steven Reid in it.

No keeper in the world had any chance of getting anywhere near that.
Rohit, MUFC


...The recent discussion of the thunderbastard led me to recall the assistance Bristol City legend, the late John Atyeo, rendered me.

It was very early in the 1990s, not long before Big John passed away and I, my brother and our two cousins were having our usual kickabout in our favourite spot which happened to be opposite Johns house.

This particular day it was the two oldest v the two youngest (it was always that way and I was on the younger side of the bargain) and we were being thrashed 13-0. Mr Atyeo had been watching from the gates and decided, with his gammy knee and elderly frame, to give us a helping hand.

I have never seen a ball hit so hard as to send my brother a few feet back after he had attempted to stop it crossing the goal line (appropriately made from a couple of jumpers.) That was followed by 15 more without reply, all equally worthy of the title thunderbastard.

Thanks Big John, surely a founding inductee of the Thunderbastard Hall of Fame.
D, still living on that one past glory, somewhere


A Conclusion Per Saturday Game
Instead of the usual list of 'Arsenal are rubbish, Man United get everything from the ref, Suarez is a cheat" etc., I thought I'd do a run down of every game played this weekend with one or more conclusions on each:

Sunderland 2-2 Fulham: Sunderland are the most pointless team in the PL. I always forget that they're even in the league until we actually have to play them. They don't have any interesting players (unless you count borderline psychopath Lee Cattermole), they don't have bonkers owners nor a managerial merry-go-round, they're rarely in danger of relegation but also almost never challenge for the European spots. Being a Sunderland fan must be like watching Antiques Roadshow whilst sipping weak tea for all eternity. Oh, and Fulham are still worse at holding a lead than an 87-year-old blind man who's put in charge of a pack of rabid Dobermans.

Everton 3-1 Reading: Kevin Mirallas has flown under the radar a bit this season, but showed off his talents with a classy goal against Reading. As a born Dutchman, I'm growing rather fearful of the sheer amount of talent the Belgians are bringing up. Three years ago, we ruled the roost with Sneijder, Van Der Vaart, Robben, Stekelenburg etc whereas they only had a legion of quality centre halves. Now, all the aforementioned Dutchmen have either made awful career choices or been conclusively benched whereas the Belgians have the attacking talents of Mirallas, Lukaku, Benteke and Hazard lighting up the Premier League along with Vertonghen, Vermaelen, Mignolet and Kompany. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Man U 4-0 Norwich: Poor Wayne Rooney, he never has it easy. After seeing off (one way or another) the likes of Ronaldo, Berbatov and Tevez at United, he now has the undroppable RVP and the suddenly excellent Kagawa to deal with. Perhaps having a great strike force has been United's secret all along? There always seem to be at least three top quality centre forwards at the club, which is more than can be said for any other PL team (possible exception for City). The most important thing in football is scoring goals, and if you have enough players good at that then it hardly seems to matter if your central midfielders are old enough to remember both wars.

Southampton 1-2 QPR: One of football's biggest in-jokes is how sycophantic the sporting press are towards Harry Redknapp, who should have been kept on at Tottenham, given the England job, knighted and appointed Secretary-General to the UN, if you believe the red tops. In what was either a stunning lack of self-awareness or a fantastically tongue-in-cheek nod, the man from Sky actually presented Ol' Bargain Bins with a birthday cake at his pre-game press conference. Both of these teams are going down, by the way.

Stoke 0-1 West Ham: Mein Gott, I'm glad I didn't pay money to watch that.

Chelsea 1-0 West Brom: What exactly does Roman Abramovich want? To win the league every year? To win the CL three times? To play great football? I think whoever's managing in any given week might benefit from some concrete instruction as to the chairman's desires. If 'great football' was the primary objective this year-as can be deduced from the purchases of Hazard and Oscar- then Benitez was definitely a very strange choice.

Swansea 1-0 Newcastle: Or this year's charming success story beating last season's.

Wigan 0-4 Liverpool: For the first time in years, Liverpool are starting to look like a coherent side again. Since the arrival of Coutinho, there's someone in every position at least halfway capable of doing some good. It'll be interesting to see how long it lasts. I give it a week.
Joe (Guessing the North London Derby will be covered exhaustively elsewhere, so won't bother) FFC


A Chelsea Fan Who Likes Rafa
I'm a Chelsea fan, and I'm a bit annoyed at Rafa following his recent outburst. Only in a very minor way - merely because it's irritating for it to be the flashpoint for people to throw opinions against each other.

I've liked Rafa all season simply because he annoys the considerable contingent of Chelsea fans who just use the games as a means to vent frustration. I've also appreciated what he's done with the team - it hasn't been a good season, but there are valid reasons why it never should have been a good season, nor 2010/11 - and last season wasn't good either despite the galactic anomaly of European competition.

When Rafa gave out that it's a mistake for him to have 'interim' in his job title, I contend it's a mistake for 'manager' to be in there.

As a club, Chelsea should not hire a new manager. It's merely self-deception. The club doesn't want a manager, it wants something like the system in US sports - a general manager and a coach.

Ancelotti managed Chelsea during a period when the club needed a right winger badly, and while I think Carlo was involved in the Luis trade, I refuse to accept the manager at the time ever put a case forward for bringing in Torres when there were 3 valid first team strikers and no one to deliver a cross from the right wing.

AVB was responsible for a lot of trades, bringing in Lukaku, Courtois, Ulises - all farmed out on loan, as well as Romeu, Mata and Meireles. It strikes me as a little strange that it should be a concern for a manager to bring in an influx of youth, to give interviews about it at the start of his first season, to focus on redeveloping an aging squad and building for the future - only for him to be sacked during that season. And then one of his first-team signings is traded away.

If that's how it's going to be, and it doesn't show signs of changing, then it would be better for someone else to be in charge of transfers, someone who is less at risk of getting sacked and replace manager with coach. Whoever is hired should be made aware they have a diminished role so they aren't blindsided when £50m of their transfer budget gets spent in one go on an unnecessary player. It might mean that at press conferences the subsequent coaches can't really be expected to answer an endless series of pointless questions with "£50m" in them. Nor questions about the possibility of a contract offer to a player which might only be offered after the coach's contract itself has expired.

This would leave a coach with more authority to say they're there to talk about football, preparations and fixtures - not the legacy of other people's decisions.

Lest it go unsaid, I don't have many issues with how he has coached the team - his decisions to move Luis to midfield, to abandon Torres to runs to nothing to spread the pitch for the midfield, and most of his rotations have done about as much for results this season as anyone could have if rumours are true and he never had the support of the locker room.
Jon (if you want to be an irrational idiot don't do it in the stands, do it outside the ground)


On Cardiff
Sadly I don't get the opportunity to read every mailbox and every article on your site. From what I have read this week though I have seen nothing that mentions Cardiff City and their current problems. I may be wrong though...if so, please drop me a link to the article!

There is plenty on Rafa Benitez, loads on Gareth Bale, pieces on Barca but nothing on what is surely the biggest football issue of the week for the British born football fan.

I know that much of your readers are from all around the globe and support Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea etc from Kuala Lumpar, South Africa and India and have absolutely no experience of the 'soul' of British football (guess what....there are 92 teams in the football league!!!) but this is a huge story.

For those unaware Vincent Tan, the owner of Cardiff City Football Club, who last Summer (after the rumour came out, he denied it, promised to consult fans....then went ahead with his plan anyway) changed the clubs badge, added a new motto 'Fire and Passion' (what the f**k?) and home kit was changed from our traditional blue to red. The reasoning behind this was that the club could be marketed in Malaysia and the Asian market as red is a lucky colour in the East and the dragon is a symbol used a lot over there. Apparently. In return he would pay off debts and invest in training facilities, increase stadium capacity and invest in the playing squad.

This split the fans completely which for me, is unforgiveable. For me, i'd rather play in the lower leagues than be blackmailed by a billionaire who has got us by the short and curlies due to our historic and growing debts but different fans have different views of the change. Many fans are so desperate for premier league football due to it being so sickeningly shoved down your face every week that they would do anything to see the likes of RVP, Suarez and Bale every week.

Last week against Brighton the owner gave free red scarves to fans as a thankyou gesture. They said 'Cardiff' rather than Cardiff City and the Bluebird was red rather than blue!

This week has seen him interviewed by Vincent Tan on BBC Wales where he has said "We will think about it when we know the final result of this season," he said about using Cardiff Dragons "Then we will think what's the best way to brand it.", about the colour change........"A few were upset, but like in any business if we get 80% or 75% of the customers happy, with 20-25% not happy, that's fine," he said and "If they don't want to come to support our business, that's fine. We need the majority." About our club emblem......"Have they achieved any success under this Bluebirds brand?," he asked "So why do we hold onto something that hasn't achieved much success?".

This is an issue for not just Cardiff City fans but fans of football. If you could invite people to sign this petition that would be great. For me, I would like to see the back of him, even if we languish in the lower leages for eternity. This petition doesn't go far enough but fans need to get behind each others clubs and football in general.

Don't get me started on the lack of grass roots investment!!!!

Please also follow @standamf as well.

Cheers,
Rob Sadler


Ouch
I've been enjoying the series of mails regarding fans meeting their football idols and enjoying the experience, but what about those times when you meet your ultimate hero and they turn out to be an utter cowtwat? Come on, there must be thousands of fans out there who have had players refusing to smile for a picture or being offhand or downright rude? My story? Well, thanks for asking...

April 1973. I'm 4 years old. My 14 year old brother has taken me (on three buses and a travelling time of about two hours) to the Manchester United training ground in Salford, named The Cliff. Having missed a bus or two we manage to miss the training session, which in those days were open to the public and the most we can expect is an autograph ot two from players leaving to go home for lunch and a lazy afternoon playing snooker or watching 'The Galloping Gourmet' on TV (if you've not heard of it then have yourself a Google and see what passed for entertainment in the early 1970's afternoon TV schedules).

We're outside The Cliff in a crap car park full of potholes and misery and almost empty of cars. We're so late that we're the only fans left, the other having seen the training, got their autographs and sought shelter. It's raining. Completely pissing down. I'm 4, I'm cold, I'm hungry and I need a wee. I explain this to my exasperated brother. He tells me that he understands but at the same time I should shut the fuck up as he's cold and hungry as well and only fourteen himself. Plus he's out about 15p on bus fairs for the pair of us. And he needs a wee too. There is a tension in the air between us which is only relieved when perhaps the greatest footballing icon of his generation emerges from the dressing room and makes his way across the car park. The last of the players to leave the traing ground is...Bobby Charlton. World Cup winner Bobby Charlton. European Cup winner Bobby Charlton. European Footballer of the Year in 1966 Bobby Charlton - here before my rain-sodden eyes. I have no idea who he is to be honest because I'm 4 but he's walking towards his car and my brothers goes to intercept him, whimpering with excitement and dragging me in his wake. As he makes his way across the car park he tells me to remember the next few seconds as this will be one of the greatest moments of my life. He is literally panting with excitement and seeing my older brother in this state so am I. This is great!

Nervously, my brother approaches and pulls a small note book and pen from his pocket, wiping the rain from his brow as he tentatively (but politely) enquires,

"Excuse me Mr. Charlton, could we get your autograph?"

The great man considers the request, his eyes flicking over the hopeful fourteen and four year-old in front of him, maybe considering that such an act might take three seconds of his time (of what must surely be a busy day anyway). He makes up his mind.

"No. F*ck off."

With that he clambers into his car (a brown Ford Cortina) and away he goes, leaving one stunned fourteen year-old and me crying my eyes out at 'the mean man'. Any others out there who have met an idol with feet of clay?
Barry, MUFC, Crumpsall.
(P.S. It does cheer me somewhat that a footballer with such honours and still playing for Manchester United drove a Ford Cortina, which was probably what a pub landlord would drive back in the day. And the fact it was brown makes it even better).


Lawro Fanmail
On Todayfm "The Last Word" (in Ireland) on a Friday they have a charity 100 Euro bet - normally provided by Tony Cascarino, however on Friday last due to Cas's absence Lawro was given the task instead.

He came out with the 45/1 whopper of Arsenal, Newscastle and QPR to win - imagine the dismay of all those orphans reading Larwo V Morgan on bbc.co.uk to see Lawro's prediction for Swansea v Newcastle being 1- 1.

That fella is so lazy, rambling crap after lazy analysis, a drunk at closing time would more intelligible.

In case you are wondering why I listen to Cas and Lawro - yes it is car crash stuff - but I'm stuck driving home from work with nothing else on the radio.
Ferg "Everton for 4th" Kenny


Well, This Would Never Work, But...
How about this for an idea to top all this nonsense that goes on with corners?

When a team wins a corner the defending team is only allowed to have the same number of attackers in the box as the attacking team until an attacking player, other than the taker of the kick, has touched the ball.

If that happened, the referee and/or linesman would be able to see more clearly what is happening and there would be no doubling up etc.

Worth a trial?
Alan Spurs


Wonders Never Cease
Did anyone else notice that for United's 1st goal Valencia crossed with his left foot?
Liam Holmes